Marketing Approval Process

ABBEY: Thanks, everybody for coming.

All right. Today we're going to be talking
about marketing approvals.

The who, what, when, where
and why of marketing approvals.

And covering kind of the basics,
but also going a little bit more into

the purpose behind the university

wanting to get this approval
process rolling.

So... to start.

We want to cover today
who does approvals

what is required to get approval,
when you need to get approvals,

where you go to get approvals,
and why they're necessary.

So first of all, starting with "Who."

UMAC or university marketing
and communications, they're the people

who are tasked at the university
for managing the public image of USU.

They handle all marketing, advertising,
copywriting, public relations.

All of that goes to UMAC
and they approve it

before it's released to the public.

Um.

For Extension.

We have such a unique system
from the rest of the university,

and there are so many requests
that come in for Extension that they

actually delegated to the Extension
marketing team that approval process

so that it could be faster
for all of the Extension employees.

And because we have unique branding
and unique...

and unique audience compared
to the rest of the university, however,

they still maintain the approvals process
for all clothing and merchandise.

So that's why
when you're creating t shirts,

when you're creating aprons,
or when you're creating

like pens, glasses, mugs,
that all still goes through UMAC,

just because those are 1,
more expensive items

and 2, because those require university
branding about 99.9% of the time.

But anything else goes to the Extension
marketing team.

So all other items are emailed to me.

And all you do
is send me a quick little email.

And we'll go over what
to include in that email.

But, um...

if your request is not swag or merch,

then you can always
just send over a quick email.

Pretty simple.

What is required to get approval?

So what are we going to loo-

what am I looking for, when you're sending
in those requests?

Um.

In order to get approval,

you just need to have the current
and updated USU Extension logo.

To this day, I still get a few old logos

every now and then when I'm
getting requests for marketing approvals.

And that's one of the first things
that I look for when I open up a document.

So make sure that you're
including that updated logo.

And when you're doing events,
make sure that your

ven- the vendor or the host of the event
has the updated logo,

because sometimes those vendors
are still using our old logos.

Um.

If your flier or document

or marketing material has over
30 words on it,

it does require the university
equal opportunity statement,

and that can be located
on the marketing website.

If it's over 3 pages,

then it requires
the extended version of that statement.

But if it's under three pages,
you can use the shortened version.

For USU,

I'm also looking for
USU Extension branding.

So what I mean by that is,
if you take that flier or

marketing material that you've created
and you hung it up across the room

and looked at it,
it would still have like the colors

overwhelmingly of Utah State
or Extension.

So, um.

Yes, Amanda, you raised your hand?

Let's see here.

Let me give you permission.

All right. You should be able
to ask your question.

AMANDA: No,
that was completely accidental, I'm sorry.

Keep going. Sorry.

ABBEY: Oh okay- no worries, you're good.

Okay, um.

For USU.

The other thing I'm looking for
for USU Extension branding is that

you have mostly USU Extension
brand colors on your item.

And it's in line with our brand guide.

That's- that one's a little bit looser.

Again, it's just mostly
if it's far away, like,

you know, don't be using U of U red

on as, like, the main color.

As long as you're not doing that, you're
you're probably good in that area.

Um.

I'm also making sure there's no grammar
or spelling errors.

Correct spacing.

So when I say that, what I mean is
sometimes there'll be on fliers,

the words will go from edge
to edge of the paper,

and in printing
those words will be cut off.

So I always make sure that there's
a good margin so that we don't have

cut off issues.

For permission,

we gotta make sure that we have permission
to use all images, icons or likenesses.

So for example, um,
we can't use,

you know, trademarked items,
like if you wanted to put the Apple logo

on a flier, that would be a problem

because you don't have permission
to use it.

This also includes likenesses so,
if you don't have-

if you're using a picture of a person

and they have not given you
their explicit permission in writing

to use that image of themselves
to promote

anything, we can get in trouble.

So we gotta make sure that we have
permission.

And then, of course, no plagiarism.

So when is approval required?

Any time that you're purchasing materials
with USU money or grant money.

Basically,
if you're buying a marketing material

without like- that, with any money at all,

it needs approval.

Um.

That includes
whether or not you've included

any sort of logo on it, that includes
if it's just a silly little

tag for something.

Um.

If you're needing to use your P-card
to pay for it then,

or your index number to pay for it,
then you need to get it approved.

There are two exceptions though,
and there are only two.

The first one is if you're printing it
in your county office,

on your county office, printer.

Um.

Then that doesn't require approval.

Or 4-H belt buckles, which i-
this one's new.

4-H belt buckles
no longer require approval.

And I'll go into a little more detail
on that, but just keep that in mind.

And then I have,

about half of the counties right now
have this in their offices.

About half of them don't.

As I've been doing my tour of Utah,
I'm trying to bring 'em around

to all of the counties, but we have our
marketing approvals cheat sheet,

and that has a list of every

single thing that you could possibly need
to get marketing approval for.

It's pretty extensive.

Um.

And so if you ever have questions,
you can refer back to that sheet

and check to see if approval is required
and who to get that approval from.

And I will show that at the very end.

Okay. "Where."

Where do you get approval?
Again, for clothing and merchandise,

you go to the art submission form.

If any of you don't have that link,
let me know.

But it is on that marketing
approvals cheat sheet.

But it's just on-

if you go to,
extension.usu.edu/employee/marketing

there is a big blue button
that says "Art Submission Form."

And if you follow the directions
after clicking that button,

you'll be able to
put in your request to UMAC

for your clothing
or merchandise request.

For everything else,
you're just going to email me.

There's my email and I- all I need
is your name, what county you're in.

Usually that's in your email signature
anyways,

and then an image or mock up of the item.

So if it's a flier or a banner
or something huge, I do ask that

you try to do a PDF just so that
I can see the whole thing together.

Sometimes I'll get files
that are ginormous and I can only see like

"this much" of the picture.

Um.

So try to send it in a PDF.

If you have a JPEG,
if- a, a JPEG or JPG is totally fine.

If it's a ribbon request
or a metal request,

um,

for4-H especially this,
this kind of applies there.

You can just take a screenshot
of the verbiage.

They'll usually give you a sheet
that says,

y'know, everything
that's going to be printed on the ribbon.

And sometimes they'll have a mock up
of an example ribbon.

You can send me a screenshot of that
sheet.

And that works great.

I do have some example pictures here,

of a request- request example.

So this is a request example
over here in the top left corner,

where they just sent in,
they attached the image

and then it's a really quick,
"Hey, this is where we're at,

this is who made this,
can you approve it?"

And it was a perfect example of a request.

I was able to approve it really quickly.

Um.

This one in the top right
corner is one where

there was actually a mistake
that we found a couple times.

And I just want you to know if there's
ever something that I can't approve over.

I'll just send you a quick email
saying like, "Oh, I- looks like there's

a spelling error," or,
"Oh, looks like you've gotta

switch out the logo."

Um.

It's nothing scary or crazy and
you're never in trouble.

It's it's just good to have a second
pair of eyes right.

And then, in the bottom left corner,

we've got an example of a ribbon request.

So, you can see here
they've got the kind of example ribbon

and then all the words
that are going to be put on the ribbon.

And essentially what I'm doing here
is I'm checking to make sure

that there are no spelling errors
every now and then, like the word county

is missing a letter or,

4-H is missing a hyphen.

And those are things that,
we want to catch, right?

Before we're sending 'em out.

So that's why
I ask that you send that screenshot.

But it is a pretty quick
and simple process,

and we're trying to keep it
as simple and easy as possible.

All right.
And then, "Why do we even get approvals?"

Um.

These are really like the number one
big main reasons.

There are a lot of other reasons though.

But first and foremost, it's
to protect the visual identity

of USU Extension.

Y'know, we want to try to help, to
make sure that we're presenting a uniform

look in all of our marketing,
so that people can easily recognize

not just that
your event is associated with Extension,

but also so that people are seeing
how often Extension

is out in the community
and how much we're actually doing here

in Utah
to make a positive impact on our state.

So the more we can have
a clear visual identity, the easier

it will be for people
to identify us out and about.

The second most important reason
is to protect university

from funds from purposeful
or accidental misuse.

I'm sure some of you are aware of,

some of the financial stuff

that's been coming out of USA recently.

And, you know, they're trying to close up
all those loopholes to make sure

that they're protecting the university
and also protecting employees

and having that good checks and balances
system in place.

It's also to protect us

and employees
from potential fines and legal action

that can be associated
with plagiarism, trademark infraction,

copyright infringement and other,
you know,

intellectual property rights.

You know, as a nonprofit

organization and as a university,

we do get a lot of privileges.

For example, when we're using cert,
we for educational purposes,

that where we're
not making any money, we can

we can use certain

images and we have some leeway in some in

marketing that,

most other for profit
organizations don't have.

And so we want to make sure

that we are acting with integrity,
with those special privileges.

And, you know, not

abusing those rights.

Right. So,

that's why we ask. Please
be extra careful.

And that's why, you know,
those are things that I check

for personally
when I'm getting those requests.

Next, it's
to comply with federal standards.

So because we're a land grant university
and our money is

we're funded federally,

attached to that are certain requirements.

And one of them is that we're, you know,
an equal opportunity organization.

And so that's why that EEO statement
is required

on all of our larger documents.

And they actually

do do audits,
checking for this every year.

We just had one this past January
where they went through

and we had to provide all of the marketing
materials for all of 2023 and submit it,

and like this big file
to our auditing system.

And they went through
and made sure that the EEO statement

was on all of those marketing materials,
and they made sure that it showed

it accurately depicted an organization

that was welcoming to everyone in Utah.

And if we don't meet those requirements,
we get fined

if we or
we can potentially lose our our funding.

So that's one of the reasons
why we're checking for that.

In your statements so thoroughly.

Additionally, as,

an organization
that runs for programs for each

has it's a federally protected trademark
for for each clover.

And because of that,
there are stricter guidelines

to how it can be used
and what how we're allowed to use it.

And if we don't meet those guidelines,
which they do check periodically

and they don't tell us when they check,
but if we don't meet those guidelines,

they can actually revoke our right
to use any for branding

and basically make it
so that we can't run for programs anymore.

So that's why we're also checking
to make sure you know that for each

has that hyphen, because that's actually
one of the requirements of,

the for each

branding team is you have to have
that type in between for each.

And that's why I'm always looking
to make sure the clover is unobstructed

and doesn't have any images
overlapping or too close to it,

because those are requirements
of the federal trademark.

And then lastly, again, it's to ensure
we maintain the privilege.

It's kind of to us
as a grant funded organization.

So it is a privilege
that we get our grant money.

It's a privilege that we have the right
to run these four programs.

And we want to make sure that we are,

you know, representing them well and,

you know, keeping the US-Uk center name,

associated
very positively in all those areas.

So I said that I would go over

the marketing approvals cheat sheet.

So some of you have seen
a version of this,

in a flier form already.

But this is what we'll be going around
to all of the counties.

So if you don't have a gate, feel
free to scan this QR code.

And it'll open you up to

the marketing cheat sheet.

And I'm going to go ahead and switch

my screen over to that really quick.

So let's see here.

There we go.

Okay,

we're really zoomed in.

Let me zoom out.

Okay, so as you can see, this is

that quick little cheat sheet.

If you ever have to print

anything with your card,
you could go over here and just check

on, okay, fliers,
posters and banners like, what am I?

What am I about to print?

Who is it required to get approval
or who does it,

and then who you need to email or here's
that service

now request form
the clothing and merchandise request form.

It's linked right here.

So you can just click that right
open and get the approval. So

this should make it

super easy.

Does anybody have any questions

about this right now.

I do have a real question now

what about plaques to those require?

Yes, I will add that to the medals
and ribbons.

Okay.

Because we had one the other day
and I was like,

I don't see it on there,
but I'm pretty sure it requires approval.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Yep.

Anybody else have any questions?

Okay, cool.

We're not seeing any.

All right.

Additionally, on this page,
you'll also see information

about the extension marketing team
and what we can all help you with.

So if you have a marketing request,

that's not necessarily an approval,
but just need help with something.

Or if you're working on an approval and

you need to go back and fix something,
these are the people

in the

extension marketing team
who can help you out.

And how to get in contact with them.

And then last on this
little marketing help

logo, here is all of the trainings
that we have coming up.

And one of them
will, the next one after this October

shooting
photos and videos will be on branding.

And we'll go more in detail
on the branding.

But, so if any of you have additional
branding questions about

your items that you're getting approved,
you can attend that training.

Or of course, you can email me.

And I'm happy to do one on one meetings.

But that kind of covers all of approvals.

And I'm hoping that that answers
and clears up any questions

that people have had.

I do want to say one thing that I've had
some people say is

they've said, well, can we just get like,
marketing approval certified?

Can I just like,
learn what you're learning and

just, like,

approve are all of our offices
marketing materials?

And, well, that would be ideal.

And maybe it would make things
a little bit faster for your offices.

It kind of defeats the purpose of that
checks and balances system.

I was talking about when we were
going over the why and, again, like,

like I said, it's the it's not just to be
an extra hoop to jump through.

It's not just to make sure things
look pretty.

It's genuinely to help protect
where university money is going.

And making sure that we're

all aligned
and all of that marketing is uniform.

And because things change,
it would just be too difficult

to manage a marketing.

What was it called?

You know, marketing certification
across all of extension

and all of extension employees?

But I hope that clears things up.

And again,
if you have any other questions,

don't hesitate to email us or email me.

And then I'm happy to do again
those one on one trainings.

If anybody should have
any additional questions.

But thank you guys
so much for attending this morning.

And, have a great rest of your day.

We'll see you guys later
and I'll see your approval soon.