competitive strategy

Last week SJSU unveiled its new logo. Why the change? SJSU's Public Affairs states:

Every once in a while you have to clean house. With so many colleges, departments, auxiliaries and administrative offices creating communications in their own style, we have been presenting quite a fractured face to the rest of the world. This creates an impression of disunity on- and off-campus, which SJSU hardly deserves.

Public Affairs is trying to develop a representation of SJSU's competitive strategy, "a clear statement of why customers should choose a company's products or services over those of competing companies" (p. 310). The office has created a 60-page document on "identity standards" detailing how to use the new logo and providing instructions for brochures, digital slides, and other public communications. What's most interesting about this document is Eunice Ockerman, University Designer and Brand Coordinator, offers no information on how the new logo was developed and no empirical evidence to support the rationale for the change. For example, she states:

The updated logo is more unified, open and authoritative. The old rendering of bricks and
tiles has given way to clean geometric shapes, which will be able to carry meanings that are
more symbolic. The logotype uses one font in the signature instead of two. We've removed
the rule and we’ve given the elements more breathing room.

What makes the logo more unified, open and authoritative? Can an organization be open and authoritative at the same time? I thought the old rendering of bricks and tiles gave SJSU some texture and suggested diversity and complexity. I wonder what additional meanings and symbols the geometric shapes will be able carry. The metaphor is clearly the container or conduit metaphor for communication, which others have critiqued as I discuss in the metaphors and culture web lecture.

The development of the new SJSU logo provides a useful contrast to how the communication studies department developed its new logo. First, as a group, the faculty created a tagline based on student submissions and our own ideas. Then one of our GTAs who had been a graphic designer in a previous life created various drafts of a logo. We went through three rounds of viewing and commenting on the logo (two in person as a group and one via email) until we identified one we all found appealing. Developing the tagline and logo brought us together as a group. The statement--our competitive strategy--was a group effort. The differences between the university and department processes reveal the different metaphors for organization within which the two operate.

Several of you discussed the notion of competitive strategy in your blogs this week. aloha 123 applied the concept to the Marriott. MJ noted the importance of branding in developing a competitive strategy. Athina of Greece pointed out Walmart's and Jack in the Box's competitive strategies, and included a great cartoon related to the topic. In blogging about competitive strategy and strategic alignment, Gaber blogged about the importance of making more than superficial changes--a catchy tagline isn't sufficient for real organization change. Interestingly, in the communication studies department, the new tagline and logo were part of completely re-envisioning the undergraduate and graduate programs--far more than a surface change.

Will SJSU's new logo make it more competitive? Against what other universities is SJSU competing? Will students choose SJSU over SFSU or CSUEB because of the new logo? I wonder.

--Professor Cyborg