This document summarizes how Ologie worked with Albion College to revitalize its brand identity and marketing strategy. Some key ways included: telling smaller campus stories to convey the diverse student experience; creating interactive print materials to engage prospective students; developing a mascot and branding for athletics; and training faculty/staff to consistently communicate the new brand identity. The end result was Albion standing out among its peers with a bold brand that highlights how it sets students' careers and lives in motion through diverse opportunities.

1. Whatif
nobody’s
listening?
You’ve got a compelling story to tell.

2. 1 albion college ologie.com
Albion College is a private liberal arts college
in south-central Michigan with about 1,500
students. And if that’s all Albion was, there
wouldn’t be much to distinguish it from
countless other small Midwestern liberal arts
colleges, including many of its competitors in
the region.
But Albion’s leaders knew that their school’s
real story was bigger, bolder, and more
distinct than the one they’d been telling. And
they had a lot to say. They wanted to stand
apart from the competition by showing off
some personality. They wanted to inspire
students, engage a range of audiences, and
basically make the world take notice.
The following pages highlight five ways Ologie
worked with Albion to do just that.

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Giving
small
stories
abig
voice.
The first step toward getting Albion noticed
involved figuring out how the school is different.
In the process, we discovered a lot about Albion
College. And we discovered that Albion students
are involved. They’re active. And they’re busy.
When they’re not conducting undergraduate
research or studying at one of Albion’s eight
academic centers and institutes, they’re canoeing,
or performing, or participating in programs at the
school’s equestrian center or its 135-acre nature
center.
We decided that the best way to effectively convey
the Albion brand was not to choose a few of
these compelling stories to illustrate the Albion
experience. Instead, we needed to tell all of them.
Because the Albion story isn’t simply about a solid
foundation in the liberal arts, experiential learning
opportunities, and rich campus life. It’s about how
all this activity is directed toward one very real,
purposeful goal: preparing students for rewarding
careers and meaningful lives. That’s the difference.
Campus Visit Cards
We selected 32 campus experiences—both big
(athletics) and small (where to get a killer cup
of coffee)—to create a deck of cards that’s given
to prospective students who take a campus tour.
By giving each experience its own card, every
activity receives equal attention. Students can
then customize their experience: selecting the
topics that appeal to them and interacting with
them in whatever order they choose.
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Centers and Institutes Booklets
Albion’s distinctive centers, institutes, and
special programs are a fundamental part
of academic life for many students. To give
all of these programs their due, we created
a miniature book for each of them. That
way, we were able to speak at length to each
program’s strengths, and prospective students
could choose which programs to read about.

5. Viewbooks
Just one viewbook wasn’t enough to
adequately portray the full scope of what
Albion offers. So we created two. These
volumes work in tandem to give prospective
students a complete picture of life at Albion,
inside and out.

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getting
serious
about
beingfun.
Attracting the attention of 17- and 18-year-
olds can be a tricky proposition—even
when you have a good story. Although high
schoolers know that their college decision is
a crucial one (hence the whole your-entire-
future-hangs-in-the-balance vibe that’s
attached to so much college marketing),
they’re much more receptive to messaging
that speaks their language. In short, it’s a lot
more effective if it’s fun.
These students know what they want out
of their college education: they want to be
prepared for future success, they want a
good value, they want things to do around
campus, and quite simply, they want to learn.
But they don’t necessarily want to search for
that information by reading boring brochures.
High School Visit Desk Piece
It’s simplicity disguised as innovation. This small
piece conveys all the basic facts a high school
student needs about Albion early in the college
search, and the please-unfold-me-and-see-what’s-
in-here format ensures that the information is
delivered.
two
Through interactive print pieces that flip,
fold, and shuffle, Albion’s key messages
get in front of more students’ eyes. And the
conversational (and sometimes, dare we say
it, funny) voice used throughout all the pieces
makes engaging with the brand an enjoyable
and unique experience.

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Search Piece
For the first contact Albion has with a
prospective student, we created a search
piece that begs to be read. A tongue-in-
cheek headline invites a student to pick up
the piece and do something with it; inside
are key messages about Albion’s offering.
Your Albion degree.
Justthefirstofyour
manyamazingfuture
achievements.
How Albion College alumni are
pursuing rewarding careers,
redefining their fields, and living
their dreams.
Albion.edu
ALBIONCOLLEGE
Every Albion alumnus was once doing
exactly what you’re doing right now.
45%ARE EMPLOYED
—
43%ARE CONTINUING THEIR EDUCATION
—
3%ARE IN VOLUNTEER SERVICE
—
Here’s what they’re
doing today:
The Albion
class of 2010,
six months after
graduation:
Your Albion education
will take you beyond the
classroom, beyond our
campus, and beyond
conventional thinking.
It will lead you to new
connections and a deeper
context. It will challenge
your mind and open your
heart. It will help you
discover what you’re meant
to do with your life. And it
will prepare you to live it well.
Outcomes Flipbook
Talking about college “outcomes” can
be as dry as it sounds. For Albion, we
designed a spiral-bound book that
prospective students can flip through
for quick access to the critical data. In
a back pocket, alumni success stories
appear on individual cards that are
easy to customize and update.

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makingitan
experience.
Once they’ve seen the pictures and read the stories,
the best way for prospective students to experience
Albion College is to see it for themselves. As they
attend games, see performances, eat in the dining
hall, and sit in on classes, they begin to see what their
lives would look like at Albion.
So to inspire students to actually visit campus, we
created the next best thing: a fully customizable
microsite where they can see Albion in action. The
message? What happens during a typical day at
Albion is—like the college itself—anything but typical.
“Albion in a Day” Film
The microsite opens with a distinctively shot short film
titled “Albion in a Day,” which depicts the moments students
might experience in just one day at Albion College.
Microsite
Users then have the opportunity to build a day of their
own. Drawing from a library of clips that depict campus
life—in classrooms, performance spaces, sports arenas, and
elsewhere—they can select the stories that interest them,
and then put them together to witness what one day in their
own Albion experience might look like.
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Embracing
traditionsby
givingthem
newlife.
With nearly 180 years of history, Albion has more
than its share of heritage and shared customs:
painting the historic rock, blowing the ceremonial
Senior Horn, the Io Triumphe cheer, and the
Day of Woden (a celebration held on the final
Wednesday of each spring semester). These are
the elements of a story that can’t be manufactured
or reproduced, and when expressing a brand,
they can’t be ignored. So we created materials
that gave these time-honored traditions marquee
space next to more traditional topics like
academic programs and financial aid.
four
And although Albion has a rich tradition of
athletics, one element of its spirit brand was still
lacking. Teams had sported the Britons name
for decades, but the mascot didn’t have a face
(literally). Enter Brit. With his iconic sword and
shield, a larger-than-life personality, and ripped
abs to match, Brit gives Albion athletics a much-
needed jolt of energy and provides students
something to rally around.
For years, Briton sports teams had been
represented by the standard Albion logo.
By establishing a subbrand within the school’s
broader offerings, we gave Albion athletics
a look and feel that better depicted its dynamic,
exciting nature.
Athletics Mascot and Subbrand
Meet Brit. We created this look for him—as
well as an entire visual language—to bring the
athletics subbrand to life.

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Through our interviews with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other constituents, one
message became clear: the Albion experience is a tremendously powerful one. So in
refining the Albion story, we knew we had to change the way it was being told.
But that brand story isn’t told just through new marketing materials. It’s communicated
every day on campus, by a diverse group of faculty, staff, students, and more.
With this in mind, we established the guidelines to help teams at Albion carry out the
brand’s new visual style, and we conducted messaging workshops to ensure that everyone
who relates the Albion brand to any audience speaks with one unified brand voice. We even
created training materials that help keep campus tour guides on message, and taught them
a few ways to engage visiting families.
The result is that Albion now stands tall among its peers, with strong visuals and bold
messages that command attention.
Even more important, all of Albion’s communication efforts speak directly to
what sets it apart: By offering students a wildly diverse set of activities and
areas of study, Albion sets careers—and lives—in motion. And often, these
are paths that students would never have dreamed possible without the new
interests and skills they discovered at Albion.
Empowering
brand
ownership.
five

11. Building brands. With purpose.
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ologie.com
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