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In our professional lives, we’re constantly in motion. We serve our clients by solving tough problems, meeting their needs through strategy and innovation, and often under shorter and shorter deadlines. Amidst all of that lies the research, experimentation, client collaboration, endless tweaking, and production – all leading to myriad deliverables that everyone can be very proud of. Intertwined in the demands of work life, is our life outside of work: our personal passions, our charities, our deepest held beliefs, and of course, our families. This is the life we lead – our visible, active life. And those of us, who haven chosen advertising and marketing as their life’s work, know it all too well. We thrive on it. After nearly 40 years, I still love what I do. But there is another, arguably more important, life – our invisible, contemplative life. It’s where our imagination lives and our creative thoughts are born. This life fuels our active life, and it does so expecting nothing from us … Continue reading
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With Super Bowl weekend upon us, our eyes will take to the screen to watch with great anticipation…the commercials. This year, at a time when a lot of people are saying traditional advertising is dead, advertisers are ponying up $4,500,000 for 30 seconds of your attention. I guess it’s worth it – when else do they get a dedicated time when consumers are actually looking forward to seeing their ads? When else do consumers get a chance to marvel at what can be done for a mere $150,000 per second? Each year, we expect to be “bowled” over but year after year, by and large, we’re not. Why? Why, with so much at stake, do all but a few spots become forgotten elements of Super Bowl Sunday? Be honest, two weeks from now, how many will you remember? More important, how many will have influenced you? And this is on a day when we wait for them, want to see … Continue reading
I’m an average guitar player. Some might say very average. But I can play in a support role to almost anyone. Why? Because I have enough basic knowledge about music theory that if someone says to me, “We’ll be playing this is in the key of C,” I know that I’ll be safe playing a basic C-F-G (I-IV-V) chord progression. Or if I really want to impress someone I could possibly add the minor 6 (Am) for a C-G-Am-F (I-V-vi-IV) progression. And I can do this same thing in any key. But of course, none of this makes me a musician. Far from it, I’m just a guy who can get by playing in my neighbor’s backyard with friends. But the cool thing is, it also makes me part of the band whose members are all way better than me. They are the musicians. They’re musicians because they have gone beyond the basic knowledge of scales and chords – and … Continue reading
Posted in: brand communications
As of yesterday, August 24th, Amazon had listed 24,393 books on brand marketing ready for you to read (have fun). Al Reis has 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. Jack Trout emphasizes differential. And I recently saw a brand glossary from a nationally-known, prominent marketing firm that contained more than 50 brand terms and descriptors. Oh my. Benjamin Franklin once said “There is nothing so absurd as knowledge spun too fine.” I often feel we get dangerously close to that with all our brand philosophies, processes, descriptions and other beliefs. From my standpoint, there are really only two things you need to keep in mind: Step 1: State your singularity. Call it your promise, your differential, or your brand advantage. Whatever you want to call it – state it. Clearly, passionately, and unapologetically. Step 2: Prove it. Hopefully, how you decide to describe yourself has resonance. Hopefully it is genuine, honest and authentic. If it does and it is, then this … Continue reading
Recently, while watching the movie “A Knight’s Tale” with my son for about the 50th time (no kidding), I picked up on something I hadn’t heard before in all the times we’d watched it together. If you don’t know the story, it follows the life of a poor 14th century squire named William Thatcher who always dreamed of changing his stars by becoming a knight. He seizes his moment when his master dies during a break in a jousting tournament. Donning his master’s armor, he finishes the tournament in his master’s place – and wins the joust! He then meets up with Geoffrey Chaucer, himself a down on his luck writer/gambler looking for greatness. Chaucer makes Thatcher a deal; in exchange for his care, he’ll write him a patent of nobility. Knowing it’s needed to compete in other tournaments, Thatcher accepts the offer, and in that instant, the two are bonded. William Thatcher will now be known as Sir Ulrich … Continue reading
To higher education marketing pros, April & May is “yield season.” It’s the culmination of all their marketing and relationship-building efforts to convert a suspect to a prospect to an applicant to an admitted student. Yield is the percentage of admitted students who actually decide to enroll. This is a big deal in enrollment marketing – having knowledge of where the yield percentage might fall provides a target of how many students the admissions office needs to, or is willing to, accept. Tracking the tuition deposits as they begin to trickle in is a daily process for admissions, and is why the final piece of marketing communications – the admissions yield piece – is so important. Over the years I have seen all kinds of yield tactics from fact sheets to multi-page brochures. They all seem compelled to give the prospect ‘one more reason’ to consider their school. (As if two years of curated courtship through the admission process has … Continue reading
Posted in: Admissions Marketing, Admissions Yield
…isn’t taking data from research reports and discovery sessions to come up with creative ideas for a campaign or a tagline. Honestly, that stuff is quite easy. The hardest part is letting go – of forgetting all the old notions, perceptions and sometimes predictable ways a client has communicated in the past; and replace it with a language, a tone, and a lens for the future. A single brand lens that all can shared by all – from prospective students and their parents to the college community to alums and future donors. But this isn’t easy to do. When we allow ourselves to forget old models, we create spaces for new ones to rise. Old vestiges are replaced with new tones, and a new language is created – a new focal point that raises the perception floor for a client, and helps them forever see themselves in a new light. I’m not speaking of tactics here, I’m talking about implanting … Continue reading
I just returned from the beach. I have to admit, it’s not a place I always want to go, but it’s always a place I never want to leave. For me, the beach is nature’s ultimate creative expression. It has only three elements – land, sea and sky – yet it delivers an infinite number of visual configurations that simultaneously feed the soul and quiet the spirit. It has inspired creators since the dawn of time. Greek poets wrote of shores inhabited by deities and modern romantics measured their minds against the vastness of the oceans. Scientists use the beach to record the history of the earth’s great geological change. There are other examples in this vein: just seven notes have given us music from Mozart to Sousa to Joplin to The Beatles. Four chromosome types give us life in all it’s splendor. Three primary colors give birth to a nearly infinite palette. And the core curriculum of the liberal arts … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing
How do you know when people are really engaged with your brand? Certainly one way to tell is if they stand in line for hours on end for a chance to buy your latest product. But how do you measure it when you are a small, regional college in rural central Pennsylvania? In 1998, my colleagues and I were hired to create a viewbook (shown at right) for, then, Saint Francis College. It was our first “real” venture into the world of higher education marketing. Coming from an advertising background, we naturally began thinking beyond the viewbook – our thoughts focused squarely on branding the college itself and finding “right-fit” students. A not-too-common way of doing a viewbook back then. Okay, so this in and of itself is hardly news – or even blog worthy – but the rest of the story is, well, pretty interesting. So fast forward to 2012 and you’ll find Saint Francis University – not College. You’ll discover … Continue reading
Suddenly it’s very quiet. How would you react if 25% of your active customer base got up and left on the same day? Would you become concerned? Perhaps, if you’re a business owner. But not if you’re a college enrollment manager, right? Because it’s commonplace. It’s commencement, and students are leaving in droves right now across every college campus in America. So what about this newly graduated 25% that everyone has in common? What are they taking with them: Degree? Check. Confidence? Check. Knowledge? Check. New skills? Check. Life-long friendships? Check. A deep affinity with the school? Hope so. Brand message? Huh? Too many institutions treat their brand message simply as a marketing campaign. Without question, it can be a campaign and can contribute to solving many urgent marketing issues like boosting enrollment, attracting new faculty, or funding a capital campaign. Still, that’s selling it a bit short. The best institutions treat their brand as something more – an ethos – … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Education Branding