Marywood is getting a new brand image.

Seeking to develop a renewed image amid its various target audiences, the university’s Marketing and Communications area has been working on the brand refresh initiative Project Mint since last spring.

Director of Marketing James Brown said the department has been hard at work to create a brand promise and purpose.

Brown said the brand purpose is “From day one, Marywood empowers students to discover their passion and realize their purpose.”

To come up with the purpose, Brown said the Project Mint team did research, which included speaking to groups like former professors and alumni.

“We found in our research that from the very first time you come on to campus, you are totally involved and immersed,” he explained. “So we are empowering students to discover their purpose and passion that drives it.”

Brown said the pillars that help enforce the brand purpose include:

• Engage from day one
• Join a supportive, welcoming community
• Discover your passions
• Realize your purpose
• Be in demand

To help demonstrate the “be in demand” pillar, Brown has been working in conjunction with the Career Development Center to get better metrics on outcomes of Marywood graduates to use for advertising. Brown said this is something Marywood has not used extensively in the past.

“Marywood, like many other traditional liberal arts colleges, tends to shy away from bragging about student outcomes. However, we really want to just put it all out there with Project Mint,” said Brown.

At this year’s Convocation, Brown and other members of his department delivered Project Mint’s brand purpose. He asked those attending to close their eyes while Publications Director Sheryl Sochoka read the brand purpose.

“Think of a place where you feel engaged and inspired from day one. A community that empowers you because we respect you as an individual. A campus at the crossroads of passion and purpose. Visualize it because it’s real and it’s waiting for you. Your talents, your perspectives, your dreams, your drive to make the world a better place. You’ll help shape our culture while we help shape your future. Your time is now,” Sochoka said.

Brown said the audience responded well to the brand purpose statement.

“The audience felt it and we did too,” he said. “We really had a lot of people coming up to us and saying ‘This is Marywood. This is definitely Marywood.'”

Project Mint is also helping to revamp the university externally with new banners reading “Pacer Pride.” These banners replaced the former banners that featured the names of countries from which Marywood students come.

“The country theme had run its course and it was time to do something else,” said Brown. “The whole purpose of the new banners is to put our pride for the university out there.”

The acceptance packet for students admitted for the 2019-2020 school year also received a makeover.

“The original packaging looked very official and maybe too official. So we wanted to give it a look that made students excited about Marywood,” said Brown.

The packet also features Profiles in Passion stories, which the department has been posting on the website.

“The purpose of Profiles in Passion is to show prospective students that here at Marywood, their passion becomes their purpose, then their job and eventually a career,” said Brown.

Brown said the department is also working with other departments throughout campus to compile Strategic Action Working Teams to get a better look into specific areas on campus. Team leaders were able to pick whomever they wanted from campus, but they were asked to make sure to have a variety of people.

Director of Student Activities and Leadership Development Kim Coleman is the leader for the student experience team and said she believes the teams will be able to help Project Mint.

“Although the teams are still in their infancy phases, we are really excited about getting it off the ground,” said Coleman. “We had to make sure we had a variety of people on campus involved, so to work with people that we may not have in the past will really help us look at the student experience from different angles.”

Brown said the department’s main goal for this brand refresh has always been to put students first. He said his main goal is to have the name “Marywood” be able to stand alone.

“My hope is that the name Marywood, the name of the institution, becomes our brand and our purpose and our tagline,” said Brown.

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Twitter: @BrianaRyanTWW