Branding
Your branding is more than the look and feel of your PTS comfort tool. Branding is a way to convey your values and message through visuals, content, and any other touchpoints you have with your campus.
In this module, we will start with the foundations, your team's and your campus's values. These are the foundation of your branding, what you are trying to communicate to the campus community. Then, we move on to strategizing how to turn your values into the message you'll share, the visual identity of a brand, different channels to share your message, and finally educational aspects of communication and promotion of your PTS comfort tool.
Your Values:
Using the WHAT, HOW,
WHY Framework
“WHATs are products, services and job functions we perform. HOWs are values, guiding principles and actions that make us stand out. The WHY defines what the organization stands for—it is the collective purpose, cause or belief... When we align emotionally with our customers, our connection is more meaningful than any affiliation based on features and benefits.”
From “Find Your Why” by Simon Sinek
Your WHY is your program’s collective purpose.
In our team, we believe we can reach innovative solutions when we work together.
Your HOW are your core values and principles.
At UC Davis, our core values are:
-
Education
-
Community
-
Stewardship
Your WHAT describes your services and what you do.
TherMOOstat is our project to engage and educate the campus community and give them opportunities to be a part of energy conservation on campus.
Refer to the following buttons below to learn more about each of the categories identified above and find examples of what's been successful at UC Davis.
Content Strategy
“Bold leadership requires vision and direction: that's your message architecture... The message architecture your team establishes at the beginning of the project will help maintain consistency of vision long after the project launches.”
From “Content Strategy at Work” by Margot Bloomstein
-
An Example from UC DavisJohn Coon is a project manager in the office who performs triage and short-term analysis on PTS data. He spends roughly 15% of his time on TherMOOstat related work. In real-time, he fields PTS submissions and checks against the HVAC controls system for broken or malfunctioning equipment. At the end of th week, he spends 1-2 hours a reviewing feedback and trending data as needed. John's well-suited for this role because he has 20 years of experience with campus buildings, and is well acquainted with their comfort issues as well as what is "normal" for a particular building.
-
The Role of Building Maintenance ServicesAt UC Davis, the Building Maintanance Services (BMS) group is a sister to the Energy & Engineering group (which is the home of TherMOOstat). In other words, we are two of the several branches within the Facilities Management Department. The HVAC technicians in the BMS group aren't involved in the triage of PTS data. This choice was strategic because the HVAC technicians have their work orders to handle, and that is their main focus. To insure the PTS data doesn't add to their workload, John investigates PTS data in the HVSC controls system and only 1 issue every 2-3 weeks is passed on to the HVAC technicians (who are responding to at least a dozen work orders in any given week).
Formal
Practical
Visionary
Detail-Oriented
High-Level
Authentic
Empowering
Fair
Proactive
Your Messages: Engaging with Your Audience
At UC Davis, we highlight potential energy savings and comfort investigations by leaning on the keywords of our message architecture. The keywords you use in your Message Architecture can also inform your taglines and calls to action in PTS marketing on your campus.
The message architecture created by the TherMOOstat team is to be approachable yet savvy, community-building, and customer-oriented. Here are the words we prioritized:
-
authentic
-
friendly
-
professional (but not formal)
-
visionary (not trendy)
-
responsive
-
fair and truthful
-
An Example from UC DavisJohn Coon is a project manager in the office who performs triage and short-term analysis on PTS data. He spends roughly 15% of his time on TherMOOstat related work. In real-time, he fields PTS submissions and checks against the HVAC controls system for broken or malfunctioning equipment. At the end of th week, he spends 1-2 hours a reviewing feedback and trending data as needed. John's well-suited for this role because he has 20 years of experience with campus buildings, and is well acquainted with their comfort issues as well as what is "normal" for a particular building.
-
The Role of Building Maintenance ServicesAt UC Davis, the Building Maintanance Services (BMS) group is a sister to the Energy & Engineering group (which is the home of TherMOOstat). In other words, we are two of the several branches within the Facilities Management Department. The HVAC technicians in the BMS group aren't involved in the triage of PTS data. This choice was strategic because the HVAC technicians have their work orders to handle, and that is their main focus. To insure the PTS data doesn't add to their workload, John investigates PTS data in the HVSC controls system and only 1 issue every 2-3 weeks is passed on to the HVAC technicians (who are responding to at least a dozen work orders in any given week).
Tip from UCD
When we talk about our motivation to save energy in our messaging, it can diffuses some dissatisfaction with users, possibly increasing their willingness to tolerate less comfort if it is in the interest of saving energy.
Visual Identity
Visual identity is an important part of your branding. It includes the logos and images you use in your product and communications. The most important thing to remember is consistency. It’s better to use the same logo and image in your emails, flyers, and other communications than to use different ones each time. Being consistent will help people remember your PTS tool.
Using Logos
.png)
Incorporating a mascot will make the tool fun and memorable for your users.
.png){kind=small}
Your department or university wordmark will let students and staff know this tool is official and that you’re using the data to make informed decisions.
Joules the Cow is perceived as fun, cute, happy, knowledgeable, insightful, and informative.
Incorporating Images
Use images as needed, especially photos of your campus. Images that include people are generally more engaging that those that don’t. At UC Davis, we have a set of photos with students using TherMOOstat on their phone.
Testing Imagery and Content
Our team tested different imagery on the link to TherMOOstat from the student and staff portal (MyUCDavis). We tested an image of Joules the Cow with content about energy waste versus energy savings, and an image of a student voting on TherMOOstat with content about energy waste and energy savings.
Results showed imagery of Joules the Cow paired with a prompt on energy waste ("Is your room being overheated?") had the most clicks to TherMOOstat.
Communication Channels
Knowing how to communicate and engage with your audience is the key to any project, business, or company. Over the years, we have expanded our communication channels and used them as opportunities to connect with our campus.
Distributing Your Message
You can send out messaging in newsletters, social media postings, fliers, and/or emails. Below are the channels we use at UC Davis and general frequency for each.
-
An Example from UC DavisJohn Coon is a project manager in the office who performs triage and short-term analysis on PTS data. He spends roughly 15% of his time on TherMOOstat related work. In real-time, he fields PTS submissions and checks against the HVAC controls system for broken or malfunctioning equipment. At the end of th week, he spends 1-2 hours a reviewing feedback and trending data as needed. John's well-suited for this role because he has 20 years of experience with campus buildings, and is well acquainted with their comfort issues as well as what is "normal" for a particular building.
-
The Role of Building Maintenance ServicesAt UC Davis, the Building Maintanance Services (BMS) group is a sister to the Energy & Engineering group (which is the home of TherMOOstat). In other words, we are two of the several branches within the Facilities Management Department. The HVAC technicians in the BMS group aren't involved in the triage of PTS data. This choice was strategic because the HVAC technicians have their work orders to handle, and that is their main focus. To insure the PTS data doesn't add to their workload, John investigates PTS data in the HVSC controls system and only 1 issue every 2-3 weeks is passed on to the HVAC technicians (who are responding to at least a dozen work orders in any given week).
Within the App
visited daily
Newsletter
monthly
University Portal
visited daily
Fliers
monthly
Tabling at Events
quarterly
Confirmation Emails
as requested
Social Media
weekly/monthly
Personalized Emails
as needed
Download a worksheet to brainstorm communication channels on your campus.
Engagement: Education within the Community
We’ve collected information about how comfort works on a University campus and display it publicly on Campus Comfort 101. If this information is also applicable to your campus, you're welcome to refer members of your campus to this website. Some items such as seasonal comfort trends or tips for comfort may be applicable across the UC system.
What the Community Wants to Learn
At UCD, we find that students and staff do want to learn about how comfort relates to energy and what projects are going on around campus to save energy. For example, the figure below shows student rankings of their interest in comfort issues in a survey we conducted. We use surveys like this to get feedback on our PTS program and tailor our Campus Comfort 101 website, so we are explaining the concepts people are most interested in on campus. We are happy to share our survey instruments and results with you, below.
TherMOOstat Student Interest in Campus Comfort Topics
Common Misconceptions
Through comments left on TherMOOstat, we see common misconceptions about comfort in our campus buildings. These mostly occur because campus buildings operate differently than what most people are used to (our homes), and because some energy efficiency measures are counter-intuitive.
-
An Example from UC DavisJohn Coon is a project manager in the office who performs triage and short-term analysis on PTS data. He spends roughly 15% of his time on TherMOOstat related work. In real-time, he fields PTS submissions and checks against the HVAC controls system for broken or malfunctioning equipment. At the end of th week, he spends 1-2 hours a reviewing feedback and trending data as needed. John's well-suited for this role because he has 20 years of experience with campus buildings, and is well acquainted with their comfort issues as well as what is "normal" for a particular building.
-
The Role of Building Maintenance ServicesAt UC Davis, the Building Maintanance Services (BMS) group is a sister to the Energy & Engineering group (which is the home of TherMOOstat). In other words, we are two of the several branches within the Facilities Management Department. The HVAC technicians in the BMS group aren't involved in the triage of PTS data. This choice was strategic because the HVAC technicians have their work orders to handle, and that is their main focus. To insure the PTS data doesn't add to their workload, John investigates PTS data in the HVSC controls system and only 1 issue every 2-3 weeks is passed on to the HVAC technicians (who are responding to at least a dozen work orders in any given week).
In November 2013, President Janet Napolitano announced the Carbon Neutrality Initiative, which commits UC to emitting net zero greenhouse gases from its buildings and vehicle fleet by 2025, something no other major university system has done.
Created by Facilities Energy & Engineering at UC Davis
Get in touch with the team by contacting Kiernan Salmon at kmsalmon@ucdavis.edu
See our guides to Campus Comfort, as well as TherMOOstat Success Stories on Campus Comfort 101 site.