Leon County Schools launch rebranding with new logo, video, other marketing efforts

Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna presented a new district logo and marketing video during a school board meeting Tuesday evening to kick off a district-wide rebranding campaign.

In a $100,000 contract with local marketing firms BowStern Marketing Communications and Hammerhead Communications, the school district gets a new logo and marketing campaign video, a website redesign and marketing plans for social media and other communications.

District spokesperson Chris Petley said the facelift has been years in the making to present the district as a "competitor" with private and charter schools, and to help recruit and retain both students and teachers.

Hanna told the board he was excited about the new marketing campaign and that the timing was perfect. He said during the fall semester of 2019, the district began discussing plans to combat competition as charter and private school voucher options were expanding.

"We started having conversations internally and externally about our school district and the challenges that we were facing with the expansion of charter schools and vouchers going to private schools," Hanna said of the plan that was ultimately set aside as the pandemic closed campuses.

In summer 2023, as private school vouchers began picking up traction across the state, the district returned to its rebranding conversations.

In the new video narrated by former LCS Superintendent Bill Montford, the district is described as "the clear choice for excellence in education."

"It's dated and, as some people say, it's tired," Hanna said of the district's brand and classic blue LCS logo. "It's well past time that we do a refresh."

School Board member Marcus Nicolas called the campaign a "brilliant approach," to hear from parents across the county and use their voices for a new focus. The board's vice chair Laurie Cox said she was impressed with the campaign, especially the drastic logo change, since the original was used for decades.

"I like it and the more I've thought about it and the intentionality of it, it is exciting, and it is time for us to rebrand what we do, and we do some amazing things in Leon County Schools," Cox said.

The five lines of the logo represent each district, and the different colors stand for diversity. They are formed in a trapezoidal shape to reflect the outline of Leon County, with a star in the center for the commitment to focus on the individual student and academic excellence.

The two priorities of BowStern and Hammerhead were to "create a brand rooted in strong and compelling values," and initiate "a campaign that positions LCS as the clear choice for students, parents and teachers by touting its unique benefits."

BowStern and Hammerhead were hired in August 2023 for the marketing campaign.

"BowStern really has a focus on helping build our local community," said Caroline Benson, a spokesperson for the firm. "That's why we love to work with clients and organizations, including Leon County Schools, to help build the area where we all live."

Skip Foster, CEO of Hammerhead and a former published of the Tallahassee Democrat, said he looks forward to helping the district move forward competitively.

"We're all products of public schools and want to see them do well," Foster told the Democrat. "Public schools are in a competitive environment and they are going to have to market and compete to win and we look forward to helping them do that."

The district's challenge was to address the evolving competitive marketplace of education and its approach, was to collect data from parents. The district released a branding survey, built by BowStern, to parents in October 2023 and analyzed results for their top five concerns:

• Academic excellence

• A focus on the individual

• Innovation

• Nurturing environments

• Diversity

Leon Classroom Teachers Association President Scott Mazur said he hopes the district's rebrand will also bring about new practices and policies.

"The logo could be the starting point," Mazur said. "If our goal is to make sure that we are accentuating what we're doing well in our schools, and that we are providing the environment that these parents have said they want to see, then we have to put in place practices that make that happen."

The new brand rollout began after the announcement at the meeting with an updated website. Marketing campaign materials will be released in the following weeks.

Hanna said the district will launch an enrollment campaign to introduce the community to its new vision as parents begin to enroll their students ahead of the new school year.

Of course, many people don't like change, as could be seen in the social media reaction to the new logo. "Looks like something I’d doodle with my left foot," one person commented on the district's Facebook page.

Another questioned the $100,000 spent on the marketing campaign, saying "some of our talented high school art students definitely could have designed something for free."

To learn more

• Visit the website at www.leonschools.net/brand

Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County School District debuts new logo, video for rebranding