Built on excellence and driven by competitive greatness, The University of Kentucky ranks among the nation’s elite when it comes to performance in the classroom and on the field. To help launch their new student-athlete development initiative, The Kentucky Road, the university came to Accomplice to create a one-of-a-kind brand and experience that gave vision and voice to how UK Athletics is helping student-athletes reach their fullest potential on and off the field.
The University of Kentucky Athletics Department is a 22-sport program dedicated to competing at the highest levels, while enriching the lives of its nearly 500 student-athletes. From creating the first academic center exclusively for student-athletes in 1981 to the launch of The Kentucky Road, UK Athletics is recognized as a leader in preparing student-athletes for success on the field and off.
From the moment they step on campus until they graduate or leave to pursue their dreams, The Kentucky Road is designed to challenge and empower student-athletes to achieve greatness, as an athlete and an individual. As the public face of this new initiative, it was critical for the The Kentucky Road brand and experience to not only demonstrate the future vision for UK Athletics, but also how it is impacting the lives of those who choose to wear Kentucky blue today.
Create a brand and experience that allows prospective student-athletes to see themselves, and their future, on The Kentucky Road. From positioning and messaging to design and development, we worked closely with the athletics department to create a common language and launching point for how the vision and values of the holistic person development program is brought to life.
The Kentucky Road represents the culmination of a collective effort to work across departments and sports to create a unified vision for the student-athlete experience at UK. In creating the brand, it was critical that The Kentucky Road felt inclusive of all the men and women that take the field for it, and help shape it – past, present and future. From design to messaging, every aspect had to build toward a shared vision for success and empowerment.
The centerpiece of The Kentucky Road is a dynamic, immersive digital platform that gives voice and vision to the experience of joining the Big Blue Nation. Curated content allows the university to highlight the people, experiences and results that demonstrate its values for prospective student athletes, while anchor content ensures these highlights are supported by the substance of the holistic person development program and the university’s lifelong commitment to their academic and personal success.
To attract the top student-athletes, the university needed an experience that broke through the noise and maximized its impact on the devices prospective student-athletes live on. This meant not only designing with a mobile first mindset, but also creating a simple system for enabling coaches, coordinators and counselors to share specific, curated content with each prospective student-athlete. From content creation to content management and distribution, every aspect of the experience was designed to ensure the university made a big impression with personalized engagements.
The Kentucky Road serves as a new benchmark for how universities showcase the student-athlete experience, helping prospective student-athletes envision their future as an athlete and an individual at UK. From strategy through execution, every aspect of the brand and experience has been designed to bring the vision for the holistic person development program to life and create a one-of-a-kind experience that clearly differentiates UK in the highly competitive world of collegiate athletics.
