Vivências de uma campanha para afirmação de identidade de uma unidade Universitária Federal no interior de um Estado Brasileiro

On January 2005, it was sent a project to the creation of a decentralized unit of a Federal University in the North of a Brazilian State. The objective was to solve a problem of the region, according to the creational project, the long distance between the north end of the state and the other places where there are the HEIS (Higher Education Institutions), because of the difficulties of the population’s displacement, which is mainly restrained of exercising the right of entering in a higher education course because an amount of population lives in places far from the university, and it is reinforced by the economic difficulties faced by them. The mission of the project was to solve such difficulties with the installment of a unit to promote different pieces of knowledge to citizen, ethical, technical and with socioenvironmental formation, articulated regionally and with a global focus and by the dialogue, creativity and innovation in the interior of the state, aiming the expansion of the public higher education.

In this regard, the implementation of a public university in the interior was always a latent wish in the mind of several people from the north region of a Brazilian State. Due to this, several social and political movements worked towards this achievement and on January 13th, 2005, the installment of an extension of a federal university was officially approved in the region. In 2006, the first entrance examination was carried out to fulfill 180 vacancies in three under graduation courses: Agronomy, Forest Engineering, and Journalism. Nowadays, there are more three courses in the unit; Sanitarian and Environmental Engineering, Public Relations and Information Systems.

It is important to state that the Federal University already had a high school in the city, called the agricultural school. The installation of the extension happened in the same field in this school and it was called High Education Center. These two names created a lot of divergences because it was not clear that the agricultural school was not the same as the high school center, and at the same time, the two institutions were not recognized as part of the Federal University. Besides, the region where the institution was installed had already been taken as reference in higher education, a private university.

In this regard, it is understood that the historical moment in which the institution was created, the manner as it assumed its social role, the bigger or smaller freedom to analyze the facts, the bigger or smaller freedom to criticize and interpret reality, certainly are facts that greatly influenced the image of an educational institution (RIBEIRO E BASTOS, 2015).

Although, there was a problem of identification in the unit installment. The name that strongly came out was the one from the unit and not the one from the creator and maintainer of the university. It caused a misunderstanding for the local and regional population that had difficulties to identify to which institution this extension belonged to. This concept formation, from the name, the brand of the institution passed by the press, in such way that the material created by it influenced the image formation to the campus/unit to the community. Besides, internally, there were also problems concerning the nomenclature of the federal university, a fact proved by the habit, among scholars and servants, of usually saying that they study or work in the center of higher education, creating an image of an own institution and not of a teaching unit that belongs to a prestigious institution.

The name of the headquarter of the federal university was already consolidated in the state when the expansion of higher education started, which enabled the implantation of the former unit of teaching. Therefore, it entailed a great loss, in terms of marketing, the disassociation between teaching unit and the renowned federal university it belonged to. Schultz and Barnes (2001) claim that the marketing and media professionals need to develop practical and plausible mechanisms of evaluation, which are applied to the control and the global management of the brands, and that is also technologically possible and accessible to most part of the organizations. Thus, it is understood that since the implantation of the university unit, the name of the federal unit is used wrongly both internally and externally. In the face of this, clarifying the terms that should be used as a reference to the federal university is a process that demands to rot the correct nomenclature in the local and regional culture.

It was understood that many factors influenced in the formation of the image of an institution, since the manner as the name of the federal institution is put on academic papers, in news published about the federal university on media, as well as the reference to it, since the reformulation of the approach and the use of the name is a fragmented process that was developed by several actions. For these reasons, it was necessary to clarify to the audience, officially, the understanding that the institution located in the city is the federal institution and that the Higher Education Center belongs to it.

In front of this situation, a work a reconstructing the name of the federal university inside its own community – academics, servers of the institution, and outside of it was started, to promote the internal and external institutional visual identity.

So, the project of the communication office of the direction of the higher education center, on January 2013, created an identity campaign aiming to clarify and fortify the identity and the image of the university outside the headquarter. Thus, it sought for stimulating the use of the nomenclature of the renowned and maintainer federal university to the academic community and the press, in order to integrate and facilitate the understanding that the Higher Education Center belongs to the federal university. The identity material was developed by the graphic designer from the higher education center.

So, it would be beneficial to proceed with the rescue of the federal university’s name in replacement to the higher education center’s name, due to the brand and image that the federal university imposes. For this, an identity to the campaign was elaborated, composed of graphic art, t-shirts, booklets, as well as images to be shared on social media. This campaign intended to stimulate the academic community to use the name by motivating everyone to be an important and unique part of the federal university, besides promoting the feeling of belonging to it.

The following documents were sent to the e- mails of the internal public: the standard sheet, the brand of the federal university, the coat of the federal university, the direction’s circular and other informative documents about the project and the electronic address with the visual identity of the campaign. According to Pinho (1996, p.39), they “constitute the signature of the company and are responsible for the visual identification of the organization” .

To fortify the identity campaign, it was necessary to establish a direct contact with the external public, in other words, the one that has direct and indirect relation with the institution, so the strategy used was to hold a coffee with the local press to present the project and solicit support in the use and divulgation of all identity material of the federal university unit, because it is by these means of communication, both in writing and spoken media, that the events of the federal university are announced. On this event, it was handed a guidebook (organogram) with general information about the federal university’s structure, which was also distributed on the insert of some regional newspapers, totalizing ten thousand copies to the subscribers. On behalf of the campaign, a press kit was also created, a collection that gathers all graphic material, eco bags, notepads, folders, t-shirts, booklets and banners with campaign theme to follow all the events promoted by the institution, so the external public could see them, impact themselves and relate the name of the federal university with the unit create outside the headquarter. Such marketing effort is an example for other institutions that passed or are passing by a similar problem in other regions. It is notorious that there was a great higher education expansion in the interior of the country and many antique universities with consolidated names helped on the process. For this reason, it is very important to the identity and institutional affirmation that these new units use the brands of their creator and maintainers. Even being related to strictly public institutions, they cannot relinquish marketing to reinforce the brands idea by the market.

In the face of such considerations, the objective of the current article is to investigate if the campaign of the identity project contributed to the visual identity and to the image of a public higher education institution located in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul along with the internal and external public of the institution.

For presenting this paper, this article was structured with introduction, which brings history of the teaching unit and presents an identity campaign of the image of this institution; theoretical framework, which was the base to the development of this study, and which seeks for showing the meaning of the image of an institution; and the methodology used with its detailing. On the sequence, it approaches the analysis of the obtained results. At last, the considerations and references.

Organizations have sought for differentiating themselves in the construction of a strong brand, with its own identity face to the competitors to obtain competitive advantages. The brand can interfere positively in this differentiation, reducing the uncertainty of the consumer on the choice of goods and services (SCHARF & KRAUSE, 2013).

Therefore, public institutions also have the opportunity of using marketing on their behalf to fortify its brand and its identity. It is not because they are public organs that they cannot do it. Silva (2015) states that on the public sector, the needs and expectancies that need to be met are from the citizens, also by benefits, however, they are formatted in terms of products and/or public services that aim the development of the citizen’s social and economic well- being, without earning profits by part of public organizations. According to the author, public marketing is one the named new “reinterpretations” of the market concept, that serves as a support not only to its appliance on public politics but also from the need of implementing a philosophy of marketing in the public sector.

Silva (2015) defends that although little applied on the public administration in the country, marketing strategies practices allow setting public policies and implementing them, on the seek for minimizing conflicts and mediating existing relations between the ones that offer public services – public organizations – and the ones that demand – citizens – in a way to harmonize them. The author emphasizes that “once the satisfaction of needs of the consumers from the public sector is inherently more difficult to be found due to the peculiar characteristics of the services”

. According to this author, the intangible character hampers tests and measures before being offered. While the products satisfy the consumers’ needs through their physical and tangible characteristics, the service production demands more from the professional of the public sector. On his view, such differences generate variability on the service composition, and on average, results beyond the expectancy.

Lara and Gosling (2014) claim that there are concepts and methodologies from the relationship marketing that can be transported from the private sector and applied to the public sector in a way to improve the relationship between government and citizens. The authors Frutuoso and Porsionato (2016) assert that marketing on the public sector is an effective tool from social programs divulgation directed to several classes of the population, capable of spreading services that the community looks forward in a determined space of time, aiming public welfare. For these authors, the importance of using marketing tools on the promotion of social programs lead to the knowledge of the population the existent programs in which the citizen has rights and enables the implantation of new programs that lessen social problems; for this it is necessary to develop good disclosure marketing on social networks, folders, radio, newspapers, and official press. The authors remember that the role of marketing in a public organ is similar to the one in a commercial sector, i.e., establish the necessities of several audiences, develop adequate products and services, organize their distributions and effective communication, as well as reach the objective of satisfying the client.

Bueno (2009) argues that the organizations engage themselves in forming an identity, working on the way they want to be seen and perceived, but not necessarily the identity will have relation to the image

- or the images, and the organization’s reputations. This author also exposes that the identity of an organization can be understood as the organization’s “personality” because it is intrinsically related to culture and global management process, encompassing the managing philosophy, technical or innovate competence (BUENO, 2009).

On the same perspective, Santos (2006) emphasizes that the brands have personalities that are attributed by the users. The author claims that the HEIs also have personality, because they seek for the personalities’ identification of the undergraduates with a determined HEI brand, and several times, it is responsible for the demand of this institutions and its prestige on the market. On reference to the functions expected from the institution, Sá-Chaves (2007), highlights that there are two main functions. Firstly, there is the formation related to citizens and to the process of development on the course of life. Secondly, there is the production and diffusion of knowledge, based on the investigation, which aims to promote the process of seeking for understanding and intelligibility of the reality that surrounds the individuals. Thus, it searches for knowing the self in the complex individuality and in the collectivity, forged on the several relations undertook with the world, which is at the same full of fascination and of a certain inaccessibility to the full understanding.

Santos (2006) claims that private HEIs exercise influence of their “brands” and perceptions, that courses and careers are products and their valorization by the market aims to be the main objective. He adds that schools became clients of publicity and advertisement companies and all the means and ways of communication disposed by the agencies on the capturing and maintain students and on the seek for an image of excellence along with the society.

Yet, according to Santos (2006), HEIs’ brands are worked by publicity presenting associations of pedagogical excellence, efficacy on the professional formation and guarantee of insertion on the job market. Besides these values, collateral aspects are highlighted, such as technological resources, amenities on the conviviality on the campus, the possibility of establishing new friendship bolds and/or a professional network.

Seeking for institutional quality, Chapelo (2007; 2011), states that the objective of the brand management at a HEI is to clarify the reason of institution existence, as well as its position, communicating competitive advantages, highlighting its reputation and increasing its awareness.

To clarify the reason of the existence of the institution, Chevalier (2007, p. 123) states that “the identity of a brand refers to the capacity of a brand being recognized as unique overtime, without confusing, due to the elements that individualize it” . The goal of the campaign analyzed on this study was to clarify and fortify the correct use of the nomenclature in order to not be confused with any other institution and, mainly, to obtain the advantages of the “name/brand” of its maintainer, which was already nationally renowned.

Fortifying the name by an identity marketing campaign can be proved by Machado (2011,p.35), when the author mentions that the “identity of an organization is expressed by the name, brand logo, slogan/motto, people, products, services, installments, uniforms and other pieces that provide visibility and that are created and communicate to several audiences”.

To identify and communicate the competitive advantages of an institution it may resort to a brand and/or name that appeal to the audience. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA, 2017), a brand is a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”.

All institution has an image that can be positive or negative, and according to Bueno (2009), the image contemplates the mental representation of an organization, that can be built both individually and collectively, in contribution with the individual perceptions and the perceptions experienced with the organization. The author also points out that this image has cognitive, affective and evaluative characteristics, which may result in a misinterpretation of the identity of the organization, where these negative or erroneous results can be worked through marketing campaigns which will emphasize and communicate its positive side.

According to Pinho’s (1990) perspective “the job of the institutional communication aims to develop a personality, enabling its divulgation as a whole and in itself” . Thus, the image will always be in construction, and it is perceived that there is no final formula, because institutional communication is responsible for the construction and formatting of an intended image and a strong and positive image, which aims to conquer the credibility and reliability of the concerned audience. The image of an organization is its greater heritage. It is the perception that its different audiences have on their products and services and about its structure. “The cares with image and identity are determiners to the creation or maintenance of a good reputation of any organization” (BITTENCOURT, 2009, p. 28).

According to Brum (1994, p.21) “the internal audience has to be worked in order to have conditions to transfer to the external audience everything that the company better has and that is being improved in terms of process and products” , because of the reflex that a good internal image provides the best engagement of everybody. From everybody’s engagement in the identity marketing campaign, it is possible to enable the own internal audience to help in the divulgation and promotion of the correct use of the nomenclature and on lead this.

Based on Bueno (2009) apud Uchôa (2014) there are some considerations to be done about the intended image, the real image, and the self-image; highlighting that the first one is about the reading or interpretation that an organization would like to receive from people, groups or society as a whole; the real image, in contraposition, is the one that effectively it is had about her; the self-image is associated with the image of an organization constituted by its internal audiences.

Finally, Bueno (2009) is concerned about the last aspect considered on the formation of the triad identity/image/reputation, which permeates the eternal debate about perception and reality in the relation organization x audience that interests it. The author claims that reputation is an organizational representation more solid, even that such an image is a fruit of a perception and mental synthesis, encompassing the characteristic of being an organization reading clearer and deeper. Image and reputation are elements that are concerned with the manner the institution is perceived, and the organization cultivates the eager of both being positive.

So, in agreement with Frutuoso e Porsionato (2016), it is claimed that it is necessary to demonstrate the use of the marketing tool to inform the population about the social programs in their cities, and when they need some physical or social support, they can have this support and governmental programs. For the authors, it is possible the training of the collaborators on the public sector, related to planning, researching and implementing projects that are the fundamental basis that cannot be missed. Although, it is necessary a public marketing more efficient that leads to the local population’s knowledge the social programs existents and stimulates the implantation of new projects desired by the community.

The current article used essentially quantitative procedures with a quantitative analysis approach and had as research field the unit of a public university located in a city in the interior of the State.

The research can be considered a study case, which had as objective to verify and to diagnose if the campaign of an identity project contributed to the visual identity and to the image of an institution.

The research was applied to servers and students of the analysis unit, and still to the residents of the city where the unit is located. The study case is “a research study that focuses on the dynamics understanding, present in a unique environment” (EISENHARDT, 1989, p. 534).

For the data collection, it was used a structured questionnaire, with open and closed questions, applied to 91 servers and 67 students, and yet, it was performed an interview with the person in charge of the identity campaign of the unit; finally, it was applied a questionnaire to 200 residents from the city where the university takes place. About the choice of the residents, it was selected a diverse profile, including both sexes, age, profession, social class, and diverse residence places.

The appliance of this tool was performed in the dependences of the institution, and in the residence of the citizens during the period of April 15th, 2014 to May 30th, 2014, in order to cover all the sampling.

Regarding the data analysis, a quantitative method was adopted to analyze the objective and numeric data based on the frequency of the occurrence. This method enhanced that all collected data were codified in numerical categories, showing the situation of the specific moment or a period. After, the qualitative method was applied to analyze subjective data about the meaning of the phenomena, codifying, presenting them in a more structuralized manner and submitting them to appreciation and interpretation.

The phenomena interpretation “deepens the knowledge of reality because it explains the reason, the because of stuff” (GIL, 2010, p.28). On the next section, results obtained from the internal and external public from the unit of analysis will be presented.

It was considered the view of the external and internal community for the analysis of the results. The results found by the application of the survey to servers and students, the interview with the person in charge of the campaign configurated the internal view. The external view about the university’s images was configurated by the survey applied to citizens in the city where the unit is installed.