Out with the old and in with the new: “Whatever you do be you” has become the new tagline for Bradley University, officially replacing “Put your future forward.”
The marketing team wanted to create a new slogan after discovering that there was a low unaided awareness of the university.
“Unaided awareness means that if I ask you to recall when you’ve seen an advertisement for Bradley University or what that ad looked like, you say I don’t remember,” Vice President of Marketing and Communications Teri Thompson said. “… So, we knew that what we [the marketing team] were doing wasn’t resonating with the market.”
Creating this slogan didn’t happen overnight; it took over multiple months filled with research and surveys done by Bradley’s marketing team.
“We [the team] started research in 2022 interviewing and doing surveys with 1,077 outside students and parents and 3,906 current students, alumni and staff,” Thompson said.
Throughout the surveys and interviews with students and faculty, participants were asked about what Bradley represented. The overwhelming response was that Bradley gave them a space to be themselves.
Then, new test mottos were released to students and faculty to see which one resonated the most with everyone. It was a long process filled with trial and error before the official new slogan was announced at the BeYou Barbeque in May 2023.
“It [the barbeque] was a great opportunity to get feedback,” Thompson said.
At the barbeque, students were provided with food, yard games and even goat yoga to engage the campus community and embrace the new slogan of celebrating who you are.
New decorations were also placed around the campus to reflect the new slogan, such as new murals of students and flags that displayed these statements proudly.
Thompson hopes this new slogan will help show potential students who Bradley and its students are.
“I think the summary is that our research showed that a lot of people didn’t know much about Bradley and they didn’t know much about how it was differentiated from other universities,” Thompson said. “Our goal is to develop this visual and verbal language that really makes us stand out.”
Bradley has about the right-size student body (~ 4,500 students), glitzy new buildings as well as the well-preserved historical architecture. Who needs a new “catch phrase”? Let the party continue !