What an exciting time at Washburn University! Fall enrollment is up – setting a new record of 7,303 students on Washburn’s main campus and beating the previous record of 7,261 students in fall 2005. The University’s latest enrollment number includes a 6.2% increase in high school graduates enrolled at Washburn. The incoming freshmen Ichabods will also be a part of Washburn’s sesquicentennial celebration in 2015.

jhP is especially proud of Washburn’s accomplishments because we had the opportunity to help the University with its re-branding efforts that led up to the fall enrollment period. The new Washburn brand illustrates prestige, heritage and pride, and the emphasis on the Washburn mascot – the Ichabod – has generated a lot of positive feedback.

Not only do incoming students resonate with the prestige of “being an Ichabod,” we have heard from alumni who truly appreciate the renewed enthusiasm the re-branding efforts have sparked. Mark Nordstrom, President of the Ichabod Scholarship Fund, shared with us the excitement generated among fellow alumni about the re-designed alumni magazine.

“It’s fantastic to see how Washburn alumni, students, faculty and staff have a rejuvenated sense of pride about being an Ichabod and a part of the Washburn community,” he said. “We’ve always had a strong sense of pride, but now people are talking about it again. The work jones huyett Partners is doing for the University has played a big part in that.”

jhP applauds Washburn’s recent successes and is grateful for the opportunity to be a partner during such an exciting time at the University. We look forward to watching the next four years unfold, culminating in Washburn’s 150th anniversary in 2015. jhP is glad to celebrate Ichabod pride!

It’s crunch time at jhP! We’re working feverishly to get our booth together for the Chamber Business Expo on Tuesday, October 27. Even Accounts Payable is feeling the pinch. Some of the partners are foregoing breakfast in order to have enough time in the day, while others are harnessing their “super powers” to get the job done!

We can be as creative and as outlandish as we want to when we work on our own self-promotion and this year’s Chamber Expo booth will be no exception. We wouldn’t simply dream up a theme, put out some brochures and call it good. No, we have to design a booth that will captivate and inspire attendees, educate them on our multitude of marketing services and then deliver the creative juice that leaves them wanting more! That’s a tall order. I’m not sure even Superman could fill those shoes…

We promise to wet your marketing and advertising appetite with our tasty display. Visit us at the Chamber Business Expo on Tuesday, October 27 from 1 pm to 5 pm at the Ramada Inn.

Please help us re-brand Visit Topeka, Inc and be entered into our giveaway drawing!

The short survey will take about five minutes. Upon completion, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for a free hotel package including: a one night stay at Senate Luxury Suites, a lavender sachet, two Ghost Tour tickets, $10 off at Brick Oven Courtyard Grille, two tickets to Great Overland Station and scratch-off tickets to Jersey Mike’s.

The winner will be drawn Monday, June 15. The winner will be contacted directly by phone and email, and will be announced via Twitter and the jhP Facebook Fan Page.

Click here to get started.

Thank you for your time!

On those Extreme Makeover shows, it’s fun when the family says, “Wow! You look so terrific, we almost wouldn’t recognize you!” But what if the makeover was SO extreme that the baffled husband said, “… who are you?” And the kids cried, “Where’s our mommy?” That’s exactly what happened to PepsiCo’s Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice products.

After a major package redesign, Tropicana sales dropped a whopping 20% between January 1 and February 22, 2009, according to AdAge.com. To stop the bleeding, PepsiCo, the parent company of Tropicana, trashed the new look and rushed back to the old design. So what went wrong?

1.) PepsiCo underestimated the value of package recognition.

Consumers knew Tropicana by its look. But when the re–branded packaging was put next to other orange juice brands (Minute Maid, Dole, etc.) nothing said to the consumer, “Hey! It’s me, your old friend Tropicana!” The key design elements that made Tropicana packaging iconic to loyal customers were either muted or missing. Consumers no longer recognized their favorite drink. They assumed it was gone and simply grabbed another brand.

2.) The redesign was too much too fast!

It’s often best to ease into a new logo or package design gradually. But Tropicana dove head first. The packaging changed so suddenly and radically that loyal customers looked right past it.

3.) The packaging was too generic.

Although the new packaging was attractive on the design board, it looked so bland on the shelf that it simply blended into the background. Loyal customers couldn’t distinguish between their favorite brand and generic orange juice brands.

4.) The new packaging made it hard to distinguish between varieties.

Whether you were looking for Tropicana’s No Pulp or Calcium variety, all the new packaging looked the same! Tropicana’s previous packaging had used different colors to successfully differentiate each variety. Even customers who figured out what Tropicana looked like now couldn’t find the taste they wanted.

On February 23, after losing millions of dollars in sales, PepsiCo announced they were ditching their new look and reverting to the previous package design. Clearly, they learned a valuable lesson or two. What would you have done differently if you were PepsiCo?

Last week was horrifically challenging for public relations executives at Amazon.com, Dominos and PepsiCo. Each company failed to respond in a timely manner to social media outcry to crises regarding company conduct or employee relations.

The week started with authors blaming Amazon.com for dropping their sales ratings from their popular website. Strangely, all sales rankings that disappeared were for books that discussed gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or erotic works. Accusations soared on the popular social networking website, Twitter, using the hashtag #AmazonFail so followers could track other comments on the situation. Amazon.com failed to respond until several days after the uproar began when they stated that this occurred due to a “computer glitch.” Offended parties were unimpressed with the excuse.

Following suit, Dominos takes the award for hardest fix when two employees released a YouTube video of themselves making a sandwich featuring crude, “secret” ingredients. The video later implies that the sandwich was served to a customer. Had Dominos been monitoring their brand more closely they could have had the video down in hours as opposed to a day. The two individuals who created the video have since been fired and are looking at a potentially hefty lawsuit. Below is an NBC Today Show segment featuring parts of the video. The original video is unavailable due to a copyright claim by Kristy Hammond, the woman featured in the video.

The week ended with another public relations crisis, this time at PepsiCo. As part of unveiling the new Yankee Stadium, PepsiCo, a stadium sponsor, held a promotional event that gave away free tickets to a Yankees game. Yankees fans joined in large numbers for a chance at the tickets and when fewer tickets were given out than promised, fans were mad! They demonstrated their anger by chanting “Pepsi Sucks!” while pouring cans of Pepsi into the gutter. In an attempt to redeem themselves, PepsiCo has set up another ticket giveaway with a local radio station – but not before the negativism had spread across social media networks.

With the rise in popularity of social media communities, the public can now comment instantly on brands, services and products. The lesson arising from these situations is that consumers demand immediate responses to their concerns. This makes it essential for companies to be familiar with various social media networks. If companies aren’t comfortable being involved in these communities yet, they should at least monitor their brands in these communities. By staying aware of what’s being said, companies can be positioned to prevent similar situations and – when they arise – to confront them directly, immediately and effectively.