ROER College Schöndeln is a merger of two high schools with very different images. They wanted to learn from each other and make each other stronger, and to be seen as one new school - where everyone can find their own way and gets the opportunity to design their own future. For ROER College Schöndeln, Chapters set out the strategy, created the brand story and branding, activated the brand, and set up a yearly recruitment campaign. The new identity created by Chapters turned the new school into a household name within the region and beyond.
Bringing together two separate parties is more than creating a joint identity. It’s about aligning their norms and values, about the entire management moving in the same direction.
Through a major strategic preliminary process, we formed the new school and worked together on their new story, values, goals and wishes. The process brought together the people behind the school. The goal was to substantively define the identity of the new school with clear brand values and a clear brand promise - and to translate it into one powerful brand concept.
Getting everyone involved on the same page gave us the ability to form a unifying identity.
It’s not a merger of two identities, but a whole new, fresh identity.
Mergers and changes cause agitation, not only with management, but with students too.
By involving the students in the process, we created support for them with a step-by-step plan
for brand activation - starting the communication with a color palette that combined both corporate identities and developing the brand communication into the new identity.
We started with both schools as communication outlets and increasingly worked towards the new name, with the two existing identities disappearing.
The concept is designed to gradually visualise the new identity, for which Chapters decided on the name ROER College Schöndeln. Through the brand activation campaign, we allowed viewers to become increasingly accustomed to the name - revealing the new name without literally naming it:
Chapters built up the new name ROER College Schöndeln. A difficult aspect is to find a name in which everyone can find recognition. Through our strategy and concept, we created a connection between the new name, the management, and the students - creating acceptance and positive attitude towards the merger.
During the merger, Chapters took over the social platforms to continue the dialog with the students.
Ultimately, the teachers and students became the face of the campaign.
The design of the new identity of ROER College Schöndeln is colourful, young, and playful.The signature style photography of ROER College Schöndeln shows students in their world. Students as they are, not necessarily in a school environment. We find the individuality in the images by photographing them from interesting perspectives and choosing atypical crops in post-production.
The colors used in the visual identity are intended to bring the brand to life in all its facets. We link the colors to the basic typographical elements in order to claim a system from which all communication carriers in all their diversity can emerge.
The versatile rollout of the ROER College Schöndeln branding, just like the strategic preliminary phase, is an intensive process that we tackle together with ROER College Schöndeln in a transparent and phased manner. We have been their proactive communication partner since 2019. In parallel with the renewal of the brand experience, we will continue to work on recruitment campaigns, commercials, brochures, flyers, and anything connected to educational communication.
