Background
Ellucian began a massive corporate rebranding process in 2024. The transformation, which was kept secret until its launch at Ellucian Live 2025, went beyond updates to logos and colors. The rebranding signaled a shift in Ellucian’s approach to positioning its business. Ellucian’s event team worked closely with RainFocus to coordinate the launch of the new branding alongside the event, including activities to elevate the attendee experience.
Perfectly Timed Changes
The event team planned to unveil the company’s new brand at a specific point during their opening keynote presentation. They used RainFocus’ viewing criteria to schedule the design rollout to their attendee portal. This approach enabled them to successfully push the new brand to the portal right before the big reveal. RainFocus ensured brand consistency by printing all badges with the new logo design.
“There were a lot of RainFocus tools that we leveraged to rebrand our event, and the support that we received is what made it possible for us to achieve our goal of an overnight flip.” — Katie Armstrong, Marketing Operations Manager, Ellucian
“Our goal wasn’t just to change up the color palette. The rebrand was a way of positioning how we are thinking about the next iteration of our business.” — Paola Esparza, Principal Graphic Designer, Ellucian
Streamlined Session Governance
In addition, Ellucian used a RainFocus’ Live Tables to ensure every session was up to date with the new branding. The table included columns for a graphics review status and a brand review status. When users reviewed each deck, they could easily track their progress and leave notes on critical changes.
“What the Live Tables allowed us to do was have one source of truth across all teams that were working on our session reviews. It really helped us keep everybody on the same page.” — Julia Binda, Ellucian
Revamping the Mobile App
Ellucian Live also featured upgrades to the attendee experience. Having successfully gained wide-scale adoption of the RainFocus mobile app at previous events, Ellucian set a goal of providing attendees with even more mobile resources within their newly rebranded app. The team used RainFocus’ interactive maps to help attendees navigate four floors of breakout sessions throughout the Orange County Convention Center. These venue maps appeared next to the room number in the session catalog. Additionally, the team linked the app to bus schedules, enabling attendees to plan their travel to and from the convention center.
“The mobile app really fits our audience well. It’s easy for them to pick up and works well with our event agenda as well as other RainFocus features.” — Katie Armstrong, Marketing Operations Manager, Ellucian
Meetings Management Made Simple
Ellucian also began using RainFocus for their sponsor meetings management. They held two meeting programs — one for their Customer Support team called the “Action Line,” and another for their Platinum and Gold sponsors. Sponsors were assigned a task in their Sponsor Portal to assign meeting hosts. Once assigned, the hosts could log into their Attendee Portal and set their meeting availability.
Creating Community Through Gamification
Gamification further helped the Ellucian Live team support attendee experience. In addition to gaining points for checking in, attending sessions, and visiting booths, attendees were encouraged to help build community by bringing a flag from their school that they could pin to Ellucian’s “Wall of Traditions.” The activation was set up like a conference session to enable attendees to scan in with their badges. This and other activations boosted attendee engagement throughout the event. In all, attendees engaged in an average of 46 activities.
By partnering with RainFocus, Ellucian successfully launched their modernized brand, all while providing attendees with increased convenience and engaging experiences. Request a demo to discover how RainFocus can help you level up your next event.
