Unifying Disparate Brands: How Florida Tech Put Its Brand First With Lytho
BUILDING A BRANDED HOUSE
In an age where awareness and identity are paramount to university rankings, Florida Tech has made strategic moves to elevate its brand profile. However, the challenge lies in unifying diverse departments, programs, and initiatives under one cohesive brand umbrella. Led by Christena Callahan, Director of Creative Services and Brand Management, Florida Tech’s Creative Services relies on Lytho to help navigate complex offerings, from graduate programs to summer camps, all while upholding a singular brand identity.
FLORIDA TECH
Founded in 1958 to support NASA’s space endeavors, Florida Tech boasts four colleges offering over 150 degrees primarily focused on STEM disciplines. The MarComm team consists of 16 team members providing an array of services to students, staff, professors, and alumni.
Florida Tech’s Relentless Pursuit of Greatness
As Florida Tech approached its 60th anniversary, the institution recognized the need to reassess its branding strategy to resonate with evolving expectations. Previous iterations of the logo featured fine lines that posed challenges in small-scale applications. Disjointed brand elements weakened visibility and recognition among crucial audiences, including prospective students and community partners.
Through this rebrand process, the Florida Tech MarComm team recognized the need to position themselves as a resource for the institution so they could cultivate generations of brand ambassadors.
A critical piece to this success was elevating their creative operations. They needed a tool that could foster collaboration, streamline their creative process, and manage digital assets to ensure brand consistency across all touchpoints. Lytho emerged as the ideal solution, offering workflow management, centralized proofing, asset management, and smart templating.
Aligning Through Workflow Management
At Florida Tech, each new project and initiative begins with a request. Utilizing Lytho’s request forms ensures all project details are consolidated from clients. This request process offers transparency and streamlined communication, reducing back and forth. Once a request is accepted, comprehensive project management within Lytho enables teams to collaborate effectively, ensuring alignment and eliminating any potential loose ends. “They can come in and get a peek at what the status of the project is, and then ultimately, when it’s done, their final deliverables live here in perpetuity as well,” Christena highlights.
All proofing and review processes are conducted through Lytho Workflow, enabling team members and stakeholders to centrally communicate through the review process. They can mark changes as completed and provide comments for clarification or suggest alternatives. “If a requester wants something that is outside of the bounds of what we would want to do, we can start having that conversation right here in the proof, and also have links directing them back to the policies that are governing the decisions that we’re making,” Christena remarks.
Answering Key Business Questions in Lytho Workflow
Utilizing Tags in conjunction with Reports within Lytho enables the team to categorize and retrieve assets swiftly. “We can turn things out within a matter of minutes rather than a matter of hours instead of recreating something from scratch,” Christena explains.
The system also allows them to quickly address various business needs such as audit reporting and resource allocation. Questions like, “Can you provide one copy of all advertising issued during the current academic year” and “Which client had the highest request count last year” can sound like a nightmare to many creative leaders. Through diligent tagging by asset type and department, Christena rests easy.
Digital Asset Management in Lytho
Transitioning to Lytho’s digital asset management module streamlined asset accessibility and compliance, especially concerning student images. Unlike previous folder-based systems, which often posed challenges in asset retrieval, Florida Tech employs extensive tagging, enabling team members to search by academic discipline and other relevant criteria. Along with ease of access, Lytho’s DAM has allowed for quick identification and release information such as:
- Photo releases are directly attached to corresponding assets featuring students, simplifying filing and maintenance processes, especially when addressing inquiries about specific individuals photographed.
- Tagged images with student names ensure swift retrieval of consent forms if necessary, streamlining the process and providing easier access to vital information.
“It can just get really unwieldy. And so this has helped us access that data,” Christena notes.
Continued Innovation
Looking ahead, Florida Tech is poised to continue its trajectory of innovation by expanding its self-service assets and leveraging Lytho’s templating tool, Tempo, to meet the growing demand. “If your institutions are anything like mine, the demand for assets just grows and grows and grows, especially in the digital era,” Christena explains.
As institutions face ever-growing demands for assets, particularly in the digital era, the need for streamlined processes becomes increasingly apparent. The rebranding initiative at Florida Tech not only invigorated the campus community, but also laid the groundwork for ongoing evolution and adaptation. Christena’s emphasis on simplicity, phased approaches, and fostering a supportive process has proven instrumental in guiding the rebranding journey. By nurturing brand ambassadors across every generation, Florida Tech ensures a lasting impact within its community.
Building a Branded House: How Florida Tech Invests in Institutional Identity
Video Length: 59:54
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