No more ‘business as usual’ – rewriting the Loughborough Business School brand
Loughborough Business School wanted to change…well, nearly everything. The name of their school, the way they taught, their approach to external partnerships. And they needed to find the words to get their new approach across in every part of their communications.
Formerly the Loughborough School of Business and Economics, Loughborough Business School had high hopes and a big vision.
Having worked with Bristol branding experts Firehaus to get clear on what they wanted to be known for, they’d hit on a powerful new brand idea to encapsulate their different approach to business education: ‘progress with purpose’.
Keen to take their rebrand beyond just marketing spiel, they wanted to create real culture change, and a permanent shift in the way the School interacted with its staff, students and partners.
And they needed help to communicate all of that. Enter All Things Words.
Explore some of our work with Loughborough
Highlighting Loughborough’s more purposeful approach to business education
Demonstrating Loughborough’s research impact
One step beyond: research into the mental health of astronauts
Thought leadership to underpin the new direction
How purpose-driven individuals and organisations will drive innovative business models of the future
Lots of formats, lots of input
Loughborough’s Head of Strategic Marketing, Sarah Bostock, started a thread on LinkedIn to find copywriter recommendations. Happy to say, All Things Words received multiple recommendations, including one from HE marketing legend Kyle Campbell.
One proposal later, we were hired, and tasked with translating the new brand positioning everywhere copy would be needed – the website, landing pages, course pages, research stories, email marketing, social media content and more.
It was a big job, so we brought in a team of our trusted senior writers, ensuring we had enough collective experience between us in each of these different formats.
The breadth of the project meant dealing with multiple stakeholders, too, each with their own perspectives and priorities. Although this can sometimes bring an additional level of challenge, we found ourselves really enjoying working alongside the Loughborough comms and Firehaus teams.
One of the most illuminating aspects of the project (as always) was working with the academics to create compelling content that highlighted Loughborough Business School’s commitment to purpose-driven progress.
“A lot of our content had been developed piecemeal over a number of years, and was too long and not in line with our new messaging. So after being recommended to Jo by several contacts, we asked All Things Words to work their magic on it for us.”
Sarah Bostock, Head of Strategic Marketing, Loughborough University
Taking Loughborough Business School to infinity…and beyond
We wrote up research impact stories that showed Loughborough’s new more purposeful ethos in action. We spoke to Dr Patrick Stacey about his work with astronauts, for example – and how his emotional analysis of the wellbeing of spacemen and spacewomen has led to the nationwide redesign of cancer care facilities back here on Earth.
We also interviewed key teaching personnel such as the School’s Deputy Head of the International Business, Strategy and Innovations Group, Michelle Aitken. Michelle showed us how her work with The School of Hope, supporting the education of disadvantaged children in Guatemala, gives her the tools and perspectives she needs to teach her Loughborough students about value-driven business.
Along with incorporating the new purpose-driven brand identity, much of the work we carried out (particularly on the website and course pages) was informed by our own time-honoured approach to HE marketing copy.
Things like defining and speaking directly to the audience, using ‘you’-centred language, removing jargon and adding specifics…all things, that when combined, go a long way to making HE copy and content that much more human.
It’s not every day you get to help a business school really stand for something
It’s no secret that lots of universities sound the same – take away the names and rankings, and most of the time you’d struggle to tell them apart.
So working with a business school that was being a bit braver, going further, and trying to do something a bit different, was a real shot in the arm.
And this project was the start of a new relationship with Firehaus, too. We’ve since collaborated on several other university rebrand projects, bringing our shared skills in brand strategy and brand voice together to help more unis stand for something.
“Before working with All Things Words, I would say our copy was very factual and to the point. But after working with Jo and her team, we now have more inspirational and emotive copy that reflects the new identity we wanted for the business school.”
Naomi Wilson, Assistant Head of Strategic Marketing, Loughborough University
February 2023
Started partnership with Loughborough
45
Web pages written
38
Course pages worked on
4*
Referrals this project has led to
*Including a major brand voice project for another big uni
Our copy has been hugely improved – what was once before pretty dry, drab and classic higher education copy now has a new lease of life thanks to All Things Words’ work.
Dan Holmes, Marketing Campaigns Officer (Business School), Loughborough University
