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As the world of higher education settles in after a frenzied first few weeks of new faculty introductions, last minute dormitory re-assignments and opening football weekend, there is that lingering question: what should we do about our brand? Whether you’re stuck in avoidance or racing headlong toward action, it’s worth considering a pause. Maybe past attempts at brand cohesion have failed. Maybe the current administration has lost its will to move forward. Maybe the ink just dried on a statement of work. Whatever your situation, relax. Your brand issues did not arise overnight. They won’t magically resolve any time soon. It may well be the single most important thing you orchestrate in your career as a vice president of marketing or college president. And it can wait. Great brands, in the end, depend on good soil to take root. And when I say soil, I mean smart, authentic, surprising, delightful story telling. Show me a college bold enough to tell … Continue reading
Posted in: Branding, Higher Ed Marketing, higher education, Higher Education Branding
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While your faculty and students may have taken the summer off from their college assignments, you know that the work of higher education brand building never ends. Today, and every day, your college brand continues to do its daily work — on your website, social sites and across the continuum of digital and human conversation. As new and returning students unpack in residence halls and faculty reclaim their offices, it’s a good time of the year to ask: What can we do to renew our college brand for the 2014-2015 academic year? We offer five steps forward: 1. Begin investing in first impressions. That could mean redesigning an initial search mailing aimed at rising high school juniors, or rethinking training for new and returning student tour guides. First brand impressions hold great potential — but can also be overlooked. Given the number of campus visits that students (and parents) make, it’s worth preparing your student guides. Can they really translate … Continue reading
We spend a lot of time thinking about higher education marketing – from brand refresh to increasing enrollment. Like most agencies, we’ve drawn our own conclusions, studied others and learned from our own successes and mistakes in order to define a clear set of higher education marketing strategies. Be accessible and authentic “Your reputation lasts for a long time, and needs to be treated with respect. You won’t get very far if you try to be something you’re not. Rather, your personal brand is about figuring out who you really are and what you do best, and then living that brand out. It’s the essence of authenticity.” – Dorie Clark OK. We all know the keg-swilling derelicts aren’t the best students. In fact, they were barely students at all. But Dean Wormer (“Animal House,” 1978) was the absolute worst at making Faber accessible to anybody but polo-wearing rich kids. Incorporate brand ambassadors Getting brand ambassadors to talk is more important … Continue reading
In my experience, if you want to put your higher education brand to a quick and dirty reality check — what engineers call “stress and failure” analysis — there are two places to look. First, review any and all content that’s scored high enough to be placed in the feature area of your home page over the past six to 12 months. Does it consistently provide visitors compelling, living proof of what makes your particular approach to higher education distinct and worthy? Does it invite prospects to easily project themselves into the experience — a.k.a. does it advance the hero’s story, instead of simply spouting an institutional claim? Finally, does it overachieve as content — by delighting, stirring or otherwise inspiring our prospective hero? A second “stress and failure point” involves the campus tour — where well-intended student guides and admissions counselors often receive little or no training in how to translate a brand line or position into tangible examples … Continue reading
Colleges, and those charged with articulating why institutions matter, seldom lack for words… yet rarely learn to speak their school’s one true voice. Why so? In my experience, it has to do with how comfortable any of us can be in that stage before sudden insight arrives — in sitting with “not knowing.” I like what Richard Saul Wurman wrote in his introduction to Information Architects. You’re supposed to look smart in our society. You are supposed to gain expertise and sell it as the means of moving ahead in your career. That is where the rewards are supposed to come from. Of course, when you sell your expertise, by definition, you’re selling from a limited repertoire. However, when you sell your ignorance, when you sell your desire to learn about something, when you sell your desire to create paths to knowledge, when you sell your curiosity — you sell from a bucket with an infinitely deep bottom. My bucket … Continue reading
While we heed one alarm after another signaling the decline of higher education as we know it (brick and mortar campuses made irrelevant by more, better and cheaper online courses and degree programs) a counter revolution can be seen and heard, in the form of heaving equipment digging foundations, paving roads and pouring fresh concrete. A new book from the Brookings Institution Press, The Metropolitan Revolution, explores in detail how cities and metros are “fixing our broken politics and fragile economy.” Not surprisingly, colleges play an increasingly active and vital role in the revolution. All cities thrive today thanks in large part to concentrations of land, people, investment capital, talent, amenities, ideas and innovation. Colleges and universities provide many of these key ingredients. Authors Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley describe a variety of “anchor plus” innovation districts with major higher education and academic medical center tenants. The paradigm traces to the 1980s when research powerhouse MIT first joined with developer … Continue reading
Tonight, the Pittsburgh Pirates host their first playoff game in more than two decades, just a few blocks away from Elliance headquarters. What might anyone involved in higher education branding take away from the most surprising team in Major League Baseball? We offer 5 brand “signs” worth stealing from the Pittsburgh Pirates: 1. Be real… Pirates’ manager Clint Hurdle never tried to sugar coat two consecutive late-season collapses, while always maintaining his optimism for the team’s future — an optimism grounded, he says, in the team’s underlying work ethic. What’s the take-away for higher education branding? Colleges most clear-eyed about their strengths and weaknesses have the greatest chance of realizing their one true brand voice, and building steadily upon its potential to attract prospects and energize alumni. 2. Be authentic … Pirate management and the fan base have embraced the “braids and tats” demeanor and personalities of stars like Andrew McCutchen and A.J. Burnett, without sacrificing a hint of its … Continue reading
Posted in: Brand Voice, Branding, Higher Education Branding, Storytelling
As a firm steadily building a reputation for higher education marketing and branding, we often receive phone calls and RFPs from colleges who quickly disclose a sense of urgency — “we need help” — without necessarily understanding what they want to buy or how a firm like Elliance can make a difference. Given the sandstorm of confusion that accompanies any mention of higher education branding, it’s understandable. Much of the blame falls on those who claim to be branding experts. Too often they use doublespeak and proprietary methods to dazzle and distract buyers from their own better judgment. In my experience, the tools and habits of brand work are simple, albeit not that common. Here are 8 simple rules or things you should expect from a quality brand firm or professional: They should ask good, hard questions — dozens and dozens. They should avoid their own confirmation bias or any other form of group think. They should measure some, but … Continue reading
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins may be the most brand-savvy and well-run organization in sports, with exemplary practices from free pizza for the huddled masses waiting in the student rush line, to season tickets hand-delivered by team stars each summer. The Penguins have continually surpassed expectation for everything from how they welcome new-arriving players (photos on arena walls before they’ve cleared customs), to how they salute former Penguins who return as enemy combatants (sincere video tributes). So, what might one of the most sophisticated and talented franchises in the National Hockey League have to teach us about higher education branding? After a series of late-season trades designed to fill any missing pieces on an already talent-rich roster, the Penguins find themselves trailing two games to none in the Eastern Conference Final. What possibly could have gone wrong? Viewed as a branding challenge, the issue seems clear. For years, the Penguins have deployed two of the league’s most gifted — albeit distinctly … Continue reading
The closer my son gets to college age (t-minus three years) the more I ask myself: “Does the work I do listening for and giving voice to higher education brands actually help prospects and parents make sound choices?” In an essay published last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, James M. Lang, associate professor of English and director of the college honors program at Assumption College, an Elliance client, brings the question home. Lang recounts how seven or eight campus tours left both he and his daughter wanting more. In particular, Lang craved “dialogue — from tour guides, admissions representatives, or promotional literature — about what most people see as the main functions of college: teaching and learning.” Lang offers a “modest proposal” — work with student guides to translate moments of classroom engagement and transformation (value) into succinct stories worth telling on a campus tour. As someone charged with soliciting such “aha” teaching and learning moments from faculty … Continue reading