The Ivy College of Business has launched its new brand campaign “WE ARE Ivy.”

The campaign aims to increase the awareness of the renaming of the College of Business to the Ivy College of Business.

Last week the campaign was unveiled to the faculty and staff during a reception in the business café.

“We really felt it was important to show faculty and staff what we are doing first, before showing everybody else,” said Michele Appelgate, director of the Ivy College of Business marketing and communications.

At the event, faculty and staff received a resource guide on how to use the new name and directions on how to access a new resource page on the website.

Liquid Iron, a Chicago-based marketing and communications company, assisted with the formation of the brand campaign.

“Our graphic designer Emily Bowman and I have been meeting on conference calls with them every week for the past year and a half,” Appelgate said. 

Liquid Iron began the campaign with what they call the “discovery phase.”

“They talked to faculty, staff, dean’s advisory council members, ISU foundation, students, alumni and deans from other schools of business to get a good idea of what the college is and what it stands for,” Appelgate said. 

After the discovery process, Liquid Iron went out and did a competitive analysis against other business colleges.

“We learned that the category of business schools is struggling for position ​and there is a sea of sameness with a few programs attempting to be seen as different,” said David Spalding, Raisbeck Endowed Dean, in his speech to the faculty and staff at the event.  “So, it appears business education is ready for someone to stand out. We want that to be the Ivy College of Business.” 

The Ivy College of Business has earned the accreditation of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Having an AACSB Business Accreditation means that an institution has met the standards of excellence in business education that AACSB requires. The next step in the launch process was to target fellow Deans of AACSB colleges.

“Only 5 percent of business schools get accredited by that organization,” Appelgate said. “So we targeted those deans of those accredited universities that complete peer reviews of us. If they don’t know who we are then how are they going to rank us?”

The “WE ARE Ivy” push is planned to last until June.

“It is not our long term brand, but it is the official announcement of our [Ivy College of Business] name,” Appelgate said. “Because even though we’ve known it for a year and a half, we haven’t really pushed it out as a marketing name yet.”

The rebranding has a lot of details, including the wordmark on the website being “Ivy College of Business,” in a bigger font.

“It’s a lot of little details that we have been working on for the last year and a half,” Appelgate said. 

The Ivy College of Business was renamed after a $50 million gift from Jerry and Debbie Ivy in September 2017.

“This campaign is important to College of Business students so they see all of the good investments that are coming into our college,” Appelgate said. “Debbie and Jerry Ivy invested in us, and now we are investing in our students.”