Mullen High School
Denver, CO
Frank Cawley, Executive Director of Community Relations, explains how Mullen is implementing the Lasallian Education Brand.
When we use the word “Lasallian” in Microsoft Word it appears with a red line underneath. As we all know, that red line means the program does not recognize the word. Dictionary.com does not offer a definition of the word “Lasallian” either. Yet, as an educational community we use the term every day. The fact that many people fail to recognize the unique and special educational pedagogy that is so important to each of us is exactly why Mullen High School felt it important to take part in the Regional branding effort to unite Lasallian education. Others need to know the word that defines our work.
As Lasallians our story is powerful and plays significant part in the landscape of education. The distinct Lasallian traditions make us unique. We need to spread that message as a collective body. Unification of the Lasallian brand will only help each of us continue educate in the “Holy Presence of God.”
Messaging is branding. At Mullen High School we believe that consistency in messaging will help define the term Lasallian for our community. Our plan to implement the new branding strategy to our stakeholders was designed in three stages.
Stage one was to introduce the concept. In our regular communications to our constituencies we informed them of the branding project and involved many in the workshops and focus groups. We provided updates as they became available. As the finished product began to rollout we shared those unveilings with our community. We revealed the new logo and unifying statement as stand-alone news in our communications to the school community. Our communications team made a consistent effort to illustrate both our involvement in the process and our excitement in the product.
Once the brand was finalized, stage two was utilization. We placed the new logo and the unifying statement on our website. We have a page describing Lasallian Education with direct links to the Institute website. We painted the new logo on the 20 yard lines of our football field prior to our team participating in a nationally televised high school game on ESPNU. The logo was included on our Christmas card, financial aid applications and graduation program.
Lasallian Heritage week offered a terrific platform to continue to utilize the brand. In our email to current families, faculty, staff, alumni, parents of alumni and other specific target audiences announcing the special events for the week we included the logo, unifying statement, portions of the narrative, brand promise and reasons to believe. Our efforts have been intentional to invite our community into conversation about the Lasallian Education brand initiative. To date, these efforts have been very well received.
Stage three is to saturate and remain consistent in our messaging. We will continue to plan and incorporate the brand into all our school communication efforts. Some of these efforts might be subtle and others very direct. Nevertheless, it is a conscious effort on the part of our Leadership Team at Mullen to include the new look and feel into our efforts.
Each Lasallian school is different and we promote ourselves in our individual ways. That should never change. In today’s competitive marketplace we must illustrate how we differentiate ourselves from other schools. Celebration of our Lasallian heritage is how we do that. It is refreshing to know that together we are telling the story. We are much stronger together than separate. The mission to continue “Transforming Lives since 1680” is in good hands. It is just a matter of time before we get that red line removed by Microsoft.