Inspiration

Protecting the Brand: The Hells Angels have grown increasingly litigious, learning to employ the legal system to protect the recognizable symbols of their club.

I was reading the NYTimes article on protecting your brand, this one happened to be about the Hell’s Angels and how they sue over their brand name usage. (see the article here)

Let’s face it; most colleges really don’t understand branding. Heck, most don’t understand results driven marketing. Please, don’t even mention social media marketing… But we have a Facebook page.

Most colleges will tell you they get branding… you know… our website looks like our brochures. Dig a little deeper and you find many institutions with no real idea which logo is being used by which department and how many Facebook pages actually exist that use their name. How many small colleges turn their brand into revenue generation like the big D-1 schools? Granted most Saturdays there are a couple of thousand fans in the stand for a football game…if they are lucky. Find me a small liberal arts college and I will find you a local screen-printing company using their logo and selling it to their students, alumni and fans.

At eduKan we fight the branding fight

Bring in the Hell’s Angels… and their litigious presence. I love this article and in a previous life worked with some motorcycle clubs and can tell you first hand they are serious about protecting their name, image and logo. The three-part patch they wear on their back, called their colors, is trademarked and defended in both style and format. In the old days it was mostly threats and broken knees, few lawyers were involved.

At eduKan we fight the branding fight. Small e (by the way Word hates when we do that) and capital K with an ampersand-like symbol for the “U”. It all has meaning; capital K for Kansas, the circle around the “U” because you are the most important part of eduKan. The e is small, well, because it just looks stupid with a capital E. Innovating Education is what we do, the circle U carries over from the logo and show that the education if for U.

Brand Champion

As the brand champion for eduKan I have not physically fought anyone or taken the shirt off of their back but I have required all eduKan faculty and staff get the logo tattooed on some visible part of their body… Wait… they don’t know about that yet…

For those of you offended by the use of the word tattooed in an educational blog… get over it… As for the faculty and staff getting tattoos, just joking… for now! 

What do you think?

Share your thoughts about how your brand is being (mis)used below. We’d like to get your take on this subject too.