Blogging Duel: The New UAF Branding

UAF recently decided that we needed to spice-up our image that we portray to perspective students. How will we do that? Pffff! By focusing on what makes Alaska unique: Nature.
This blog will be a duel between two ambassadors, Teal and Shaun, as they duke it out in a hand-to-hand keyboard combat over the new branding.
Coin Toss! Well, we didn't have a coin, so we used a seal notepad. Shaun called heads, and it was heads. *Note*: No baby seals were harmed in this coin toss.

Shaun: So, as we're looking through the office at old brochures that were used for advertising the university, there wasn't anything to unite them all together, nor even a standard model or even a design element. This new logo creates one single image and logo that is applicable to our university. First Question: How do you think this will help out the university on a level of identity as well as on a level of recruitment?

Teal: UAF has launched the new branding campaign "Naturally Inspiring." What does this mean to me? Alaska is one of the most unique places you will ever see. We are surrounded by nature in every direction.Why not emphasis on it! Students here are involved in our community, going out to sample trees, foxes, satellites, the Aurora...you name it. Our campus may look small, but we have the vast land to explore! I believe this is a crucial marketing strategy for the University. Our identity is our natural atmosphere, we are isolated, but we find fun things to do! The new branding shows images of students hands-on having the "fun" through several of our outdoor classes as well as research intensive undergrad courses. If I saw these images when looking for a campus, I would hands-down choose UAF. How could biking to a rock climbing class not be fun?

Teal: UAF has also been focusing on social media recently. Shaun, do you feel like the social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. are beneficial to current as well as future students?

 Shaun: Totally! These two media outlets are really more of community bases, in which people can talk about what is going on in their current lives. Pictures of things people do, from that aurora last night to the hockey game, or even to a cool guest speaker in a class. The university likes to show off events that have been happening on campus (ComicCon, TechFest, Starvation Gulch) and post tons of photos from their photo booth that accompanies them to tons of events; it's not very hard to find yourself in a bunch of the university's photos! Though on a student-community level, people post what is currently happening in their lives, which shows a bigger and better picture of UAF to perspective students looking to study here at the University.

This is it for the first of (hopefully) many Blogging Duels between us two, or between other UAF ambassadors. Keep watching for more in the future!

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