The Marketing and Brand team provides university-wide leadership and strategic expertise across marketing, brand and digital engagement. We develop and steward strategies that:
- advance ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ institutional priorities,
- strengthen its reputation, and
- help audiences understand, engage with, and choose ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´.
Our work spans marketing and growth strategy and advisory, brand strategy and governance, digital experience and analytics, marketing technology, and the responsible use of AI in marketing.
We work with leaders and teams across ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ to translate institutional priorities and audience needs into effective strategies, campaigns, audience journeys, experiences, platforms, and capabilities.
Marketing and Growth Strategy and Advisory
We provide university-wide marketing and growth strategy and strategic advice in support of ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ priorities and audiences. Our work brings together:
- audience and market insight,
- positioning,
- growth marketing and audience journeys,
- integrated marketing and campaign strategy,
- channel strategy,
- measurement, and
- marketing effectiveness.
We work with university leaders and teams to identify marketing and growth opportunities, clarify audiences and objectives, and determine how brand, marketing and digital capabilities can best support institutional goals.
Brand Strategy, Governance, and Visual Identity
We steward ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ institutional brand strategy and the frameworks that help the university express its brand consistently, distinctively, and effectively. Our work includes brand strategy and positioning, brand governance, visual identity, creative and campaign guidance, and tools and resources that support the application of the ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ brand across audiences and channels.
The ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ Visual Identity Guide provide a flexible and consistent framework to express the many facets of the university. These guidelines help us to articulate our story, to tell it with greater consistency, and to share it more effectively through an accessible, digital-first approach.
The Visual Identity Guide and other brand resources are found on our Brand Central website.
Marketing Technology and Responsible AI
We provide strategic direction for marketing technology, digital experience, analytics and related marketing platforms, working in partnership with IT Services and other university teams. Our focus is on using technology and data to strengthen audience experience, growth, marketing effectiveness, measurement and informed decision-making.
We also advance the responsible application of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and digital operations. This includes exploring how AI can improve quality, accessibility, brand consistency and digital experiences while maintaining appropriate governance, human oversight and accountability.
Web Publishing
UR and IT Services are partners in providing Queen's centrally-supported content management system (CMS) for websites, known as the "WebPublish Service." Broad adoption of this CMS across faculties, departments, and service units ensures an accessible, aligned, and branded user experience across Queen's online presence.
WebPublish offers many options for formatting content across four tiers of service – Comprehensive, Custom, For Developers, and Academia – at no cost. If you need help with a new website project or want to improve an existing WebPublish site, the Marketing and Brand team can help.
Digital Asset Management
University Relations adopted a digital asset management (DAM) solution —available through IT Services as an enterprise-wide tool for marketing and communication teams across campus — to store, tag, manage, and share digital assets all in one place.
Using this tool, University Relations has curated a collection of images as "." Employees (faculty, staff and student-staff) can login with their NetID and search through a variety of campus images to use in Queen's marketing materials. Other teams are enabled to curate and share collections representing their specific areas.
Website Governance
The Queen's Website Governance Committee, co-chaired by UR and ITS Services, includes representative from all areas of the university. The committee aims to:
- encourage a unified, consistent approach and compliance with best practices for publishing online,
- clarify and processes and responsibilities for creating and managing ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ public-facing digital content,
- facilitate greater collaboration on digital projects,
- align user experience across ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ websites to strengthen ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ brand.
Best Practices for User Experience
There is a lot to think about when trying to create great web content: how to use semantic html, how to write and format text for reading online, how to ensure accessibility, how to optimize images, how to structure URLs, how to managing links and redirects, and how to customize your metadata.
We can help you better understand these concepts so you can optimize your WebPublish for better search engine results and improve your site's user experience (UX) overall.
Analytics and Insights Initiatives
The University Relations uses quantitative and qualitative methods to measure and analyze ºÚÁϳԹÏ×ÊÔ´ main digital properties, such as websites, social media profiles, newsletters, and campaigns.
We leverage our insights to inform decision making in marketing, communication, design, user experience, and content development.
Digital Skills Training
UR offers workshops for staff and faculty to enhance their digital communication skills. The workshops are geared to people already publishing information through a websites CMS, but no prior experience is necessary to participate. Refer to the for current offerings of the following digital skills workshops:
- Digital Skills: HTML for Beginners
- Writing for the Web: Crafting engaging, searchable, and inclusive content
