Branding, then, can be defined as the process of researching and isolating the best characteristics of a commodity or a product and aggressively marketing these characteristics back to consumers. Traditionalists might argue that a college as prestigious as Smith is beyond branding. College designer John Eue, who oversaw the process of designing, approving, and implementing the new logo, concurs that the sheer volume of material the average high school junior receives every year from colleges and universities is staggering. A high school student should be able to immediately pick out something from the scads of materials covering her desk, and to have it be consistent and consistently unified. Branding, according to Lazarus, allows you to package your message in a way that will resonate with your audience.
Nothing compresses data better than a brand.
In terms of the new Smith logo, Barbara Alden Taylor '65, executive vice president of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide who was involved in the design process, said its purpose was clear from the beginning. The last time the college's core identity came under intensive examination was in the early 1980s. Responding to a need to compete for a bigger slice of a smaller pool of high school graduates, college officials conducted extensive research that showed that Smith could best attract new students by purveying a warmer, friendlier, more traditional image. The opposite, that is to say, of what officials then feared was the college's public image as a stiff-shouldered, elitist, not particularly welcoming place. Hence, the implementation of the familiar, hoary logo of the gates, with its brick-red suggestion of cozy Gothic antiquity.