Introduction
The UF/IFAS Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology (CLCE) promotes the protection and preservation of Florida’s natural resources through responsible landscape management. Florida’s landscape plays an important role in the state’s economy, generating $10 billion a year.
However, many areas of the state suffer from water shortages. Poor water quality can be found throughout the state, and exotic invasive species pose significant threats to public lands, natural areas and private properties alike. Many Floridians unintentionally contribute to these issues because they don’t realize the potential impacts of their landscaping practices.
CLCE offers various landscaping and gardening programs that cater to multiple audiences. These programs include: Florida Master Gardeners, Florida Friendly Landscaping, Florida Yards and Neighborhoods and Gardening in a Minute.
CLCE requested the PIE Center perform a communications audit to identify the effectiveness of current branding and communications, as well as determine possible branding and communications strategies for the organization and its programs. The PIE Center requested and received a representative sampling of materials used to communicate with both external and internal audiences, including a website, social media and print materials.
Key findings
The recently re-designed website improved navigation and layout problems. The color scheme is more modern with white and various shades of blue, adding a more professional element that also matches with the University of Florida. Currently, CLCE uses only the text of its name for branding within the University of Florida framework. A more developed logo would help lent consistency internally and externally, in addition to providing more brand recognition.
With the variety of programs it offers, CLCE needs to reach numerous audiences. However, these audiences and the relationships among CLCE’s various programs are unclear. The main CLCE website provides only an introduction and a link to the other programs without explaining the interactions between each of them.
Program websites also display inconsistent and possibly inaccurate information about this, as well. For example, the Gardening in a Minute website says the radio show is “brought to you by the University of Florida Extension Service.”
Both the Gardening in a Minute and the Master Gardeners websites show a recognizable pattern of web traffic. Page views peak in the spring and fall, and decrease slightly in the middle of summer and winter. The sites contain an abundance of information but are not presented in a user-friendly manner.
CLCE’s social media profiles are also confusing about the relationship to and among the various programs. The social media linked directly from the CLCE website includes Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Facebook and YouTube sites, however, are branded as the Master Gardener program, not CLCE. In addition, the YouTube channel is branded as a “UF Gardening” channel.
Recommendations
With the multitude of programs that CLCE offers, the PIE Center also recommended the creation of an umbrella brand — an overall logo or branding element to represent the main organization, with specific identifiers for individual programs. Both logos are designed to complement each other and often appear together. The major focus would be to make sure all programs are visually identified as belonging to the overall brand.
CLCE’s relationship with its programs is unclear. By not identifying the center’s role in the programs, the overall CLCE brand is diluted. By more clearly describing the connections, CLCE will increase the center’s visibility and brand recognition.
When exploring new branding ideas, CLCE should also create an identity guide, which establishes a protocol when any new communication material is created. Identity guides specifies requirements for logo placement, colors to represent the organization, which fonts to use for headlines and body text, and more. Before updating materials, however, the PIE Center recommended that CLCE test new ideas with focus groups or in-depth interviews with the target audience.
This project was part of the UF/IFAS Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology series. Learn more by visiting UF/IFAS Center for Landscape Conservation & Ecology branding focus groups, a similar project in this series.
