Phase 2- Brand Positioning

17 Oct – 11 Nov  

We launched our brand positioning survey to understand what we meant to you, our students, how involved they were with us and their thoughts on our visual identity. We got over 1000 responses (around 5% of the student population) to the survey which contained lots of interesting feedback for us to work through.  

This was advertised through a dedicated email to all students, table talkers across campus, features on our social media, a pop-up & being front and centre on our website, a slide on our digital screens and we worked with the University to reach as many students as possible through their channels.

Some key takeaways from the survey:

• Students wanted us to be more transparent with only 47% of respondents agreeing that we were transparent

• Only 53% of students knew we were independent from the University
• 86% of students knew we were a students’ union (so we’ve got to work on the other 14%)
• Only 60% of students felt that we were trustworthy  
• 73% of students felt that our website was relevant to them (our digital team was delighted!)  
• Students were most aware of the Guild through societies and Freshers’ Fair with just over 80% of students engaging with these activities

• The top three words students used to describe the Guild’s graphics were ‘modern’ (22%), ‘readable’ (20%), ‘approachable’ (11%)

Focus Groups

Following the Brand Positioning Survey our Insights team held focus groups to get students’ views on the Guild, including what they think our purpose is, how we can be more useful to students, and what can be done to help students feel more a part of the Guild. We made our focus groups as representative as possible and even held some with prospective students to give us well rounded feedback.

In the survey, we asked students if they thought we were Trustworthy, Representative and Transparent, and so wanted to explore these themes at focus groups. After a discussion about these terms, we decided to swap out ‘Representative’ for ‘Community’, and so students were asked about what Trust, Transparency and Community mean to them and how they think the Guild can evidence and communicate those terms.

University Stakeholder Interviews

Our Insights team also held interviews with key stakeholders at the University, these are the people that make all of the important strategic decisions. We wanted to ensure they knew where we were at with the project and had the opportunity to feed into it. Although we are independent from the University, we often work very closely with them, so its always good to have them on board!

Feedback noted the Guild works collaboratively with the University on issues and is good at communicating student views. There were positive comments on how current Officers interact with the University.

Phase 3 - Our Name

1 Nov – 21 Nov

One of the biggest questions throughout the process so far has been around our name, do we stick with Guild or go with the more ‘industry standard’ of Union, or something completely new?!

Our worry was that students didn’t understand ‘Guild’ and what we do and we spent a lot of time trying to get that message across.  

So in our survey we asked…. To what extent do you agree with the following statement: I understand from the name ‘University of Exeter Students’ Guild’ what the organisation is and what is does.

And 69% of respondents agreed and a further 10% neither agreed nor disagreed.

We then asked, ‘What name do you think would be a better reflection of the Guild?’

The majority of alternative suggestions were Students’ Union or similar, with some stand out suggestions including ‘Students Onion’!

We thought there would be a clear steer on how to proceed, however, this wasn’t the case, so we decided to use focus groups to explore the most popular suggestions of Guild, Union, Community, and Hub amongst other things.

21 – 20 Dec

We wanted to explore the name options further and used the focus groups to discuss opinions on the top four suggestions.

Here is a summary of what was said about all four options:​

• Guild: unique, traditional but serves students, understand it, posh, bureaucratic​

• Union: sector standard, activism, more accessible, polarising and political connotations ​
• Community: informal and inclusive, confusing, boring, generic, divisive ​
• Hub: physical space, central place students can go for help, too many ’hubs’ already

Again, there was not a clear steer towards a name change, with those who were unsure on what a ‘Guild’ was, were also unsure on what a ‘Union’ meant too.  

Another aspect of the Focus Groups was to explore how students interact with the Guild, how we can be more useful to students, and what can be done to help students feel more a part of the Guild. We had some really interesting answers which seemed to revolve around three themes: Clarity, Transparency and Accessibility.  

Clarity 

We need to be clear about who we are and what we do, to make it easier for students to understand us and how we in with their overall student experience and how we position ourselves with the University. 

Transparency 

We need to be open and honest in how we speak to our members in a way that demonstrates that we care about them, understand them, and which also helps differentiate us from the University. 

Accessibility 

We need to ensure all students feel represented and engaged and make it clearer that we are here for them all in the services, activities and events we deliver. 

From these Insights, we concluded that solely rebranding would do little more than sticking a very good looking plaster over fundamental issues that exist with how we engage students. Instead, our rebrand has to be a rebrand of not just our look, but our processes and engagement points too. We want students to feel like they are interacting with a fresh and transformed organisation, with as many of our existing engagement issues, as streamlined and resolved as possible.

So, the conclusion from the insights was that we stick with Guild (probably taking out the ‘University of’ part) and focus on the engagement issues that had been highlighted by students (clarity, accessibility, and transparency).  After discussing the results internally and with Full-Time Officers and Trustees, and supported by the insights, we have decided to stay with Guild and review our name in 3 years’ time.

So, there we have it…. after all that, Exeter Students’ Guild lives on.

Phase 4- our visual identity

Jan - Feb

Finally, it was time to start exploring the new brand. Focus groups were held with staff and students to explore our Brand in more depth and we also consulted our trusty Survey Superheroes. We started by exploring brand archetypes (these are ‘personalities’ that can be adopted by brands to help connect with their audience on a personal and emotional level).

Students wanted a Guild that supports students when they need it and provides with the knowledge and tools to succeed at University and a Guild that is friendly and reflects the needs and views of Exeter students and will always push for the best for students even if it makes others feel uncomfortable.

Brand territories were then explored, this involved distilling down the specific role for the Guild to see which one resonated the most with staff and students.

Territory 1: Engaging, Accessible and Approachable

Territory 2: Fun, Community-focused and Innovative

Territory 3: Representative, Student-led and Empowering

After much discussion, Territory 2 was chosen as this was felt to be the most all-encompassing and aspirational to what we wanted the Guild to be recognised for. This is not to say that the other territories won’t feed into the brand at all, but more to give our design team a starting point for creating the visuals.

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Over to the Design Team!

Feb - March

So how do you go from a ‘territory’ to visuals?!

.......lots of mind mapping…and being an experienced Graphic Designer helps too!!

We started by taking the three words described in the ‘territory’ and getting down as many associated words as possible. We also thought about physical representations of each word e.g., bouncy castles under ‘Fun’. These were also linked to our values of collaborative, empowering and radically inclusive.

We discussed existing brands & businesses that we felt embodied the key words e.g., Fun= Disney, Community Focused = Dove & Innovative = Apple.  

Our designers then used this to form three mood boards which encompassed various aspects that had come out of our research and brainstorming. These mood boards are not meant to showcase a final design, their purpose is to give an idea of the potential look & feel and guide us in the direction that students feel best represents the Guild.

We are excited to have unveiled the mood boards (w/c 20 Mar) in the Forum & St Luke's where gathered student views & feedback.

You can also take a look at them in more detail here- Rebrand Mood Boards.