The U of M announced a major initiative to re-evaluate its sports and recreation brands, including the Bisons — which have not been updated in nearly 25 years, Mini U programs, junior Bisons and U of M recreation services. 

According to a university-wide email that was sent to the community on Oct. 23, the review process will assess the relevance of the sports and recreation brands to today’s students and the university’s community, while ensuring alignment with the institutional brand introduced in 2019.

Douglas Brown, dean of the faculty of kinesiology and recreation management stated that the reason for this initiative “is because the university as a whole has gone through a brand reimagining, renewal over the last three or four years.”

However, he clarified some confusion surrounding the topic. “We are not changing the brand,” Brown said. “You can’t simply change a brand, overnight, so we’re really viewing this as a sort of an exploration of how impactful our current branding is.”

He continued, “I don’t want people to be confused that the Bison logo is the brand — the brand is about the people, the values and about what we do.”

Brown also addressed certain perceptions surrounding the renewal. 

He said, “I’d like the renewal to make sense, if there are adaptations or changes to the current logo or other symbols associated with it — I’d like it to make sense within the context of what the university is doing as a whole.”

 Furthermore, Brown expressed that he recognizes the strong bond that current students, alumni and sport members have built with the current Bisons brand and logos.

He added, “our alumni are very important, and we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, so any renewal has to make sense within that historical context.” 

However, the reality is that symbols associated with sports change consistently.

He said, “if you look at [professional] sports and the iconography around them, it’s always evolving in some way or another, and that would be my goal, is to see our brand evolve, not stop and start.”

Brown hopes that the renewal of the brand is embraced among students, staff and the overall university community in their environment. He said, “I’d like students to go, ‘I love the way the University of Manitoba is being represented. I love this, or I love that, or I feel connected to this.’”

When asked how he would measure the success of the new brand, Brown said “it will be a measure that we get from the community, people who are either thumbs up, ‘we like that,’ or ‘we don’t get it,’ or ambivalence. I think the worst thing would be ambivalence, that people [have] no reaction. It’s hard to work with ambivalence.”

An online survey that closed on Nov. 3 was conducted to gather insight about the university’s sports and recreation brands.

To stay up to date with the brand review initiative, visit umanitoba.ca/about-um/brand/reimagining-um-sport-and-recreation-brands during the upcoming months for updates.