LMS Branding - Beyond the Logo

Jun 21, 2016
LMS Branding - Beyond the Logo

As a new marketing person, I have a unique opportunity to engage our users, potential clients, and cohorts in the industry.

With this outlook, I have undertaken the task of trying to make the Gyrus name more entrenched in your everyday life. How does someone do that? Simple, by structuring and solely acting upon a living brand strategy. Currently, I’m undergoing the rebranding effort, you may notice little things here and there (including flashier images, more or fewer sales conscience verbiage in our writings, cooler product features, and more flawless logo integration). But there is so much more to this branding exercise. To Gyrus, not only do we want to provide you with the coolest and slickest option on the market, but it is also important for our product to feel like it is part of your living and breathing brand. Here’s how an LMS can accomplish that, beyond just the inclusion of your logo.

Colors

When you think of the largest brands in the world, you often subconsciously think of their logo or even their brand colors and how you associate with them. When you think of brands like Coca-Cola or Walmart, there is a clearly defined color palette that tends to circle around in your brain. The goal of an LMS is to ultimately serve your learning base with the best possible learning environment. A sub-goal of this functionality is to make the LMS as a whole feel like an everyday necessity that is part of the core offering of the organization. To do so, it may be important for your organization to stamp your brand colors on any portal that your internal employees, external clients, or stakeholders may get their hands on. If your brand colors are blue and green, it would be a little off-putting to see your logo on a portal that was only red or orange. What is your organizational requirement when it comes to this level of color in branding?

Fonts

As a company, we have started thinking about this. To some people, the font used in correspondence is the most important aspect of brand communication. Should I serif or not? When should I? Is it ever appropriate to use Comic Sans MS? To others, they may just be satisfied with whatever output their word kicks out as a default. If you’re the latter of those options, you’ll be surprised to learn that a growing trend in organizations, is to mandate font types across all branded communications. If your organization is constantly using Helvetica or Calibri, then an email comes across using Times New Roman or Arial, you would be sure to take notice as something would feel a little bit off in the manner in which things were being relayed to you. The same thing could potentially go in an LMS environment, could this feature be interesting to you as a prospective user?

Pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words. The picture might be worth a few more if it is a celebrity endorsing your product. Your organization has paid for these images, and as a result, you want to use them. At Gyrus, we are looking at creative ways to further your brand reach within your LMS without hindering the quality and speed of your system as a whole. Whether it be the inclusion of images in conventional locations or on output there are definitely visible methods of further relaying brand reach and make the environment friendlier to your usage base.

Organizational Language

How does your organization refer to learning objects? Are eLearnings really just “online stuff you need to know”? Are your employees really just “Dudes and Dudettes”? Are nachos really just crunchy triangles with toppings on them? Your LMS should reflect your brand language and how you refer to well, stuff. At Gyrus, we believe this has been an important aspect of your brand message for a long time, and will continue to allow you the flexibility to make our product sound like it is part your offering.

These are not the only components of potential branding capabilities of an LMS. Please continue to join me as I further investigate brand strategy in this unique marketplace.