It starts with listening, understanding the audience and building a clear reason for change.
On today's episode of A Matter of Degrees, we sit down with Johnna Kerres, Associate Director for Marketing and Communications at Eastern Iowa Community Colleges (EICC). We talk about using research to guide a multi-campus rebrand and how to build internal buy-in. Johnna shares the story behind the "Next Is Now" campaign and how Eddie the river otter became a symbol of belonging across the institution!
EICC serves students across three campuses and several additional centers. Each one has its own personality and history. Those local identities mattered when creating the new brand. But the college needed to speak more consistently as one institution.
Johnna explains that EICC's brand work began right after a major website redesign. By then, the team had new web content and a fresh voice and tone.
The next step was figuring out how the college's brand could become more clear and consistent.
Rather than jumping straight into creative, the team started with research.
A brand audit confirmed that much of EICC's existing work was strong. But it surfaced an important tension. Students strongly identified with their individual campuses. Yet more than half said they wanted to feel part of something bigger. That insight reframed the goal for the whole project. It wasn't to erase local campus identity but to connect it to a stronger institutional brand.
Research gave the marketing team a way to explain the rebrand to faculty and staff. Personal preference took a back seat to student feedback and audit findings.
From there, the team translated that research into “Next Is Now.” The message was built to speak to high schoolers, adult learners, concurrent enrollment students and workforce training partners all at once.
The rebrand opened the door to a unified mascot. EICC formed a committee, narrowing the field of options to an egret, river otter, red fox and river dragon.
Welcome Eddie the river otter to the scene! He took campus by storm in a launch consisting of signage, floor decals, t-shirts, an overnight mission to swap every computer lab mouse pad and — to top it off — a partnership with the Niabi Zoo to support two real river otters, Thelma and Louise.
Research helps higher education teams build support for brand change. It moves conversations beyond personal preference.
A unified institutional brand doesn't have to erase the identity or importance of individual campuses.
Brand consistency depends on language as much as visual identity. How faculty and staff describe the institution shapes how students understand it.
The best rebrands are grounded in what's true about the institution and the people it serves.
Hearing from a marketing leader who guided a multi-campus rebrand puts the real work of higher education branding into perspective. Check out the full episode for more.