Hello readers,

Every so often when talking about mobile apps, someone informs me of a project that a faculty/staff member or student is working on. On the one hand (from a marketing perspective) brand management and brand consistency can be tricky things to coordinate. We have to be very careful what messages we put out, what framing those messages have, and what the delivery method is. In other words, the ‘wild wild west’ approach to mobile apps can be problematic.

On the other hand, Chapman is a place where exploration, experimentation, and entrepreneurialism are welcome. Students in the marketing department, computer science department, etc. may be creating apps that do new and innovative things and we would not want to stifle this type of important learning.

Here is the solution.

  • As we create the new web site, we’ll also create an area… say www.chapman.edu/apps where all of the officially endorsed apps will be housed. This would be a smaller collection of apps that are properly branded, and are of professional quality.
  • At the same time, we’ll create an area… say www.chapman.edu/apps/labs where we post beta, student, and otherwise unofficial mobile apps for praise and feedback. If any of these applications were particularly loved by the University community, they could perhaps be tweaked and moved from /labs to /apps.

This takes care of clarifying endorsed apps verses ‘wild wild west’ apps.  It does not, however, solve the issue of brand management and consistency if the ‘wild wild west’ apps are in the app store and android marketplace alongside the official apps.  Because Chapman takes its brand management very seriously, we ask that Chapman’s name, logo, etc., not be used in experimental projects.  If the app gets promoted from /labs to /apps, it can be branded at that time.

Thank you for understanding that a strong Chapman brand is something that helps all of us, and I’m confident that we can reach an ideal compromise between educational exploration and disciplined online marketing.

Best,
-DM