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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
Video clips of how not to market higher education from the best college movies.
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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… […]