The branding train keeps rolling on! So far we’ve collected statements and analysed their results – even our strategy document is starting to look good to go. That means that the ground work for the project will soon be a thing of the past, and as summer arrives, we will enter the more visible part of the process as we start tackling the challenges that the visual and communicational reform calls for.
AYY Branding x Futurice x Aalto Marketing Society present: Crash Course to Branding
One of the event highlights of the spring was the Crash Course to Branding event in April. 30 students from Aalto and other universities gathered together to spend a relaxed afternoon, finding out more about branding in general as well as the new AYY branding project. The event was organized in collaboration with the Aalto Marketing Society and Futurice, who also kindly provided us with an amazing location for the event.
The event began with Futurice’s experts’ introduction on branding, which gave everyone present a comprehensive overview on what branding really means. In addition to the basics of branding, the speakers presented examples of particularly successful branding events, such as last year’s two-week plumbing renovation that caused quite a fuss. If you want to find out more about the basics of branding, check out our previous blog entry: /blogi/2017/03/23/ayy-branding-1-0/
Aalto Marketing Society’s chairperson Henrik Lähdesniemi led the participants into a discussion about community branding using AMS’s re-branding project as an example. The marketing students’ association Aalto Marketing Society, founded in 1999, underwent a thorough brand renovation in 2016: the name was changed along with the policies and visual look, resulting in a completely re-branded organization. Lähdesniemi gave advice on what organizations and communities should pay attention to if they want to renew their brand and what to expect in the process. You can check out Aalto Marketing Society’s new, re-branded look on their website: www.aaltomarketing.fi
The last part of the day’s agenda was AYY’s own re-branding project. Futurice’s Brand Vision Sprint was used as a branding tool for this. The participants were divided into several small groups to ponder on how to create a unified Aalto identity, which would also respect the other identities found within the Aalto community. This resulted in six different visions and brand outlines constructed with the help of the Vision Sprint Canvas templates. If your association’s brand needs a facelift, Futurice’s Canvas templates and other methodical tools are available free of charge on their website: http://futurice.com/blog/how-to-do-brand-design-the-lean-way and https://www.leanservicecreation.com/
What’s next?
The next steps for the branding project include meeting several more of our stakeholders. As we make our way to e. g. Mikkeli, the brand strategy document makes its way to the Representative Council, and in the summer, we will hopefully have a signed and finalized version of the strategy. The brand working group will draw up an action plan based on the strategy, which will be used to guide us through the practical implementation of the remainder of the process. During the summer, we will put our hands to the plough and create a solid groundwork for AYY’s new brand that can be moulded during the years, if need be, as well as evaluated by clear performance indicators.
– Noora