Brand new brilliant idea. Not.

Goodness, here we go again. A few months ago my former university, known throughout the world by everyone as Trinity College Dublin, thought it needed a new name, for reasons that baffled everyone except the consultants who had invoiced the college for coming up with the new brand. It was henceforth to be known as ‘Trinity College the University of Dublin’. Except that nobody thought this was a great idea, and so the college cut its losses (€100,000, reportedly) and kept the old identity.

Bad ideas are never killed off quite as easily as that, however. So now, another institution with a globally recognised brand and a huge reputation has decided that it, too, must pay someone (£300,000 this time, it is claimed) to come up with a daft new name. King’s College London, a genuinely renowned university, is to be called just ‘King’s London’. At least Dublin’s proposed TCTOUD would still have told you what kind of place it was. King’s London could be anything. And don’t even get me started on the grammatical implications.

The proposal sparked a rather amusing sequence of suggestions on Twitter for other name changes based on this model. But more seriously, nobody anywhere in the world needs to have it explained to them by way of a name change that King’s College or Trinity College are not some obscure secondary schools. Trust me on this. And that advice comes for free.

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Welcome to your new crisp, modern and impactful TCD. I mean TCTUOD

OK, time to ‘fess up. I also have presided over university rebranding exercises. The first of these was in 2001, when we introduced the new logo and brand for Dublin City University, where we changed from this to this. More recently we made a small adjustment to the logo of my current university, Robert Gordon University, from this to this.

One thing I learned in all of these processes is that you need to avoid spending a whole lot of money on consultants. There is no shortage of people who will take your money, spend a lot of time talking to a lot of people and producing a lot of jargon-rich documents, before handing you something you could probably have designed yourself over supper. So in DCU I imposed an absolute limit of £5,000 for the exercise (and I think we got rather good value, as the logo was an instant success). In RGU we spent no money at all, doing it all in-house.

So what are we to make of the re-branding of Trinity College Dublin, which has been all over the Irish news media over the past day or two? It is worth saying here that TCD has been doing some really interesting things recently in developing its profile, reputation and operations. But with no disrespect to the College’s leadership, this re-branding, at least in my view, is not one of those things. We are told it cost €100,000, and what the College got in return was, at least based on the extracts reported in the Irish Times, a report full of meaningless verbiage and a new brand that is somewhat odd and more than a little confusing.

So what do you get for €100,000? You get told that blue and white is more ‘modern’ and ‘crisp’ than blue, white, yellow and red; and that you should go for a new and globalisation-friendly name, ‘Trinity College, the University of Dublin’. And what do I say? I will suggest that nobody will ever, and I mean ever, use that name in actual speech. You couldn’t, you’d feel totally stupid if you did. The new crest is all right I suppose, but its impact will be precisely the same as that of the old one; except perhaps that it looks a little less interesting. I have no idea why, as the accompanying College memo apparently suggests, any of this will produce more ‘impactful media coverage’.

On top of that the College has built into its new corporate identity an essential mechanism to confuse everyone. For totally understandable reasons, to ensure consistency of recognition and rankings, it has decided to maintain the identity of ‘Trinity College Dublin’ and TCD for research output purposes. So then, it will have two different brands. Goodness me.

My own view, for what it is worth, is that Trinity College Dublin, or TCD, is a world brand; it is well recognised, and hugely respected. I’d leave it alone.

Who are we?

Conversation a few days ago with a visitor, who had stopped at a DCU campus map and looked lost.

Me: ‘Can I help you?’
Visitor: ‘Pardon me, is this Dublin College?’
Me: ‘I don’t think there is an institution called Dublin College. This is Dublin City University. Do you know who you are looking for, or what event you are going to?’ 
Visitor: ‘I have a meeting with the Senior Lecturer, Dublin College’.
Me: ‘That sounds like Trinity College – shall I give you directions?’
Visitor: ‘No, I’ve been there already. I was told to come here.’
Me: ‘Oh? Where did they tell you to go?’
Visitor: ‘Dublin College, North Dublin. I told the taxi driver. He said there is one very good college in North Dublin, I’ll take you there.’ 
Me: ‘I’m afraid we’re not called Dublin College – maybe you mean University College Dublin?’
Visitor: ‘Is that in North Dublin?’ 
Me: ‘No, South Dublin. What is your meeting about? Do you have a name for the “Senior Lecturer”?’
Visitor: ‘I asked for the meeting. It’s about helping Dublin College become a world class institution.’ 

He then gave me a name for the ‘Senior Lecturer’ and I knew where he needed to go. And what conclusion do I draw? Time to brand ourselves better internationally! And I won’t tell you what institution I directed him to…