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The American Chemical Society has a new brand and a catchy phrase it hopes will soon become synonymous with ACS: Chemistry for Life.
"It's simple and yet it has a lot of meaning," says Madeleine Jacobs, ACS executive director and chief executive officer, of the new tagline, which was approved by the ACS Board of Directors in April.
Jacobs points out that one of the strengths of the tagline is that it can be interpreted in various ways by different people. For her, the tagline has two meanings. First, she says, "chemistry affects everything in our daily lives, whether it's energy, the environment, materials, water, food, medicine, or even national security." The second meaning for her, she says, is that "ACS is going to be your professional home for life."
The brand and tagline reinforce the ACS vision statement, "Improving people's lives through the transforming power of chemistry." They also emphasize the ACS mission statement, "To advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and mankind." Both the brand and tagline are part of the ACS strategic plan, which was initiated in 2005.
The strategic plan is part of ACS's effort to continually evolve to meet the needs of its members. "When you have an organization that's 132 years old, the last thing you can afford to do is rest on your laurels," Jacobs says. "You have to constantly be moving ahead, and you have to do it in a way that doesn't disenfranchise your core membership but that also attracts new people and young people with whom you have to communicate in a different way."
The new tagline will launch at the spring 2009 ACS national meeting in Salt Lake City, but members will begin seeing signs bearing the new tagline at the ACS meeting in Philadelphia, and nearly all ACS products, services, and information will soon begin carrying it.
The tagline was developed through extensive research and testing among members, nonmembers, governance, and ACS staff. "This really comes bubbling up from what members said was important to them," Jacobs says.
Going forward, Jacobs encourages individual members to use the tagline together with the vision statement and the ACS mission as tools in communicating the value of chemistry. Jacobs believes that word of mouth is the most effective way of carrying the message forward. "If there's anyone to thank, it's the members," she says. "They're very involved, and we owe them a debt of thanks."
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