Ideas, insights and inspirations.

One of the tensions we hold at Elliance has to do with the pros and cons of specialization. While most of our work focuses on higher education marketing — where we have deep experience — we also meet a wider set of client challenges in manufacturing, banking, non profits and other worlds far from campus. Google’s search engine bot and people generally, favor simplicity. Elliance gets it — we know why many higher education marketing firms keep a singular focus. We also know first-hand the many ways that our higher education clients benefit from our broader exposure and reach. In the end, we find that higher education branding and marketing clients have plenty in common with clients in other verticals when it comes to solving the essential marketing challenge: turning awareness into inquiry, inquiry into conversation and conversion, and conversion into engagement, community and lasting brand loyalty. That premise led us recently to ask a bigger question: “What does it … Continue reading

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Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology—where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail! Anyone who remembers watching the Super Bowl 29 years ago this week may recognize that speech from the now iconic “1984” TV spot that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. Apple officially aired the original commercial just once, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, about the time that Los Angeles Raiders running back Marcus Allen broke the hearts of every Washington Redskins fan with a 74-yard-long touchdown run. Apple and its agency, Chiat/Day, created … Continue reading

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While higher education marketing professionals traditionally equate the “new year” with the turning of an academic calendar, starting in September, the approach of 2013 gives us good reason to offer 5 New Year’s Higher Education Marketing Resolutions. 1. Reach Across the Aisle. Colleges increasingly recognize the value and wisdom of working in collaboration with peer schools that share a geographic base or demographic/psychographic profile. Confident schools recognize the concept of “right-fit” and realize that by raising the overall pool of inquiry and interest, all schools benefit. While formal organizations link colleges in every manner possible — by denomination, geography, prestige — it’s often ad-hoc collaborations that produce real innovation and spark. In a smaller state like West Virginia, for example, a handful of liberal arts colleges might benefit from raising the overall profile of private education in an area not well known nationally for its residential, four-year college options. 2. Cultivate Keyword Literacy While higher education marketing professionals have largely … Continue reading

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No region in the world understands the countervailing forces of hope and despair related to the manufacturing economy more viscerally than Southwestern Pennsylvania. As a young adult, I witnessed first-hand the cataclysmic fall of Big Steel when the region added 124,000 new unemployed people — fathers, mothers, siblings — in a flash of economic destruction between August 1981 and January 1983. In the 30 years since, the United States remains undecided about the most fundamental questions. Can American workers and companies compete in a global workforce and market? Do our schools and education bureaucracies effectively prepare young people for advanced manufacturing careers? Will companies invest in American workers rather than reflexively seek cheaper labor? Elliance has seen the power of smart manufacturing marketing to make a difference for companies seeking bigger/better customers globally, and a stable, reliable workforce locally. We apply many of the same concepts of “right-fit” matching from our work in higher education marketing to the world of … Continue reading

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Elliance was born out of two confluent currents. The first was my desire to combine my two passions: my love for analytical computer science which I developed during my years at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon; and my other love for mythology, folklore, psychology, and art which I have cultivated over a lifetime. The second current was a reflection of our partnering style with our first few clients, whom we gave generously and served passionately by putting their interest before ours. Our new name was coined by our genius advisory board member and one of my heroes, Chris Labash, who was the former creative director of Ketchum Advertising, one of the largest agencies in the world in its heyday. Chris recommended that we abandon our then generic name, “Internet Services Corporation”, and adopt a newly coined word “Elliance”, which was a short form of ‘Electronic Alliance’. To Chris the word Elliance captured my personal aspiration to combine my love for technology … Continue reading

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Like a blindfolded volunteer in an “Old Coke, New Coke” taste test, Republican pollsters and pundits seemed genuinely surprised last week to learn that their trusted brand — “USA” — had changed. Although demographers and groups such as the Pew Research Center have been charting changing US birth/death rates and immigration patterns for decades, and essayists like Richard Rodriguez have written with depth and nuance about the change, some in the political class seemed caught flat footed, if not flat stunned. Higher education marketing and enrollment professionals have watched and responded to these trends for years, and college presidents and boards have grappled with a range of issues related to student success, admissions policies, financial aid, and more. Often, the assumption in higher education circles is that institutions play a significant role in helping first generation students advance professionally and personally. While nobody would argue that case, colleges miss a huge opportunity if they fail to acknowledge a wide range … Continue reading

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Entrepreneurs are famous for creating companies from the depths of their souls. Business from the inside out if you will. But symbols take on a power of their own when they resonate with deeper mythological forces in the collective experience of humanity. And that is what happened in our case. The beginning of my love affair with mountains The symbolism of the mountains began as a deeply personal force because I spent the formative years of my life in the Karakoram mountains on the western flank of the Himalayan mountains. Growing up there with my ambitious geographer sister, I realized that I was living next to world’s highest concentration of peaks above 25,000 feet. I saw lots of hills and mountains but everything paled in comparison to some of the tallest peaks I witnessed. I recall standing next to Rakaposhi, Nanga Parbat, and seeing glimpses of K2 and marveling at their beauty and majesty. Our hikes through the mountains quickly … Continue reading

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In this season of debates, we turn to a higher ed marketing area where debate is endless. What type of college best prepares students for “the real world?” While consumers — students and parents — can find great programs at the extremes of vocational education and classic liberal arts colleges, most of the higher ed marketing battle happens in the in-between. Elliance has done work for all kinds of schools, always believing that great higher ed marketing involves finding authentic proof aimed at right-fit students. For now, let’s focus on the great many of four-year liberal arts colleges that seem to have either lost their one true brand voice or somehow stand too afraid to speak it. Elliance begins our higher ed marketing work with such schools by taking a close look at a school’s general education core and first year studies courses. How do these and other student experiences shape one’s mental muscle and instills certain habits of the … Continue reading

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When choices proliferate, branding ascends. The Internet has created a truly global marketplace. More national competitors and more international competition from Europe, India, China and Brazil are acting as a forcing function for the adoption of branding by B2B Manufacturers. When it comes to branding, the only way to see the world is through the hearts and minds of buyers, where the brand really lives. Here is how B2B buyers think and the role branding plays for B2B Manufacturers: Do I like them? (Emotions) Manufacturing buyers, like consumers, buy emotionally. Branding helps tie a company to an idea or an emotion through storytelling. Do I trust them? (Trust) With so many manufacturers producing good products, and buyers starved for time, how does a buyer decide who to pick? Branding simply builds trust. Is it safe to buy from them? (Risk Management) Manufacturing buyers instinctively reduce risk for themselves and their corporations. Branding – by making promises of reliability, dependability and … Continue reading

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Brand managers, take note. Researchers are finding out that insecticides introduced in the 1990’s are causing the decline of bee colonies two decades later. Similarly, the impact of poor branding may not be felt for a decade or two, but ultimately it will catch up. I see several colleges, companies and non-profits doing a reckless job with their websites and social media touch points, little realizing that the cumulative impact of these touch points will undo them a couple of decades from now. It’s the butterfly effect. Gentle nudges here and there will change brand destinies forever. Brands, like children, need to be nurtured with utmost care. Great brand managers, like good parents, dream of greater futures and foster their brands carefully to create those greater futures.

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