Marketing updates take place at OTC, SPS

Last edited 5:11 p.m., Aug. 16, 2024 [Editor's note: Information about the SPS bidding process has been added.]

Marketing changes at Ozarks Technical Community College and Springfield Public Schools will impact the look and feel of the organizations moving forward, officials announced this week.

Ozarks Tech
At the Springfield-based community college, Ozarks Tech is now preferred over the OTC moniker, said Chancellor Hal Higdon.

He stopped short of calling the move a rebranding, noting Ozarks Technical Community College still would be used officially, with Ozarks Tech to be referenced when referring to the school informally.

"What we're doing is responding to what our students call the place," Higdon said this morning, offering an example of another higher education institution in town. "MSU is referred to as Missouri State. We're responding to our customers, to our students, who like Ozarks Tech better than OTC."

Ozarks Tech's Facebook page has quietly shifted to using the nickname in posts in recent weeks, though some references to OTC remain, most notably in its profile picture.

Springfield Business Journal reached out after the Springfield News-Leader posted an Aug. 14 article titled "Ozarks Technical Community College does not want to be known as OTC. Here's why." An official announcement by Ozarks Tech had not been made by deadline.

Higdon said Ozarks Tech would not incur expenses related to the updated name preference.

"Our formal signage will always say Ozarks Technical Community College," he said, noting marketing materials using OTC would be phased out.

Higdon said the OTC nickname was first popularized by the News-Leader and not the college. The use of OTC, he said, can be confusing on a statewide and national scale.

"OTC is not even accurate," he said. "It causes people to think our name is Ozarks Technical College. We certainly don't want to take the community out of the college."

An archived News-Leader article from December 1990 posted to Newspapers.com states that former Ozarks Tech President Norman K. Myers promoted the use of OTC in the early days of the organization.

The college started as Heart of the Ozarks Community Technical College before changing to Ozarks Technical Community College in 1994, according to its website.

Logo change
SPS announced its first branding change in 25 years in a news release yesterday.

The logo features a blue open door alongside Springfield Public Schools and the tagline "Your Future. Our Focus." It replaces the previous logo, nicknamed "star-catcher" and featuring a green figure reaching for a star.

"A lot has changed in the past 25 years and Springfield Public Schools has kept pace by evolving to meet the needs of our students and their families, our employees and this community. We open our doors to all who want to discover their full potential, and we offer rigorous curriculum, innovative programs and extensive resources so every student can find their unique path," Superintendent Grenita Lathan said in the release.

"We want to make that clear to everyone so, for the first time in a quarter century, SPS has updated its visual brand. A new logo is just one visible change you will notice this year as we declare our purpose and continue our work to be the school district of choice."

SPS hired Louisville, Kentucky-based Fieldtrip LLC for $85,280 for the work, according to a list of contracts, agreements, change orders and bids that went before the school board in February.

Many of the comments on the district’s social media pages and other media coverage of the logo change were critical of the new design and the use of an out-of-state firm for the work.

SPS Chief Communications Officer Stephen Hall said the branding process included public bids as part of a formal request-for-proposal initiative. After the SPS Board of Education unaninimously approved the contract with Fieldtrip in February, the firm started work in March, he said.

"Of the six proposals received, only one was local. Other companies were from Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, California and Nevada," Hall added.