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Thoughts from R. Todd Erkel

Summer Reading Designed to Restore the Creative Spark

By now, you may have started in on your summer reading list for beach, cabin, She-Shed or hammock. Why not a summer reading list for the office? Yes, higher education marketers often move even faster in the summer months. All the more reason to give yourself a once-a-week moment for reflection and inspiration. This list […]

Intentionality and the art of great college magazine covers

The golden age of print magazines long ago expired (Time once reached 20 million readers a week at peak circulation). Still, writers, editors and photographers charged with producing a college or university magazine juggle the same risk/reward choices as their predecessors when it comes to creating memorable cover art.   Whether your college magazine comes in […]

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Brand Discovery: How to Design for Signal Over Noise.

As revenue pressures grow across higher education, so do board- and cabinet-level imperatives to “define the brand.” Easier said than done, true. But also worth every ounce of effort. At its best, a brand discovery should yield an authentic and durable brand position (with a 10-year shelf life). Better yet, a brand discovery (well planned […]

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Fiddling with content, while story, meaning and emotional connection burn

Former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight famously said to an audience of newspaper reporters, “All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.” Part joke, part poisoned-tipped joust, the heralded Knight voiced an ambivalence about writing and writers that lingers within many college marketing departments […]

The Art of Redesigning a Jesuit Business School Website

While all .edu websites send important signals and establish vital threads of connection to stakeholders — corporate recruiters, research partners and regional funders/allies — a business school website does so with greater urgency and a far more explicit mandate. We held that truth close as we set about redesigning a new website for the Boler […]

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A Web of Insincerity

A colleague of mine spoke a phrase several months ago that won’t stop ringing a clear and undeniable truth in my ear. After I showed him video from a flash mob brand launch, he said, “I hate that kind of fake energy.” That bell rang again for me this week as imposter birthday greetings between dropping through my apartment door […]

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Your 5 Point Brand Checklist

Too often, a college or university approaches a brand development exercise unprepared for the journey ahead, and unable to fully realize the rewards at journey’s end. We offer a 5 point checklist to ensure a better experience and outcome at every step. 1. Know Your Motivation A strong, clear and authentic articulation of your brand can accomplish great things. It […]

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5 Gifts of Story from 2015

I enjoyed a rare two-hour sit down recently with an entire marketing and communications team at a major university — and we never once talked about story. They, like many of you, spoke of feeling beleaguered by the demands of an unending news cycle, a tumbleweed website and the torture drip of “next in line” requests […]

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Cognitive Bias and Brand

Why, despite our best intentions and efforts, can we all make bad decisions? Social scientists point to the phenomenon of “cognitive bias”  — a scholarly and polite way of saying that we should not so quickly and easily believe everything we initially perceive or think. The more complex the set of choices and decisions, the […]

Should you buy experience or insight?

We recently met around the conference table at Elliance to discuss the pros/cons of pursuing an RFP opportunity —  a major state research university wanting to sharpen its brand focus and tell a better capital campaign story in order to raise a nice round $1 billion dollars. Needless to say, with that kind of money […]

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About

Welcome to the Elliance Aha! Blog where we share digital marketing ideas, insights and inspirations for higher education, manufacturing, B2B, B2C and nonprofit brands. We are a Pittsburgh-based digital marketing agency that leverages brand, search, social, mobile and web to bring prosperity to our national and global clients.

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