CUNY

The greatest urban university in the world

www.cuny.edu

Challenge

For over 170 years, The City University of New York had been fulfilling its mission to be a vehicle for upward social mobility of the disadvantaged. It has grown into a network of 25 schools across the five boroughs, with surprisingly leafy campuses and visually stunning new buildings. But the University didn’t act, talk or even think of itself “as a whole,” a unified entity that was educating over a half-million students every year. And in the process giving hope and opportunity to nearly every family in New York.

Solution

The creative team Dan and Frank felt it was time that this amazing institution is given credit for all the great work it does and would make all the individual colleges eager to be associated with the CUNY name. Using the famous I LOVE NY campaign as a guiding inspiration they created positioning to remind the city and the world of what an important institution that CUNY was. It was captured in the new line: CUNY –The Greatest Urban University in the World. This positioning gave us a platform to brag about the award-winning faculty, successful alum, and vision for the future. We created subway ads, newspaper ads, social media content, a spirit book, and a robust digital strategy. We redesigned their logo and gave it a look as big and bold as the tagline.

Impact

When we tested the concept with students, parents, politicians, and alum we were met with unanimous love. It was understood, believed, and embraced. The individual colleges asked how quickly they could start using the new look and line. This even though we had been warned they would never accept a CUNY message in their communications. We launched the campaign in a massive subway and bus shelter effort with the hashtag #CUNYPRIDE. The positive interactions started flooding in.

Few months after the new branding was launched CUNY announced a record-setting 11% jump in applications from prospective students. Apparently, New York best-kept secret is no longer a secret.

*** This work was completed while working at Siegelvision, and the entire team was involved developing CUNY’s new brand.