Wishful Thinking: The Story of UW Rebrandings

This should perhaps be subtitled “Problem Solving 101.”

With the new University of Waterloo logo saga far from over, Monday’s Daily Bulletin announced a new rebranding effort and a new logo for UW Food Services, which operates several food outlets on campus.

Explaining the rationale for rebranding, Heather Kelly, Food Services coordinator, commented:

Many people on campus were not aware of the department, and sometimes our 17 different outlets were not recognized as all being part of food services. We needed to unify our look.

With regard to work performed, and the results:

[F]ood services worked with a UW Graphics team led by Christine Goucher to devise and roll out a “creative branding campaign” aimed at attracting incoming and prospective students and current faculty, staff and students, as well as informing and gaining the support of food services staff.

This campaign has garnered great results; we have a clear, recognized, fun and original brand image for UW Food Services and we have unified our decentralized units with logos and signage that contain common yet unique features.… Research with student groups has indicated our concept has taken the mystery out of who operates food services on campus. Feedback from department staff has been very positive; they have taken ownership of the new look with pride.

This is nice. Staff involvement and satisfaction are obviously important. Employees happy with their employer do their jobs better.

What exactly do Food Services employees do? From the department website:

Our Mission and Vision

To provide and operate the best food services program at any Canadian University or College.

To cultivate, nurture and promote excellence of Food Services for all stakeholders of the University community through quality, growth and innovative leadership.

They haven’t specified who they consider to be the stakeholders of the university community. I think it is a fair statement to say that the majority of this group should consist of people who 1) learn at the University of Waterloo, or 2) work at the University of Waterloo.

As of Fall 2008, the university had 28,845 students (group 1 above; includes both full-time and part-time undergrads and graduate students) and 2,826 equivalent full-time faculty and staff (group 2) [source]. Accounting for part-time students, a widely implemented co-op program, and some natural off-time such as summer breaks, let’s say there are 12,000 students on campus during an average term (more during fall and winter, much less during summer). For the sake of argument, let us then accept there are on average approximately four times as many students as staff.

In other words, providing an excellent food services program for students should be about 80% of the department’s job. Logically, any problems in the way of this job should be the foremost issue tackled when making changes.

You cannot fulfill your mission statement very effectively if you don’t know what problems you are currently facing while attempting to fulfill your mission statement. You cannot solve these problems if you don’t know what they are or that they exist.

The only way the rebranding addresses Food Services’ mission statement directly is through positive feedback and support from the Food Services staff. The Food Services staff are a small part of the smaller of the stakeholder groups, falling outside the 80% group outlined above. The rebranding further addresses the mission statement, indirectly, through presumably better job performance by happier employees.

A presumably big goal of the rebranding was attracting incoming and prospective students and current faculty, staff and students. After all, the greatest food services department will be useless to the community if no one’s eating. Having only been staff at the university for eight months, half of this time not exactly on a standard diet or schedule, I don’t feel qualified to speak for staff or faculty. With regard to students, however, attracting their patronage is mostly a matter of three factors, in order of increasing importance:

  1. good food
  2. cheap food
  3. cheap good food

Fast-prepared food might be in there somewhere too.

I would argue these factors also play pretty well into the stated mission of having the best food services program.

I would also argue that rebranding does preciously little to further these factors. As long as the food is cheap and good, students don’t really whether it comes from a Food Services department with a unified look, or one leaning towards separate logos each reflecting its surroundings.

As far as the claim that [m]any people on campus were not aware of the department, colour me surprised. Of the almost 25,000 undergraduate students (over 75% of the total stakeholder community), the vast majority (I’d be willing to claim 90%) has lived in one of university’s residences during first year. Although not all residences require a meal plan, it would be very rare for a student to be unaware of the Food Services offerings on campus outright.

As for staff and faculty, who have worked at the university for many years more than students spend on a degree, I am not buying the claim. They might not have the impression of Food Services that Food Services would like its customers to have, but they are surely aware of it.

The second point mentioned in the original rationale explanation might be a bit more interesting. Ms. Kelly said sometimes our 17 different outlets were not recognized as all being part of food services, and I can see that being true. The question that needs to be asked, I think, is whether that is a good thing, and further, why this might be happening.

What students and staff might indeed be unaware of is the fact that among its locations, Food Services operates the four Tim Hortons franchises on campus. During summer of 2006, Food Services replaced a UW-branded location – Bookends Café – with an exciting new Tim Hortons franchise. (For what it’s worth, the Tim Hortons is as exciting as any other Tim Hortons I’ve seen.) Bookends was located in South Campus Hall, one of campus’s busiest spots in terms of through traffic if not a remarkable destination in itself.

Another of the campus’s busy spots, Student Life Centre, also hosts a Food Services location. Brubakers shares its space with a Pizza Pizza outlet and a Teriyaki Experience location, branding for which is competing with Brubakers’. This summer, the space is also adding a Subway franchise, and a as-far-as-I-know yet-unnamed Pita & Salad Franchise. It is not clear to me whether the SLC outlets are operated by Food Services (despite their claim that [the branding] concept has taken the mystery out of who operates food services on campus), but in any case their presence does nothing to maintain a strong Food Services brand presence. (Insert grumble about commercialization and corporatization here, but that is a subject for another day.)

Returning, then, to Food Services’ desire for an unified look, I can only notice it can go both ways. If you are aware that all of Food Services locations are, in fact, ran by Food Services, and you have an excellent experience at one, you might be more inclined to patronize another. On the other hand, if you have a bad experience, you might be inclined to swear off everything to do with Food Services forever. The department believes the trade-off is worth it, and I will defer to their judgment.

I cannot, however, understand quite how removing or downsizing Food Services-branded locations in favour of external brands is supposed to help addressing the mission statement. The food might be cheap, but it’s not particularly good; having exactly the same franchises as every other university will hardly help UW become the best. Perhaps it is outside of their control and they are trying to do what they can.

I am not sure, however, if the effort is worth it. There is only incremental improvement to be gained from a more consistent brand, and without substantial improvements to the main product (food) and stemming the tide of Tim Hortons, the changes cannot have much effect. Students might be more aware, but awareness alone won’t make them want campus food. You have to know your problems before you can solve them, and the largest reward comes from solving the largest problems.

As for the logos, de gustibus non est disputandum: you be the judge.