Jack Payne: Renewed branding is essential to IFAS

Jack Payne is the Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Florida. Appointed senior vice president in June 2010, Payne is the administrative head of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), which includes the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, elements of the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, 13 Research and Education Centers throughout Florida and the Florida Cooperative Extension Service with offices in each of the state’s 67 counties.

/>The University of Florida is engaged in a comprehensive effort to achieve two important goals: position itself as a premier public research university and affirm its commitment of service to Florida residents. Both objectives were and will be critical to the Governor’s continuing financial support for the university. Both are also recognized as essential for UF to realize its ambitious mission.

UF/IFAS plays an important role in achieving both of these strategic goals. We represent significant institutional research, teaching and outreach resources and truly represent the university with key stakeholders in every community across the state. Yet there is little awareness of those contributions, and we all agree that UF/IFAS needs to increase its visibility, awareness and reputation across the board.

The keys to a strong image are clarity and consistency. Disconnected, inconsistent ways of presenting ourselves fragment our image and make it difficult for our audiences to appreciate the value of our contributions. Building a unified image also requires commitment —people need to be exposed to consistent messages over time so that they develop a clear understanding of who we are and what we stand for, and that requires a consistent identity and voice. We can communicate as much as we want, but if our identity is inconsistent, our communications will not relay the value of our organization in any relevant way.

Having a consistent identity and unified presence will make the UF/IFAS brand strong and recognizable, linked to its greatest strength, the University of Florida, and easily leveraged to assist in communicating important messages about our organization.

To that end, UF/IFAS is taking the first steps toward strengthening its image by renewing the UF/IFAS wordmark and developing a branding manual with specific guidelines on how to properly represent our organization. Over the next few weeks, UF/IFAS Communications will share information across IFAS regarding how to implement our branding standards.

It is important that each member of the UF/IFAS family understand their role in living out the brand. There is great power when many share a consistent voice, so each UF/IFAS faculty and staff member is critical to communicating and marketing our brand.

I encourage you all to learn more about the new branding guidelines, as you will be expected to use them to increase UF/IFAS visibility, awareness and our collective success. Over the next few weeks information will be communicated to the IFAS-All list serve and posted on the IFAS Communications website. Webinars will be produced that will explain how to use the new wordmark and how everyone plays a role in successfully presenting UF/IFAS to our stakeholders. Remember, the brand strengthens you and you strengthen the brand.

UF/IFAS Branding Guidelines book available on the web at:
http://ics.ifas.ufl.edu/docs/pdfs/branding/UFIFAS_BrandingGuide.pdf

To view brief presentations about the new UF/IFAS branding guidelines, please click on the links below: