Category: Wilmington NC

Over the first few months of the semester, our IMC class was given the opportunity to name and develop an identity for the UNCW Professional Education. We were asked by the organization’s leaders to help them re-name the name so that it would be better understood and accessed by possible clients.  As a class we were able to walk through the actual process IMC teams in the professional world use to develop a corporate identity. Our process was broken down into four phases, and our resources included the organization’s IMC plan, personal contact with the client, primary and secondary research, as well as the ability to work together as a team to achieve our goal.

In the first phase, our main objective was to do as much research as possible in the allocated time in order to learn and understand more about UNCW Professional Education. Specific parts we explored the most included the industry’s definition, management, competitors, competencies, and the culture or character or the organization. This primary research was helpful to us to comprehend more about what exactly the client’s organization did on a day-to-day basis as well as the personality the organization chose to represent. We next compiled secondary research which provided more insight than the primary research did based on outside factors which molded UNCW Professional Education.  We discovered information on the audience and what they responded to, how other similar organizations characterized themselves, if the clients were brand loyal and whether or not the audience wanted services or products. Based on this primary and secondary research we compiled questions to ask the client in our interview through positioning statements. 

During the second phase, the initial step was in interview the client, which in our case was Allison Rankin. She was in charge of the UNCW Professional Education and their efforts to reinvent themselves. In our interview we used our research to ask questions and to understand more about the organization in order to be able to create an image of their responsibly and roles. Next we made a master list of possible names to use and split them up into several genres or categories. Some of the categories include Latin, Greek, Cultural and Concierge. Once our lists were made and filled with possible words to use, we split up into 5 teams and moved onto the third phase.

The third phase was where each of the 5 teams created a name based on the master list developed. Once the name was chosen in each group, we made position statements for each name using the same steps as we used in phase one. In the positioning statement, we had to explain our name, what it meant and how it accurately represented the UNCW Professional Education. The names that the five teams came up with included: AptusAlliance, UNCW COD, UNCWOPT, Accompass and NavInsight.

The final phase was our presentation to the client, Allison. Allison came into our class and listened to each group present their name and positioning statement. Each team did a great job in first creating and name, and second showing why that name should be the new brand name for UNCW Professional Education. Allison was very pleased at all of our hard work and expressed how hard it was going to be to choose the new name for her organization.

-Shannon Meadows