DEVELOPING a new logo and name for two of Oxfordshire’s colleges cost nearly £94,000, figures have revealed.

When Oxford and Cherwell Valley College Group (OCVC) became Activate Learning in November 2013 it was the result of months of work by marketing company Purpose.

Oxford Mail:

The new logo for City of Oxford College

A Freedom of Information request showed the invoices for the work totalled £93,742.

This included £13,878 on focus groups and polling, £12,792 on “brand DNA”, £9,160 on “refinement” and £4,350 on the name Activate Learning.

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Activate Learning did not respond to Oxford Mail requests to outline the meanings of “brand DNA” or “refinement”.

Mitchell Gage is a fashion student at City of Oxford College.

The 18-year-old, from Carterton, said: “It’s not worth it at all. Not much has actually changed, there are still departments that need money.

“In the art and fashion department we haven’t seen any change.”

But creative media production student Bryony Ward, 18, said: “It doesn’t really affect me and I don’t really mind that they spent it.

“It was probably worth it in the end.”

While the organisation has a turnover of £54m, as a further education corporation it receives public and private funding and is regulated by the Skills Funding Agency.

Purpose was chosen to complete the work by Activate after a formal tendering process.

The work resulted in the Oxpens Road and Blackbird Leys campuses being renamed as City of Oxford College and the other two county sites as Banbury and Bicester College.

Group director of marketing and communications Miriam Braham said the plans aimed to “more than double” the group’s turnover within four years.

She said: “A new [organisational] structure was required to achieve this, one that would mitigate reductions in central Government funding while maximising opportunities for growth.

“A new group structure was proposed, including developing a new group entity and re-organising the existing campuses of OCVC to create two new further education colleges. The total figure quoted reflects our work with Purpose across an 18-month period from 2012 to deliver significant pieces of work for the organisation.

“This work included extensive consultation with our staff, students and external partners to ensure that our development was in line with customers’ needs.

“In addition to the strategic branding for Activate Learning, Purpose continued to work as our design partner to develop the brand identities for the two new colleges and to support the marketing team to develop four new websites which were needed for launch.”

As well as the Oxfordshire colleges, Activate Learning Group manages Reading College, University Technical College Reading, three further education colleges in Saudi Arabia and workforce training company Activate Enterprise.

It is also leading the development of University Technical College Oxfordshire, set to open in Didcot in September 2015.


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