Monday, September 25, 2006

Smells like marketing

Starbucks is an incredible brand. When I worked at a college in North Dakota the people I traveled with used to make fun of me because I always printed a map to the nearest Starbucks whenever we traveled out of state. Because it’s such an incredible brand Starbucks is one of the top branding metaphors, and to explore it further is probably to invite folly, but the other day I came up with the reason I think Starbucks is the perfect branding metaphor for a Christian college like the one I market.
When I say “brand” the biggest problem I seem to have lately is getting people thinking beyond the visual. To so many the quick minds eye picture of a brand is a logo or other visual element. To make this problem worse the highway to marketing nirvana is littered with branding programs created by consultants, three day seminars and magazine articles.
The reason Starbucks is a great metaphor for me is that the Starbucks brand is not about the visual, it’s about the aroma. The bottom line is that if you don’t like coffee, you won’t like the smell and no amount of cool visual vibe can overcome the basics of what Starbucks is about – great coffee. Our campuses have to have a certain aroma, the aroma of what we stand for and what it means to be a part of “us”. Like Starbucks there are a lot of rooms for flavor, and we will even accept caffeine and decaf drinkers alike, but in the end we all care about the same thing.
Beyond the aroma, there are a lot of things to like about how Starbucks brands. There is the music, and of course great visuals, and a certain sense of style but what it all adds up to is that brand is about way more than what you see. If we can create CCCU brands that reflect that ethos, we can change the world.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Telling the story over, and over, and over

Yesterday I had an interesting visit with the campus leader. At the end, basically I said "You have to remember that about the time we get sick of a theme the general public is just starting to get it." I think this morning I had an object lesson in how that applies not just to marketing messages but in telling the message of the importance of marketing.

This morning I got an email from a senior leader who I have had this discussion with a few times. In a way, it is even issues within his division that led to the process, yet I got the vague sense this morning that one of the issues in the email is that he is still not sure how this will benefit him or his part of the college. I believe it will, but I've done a poor job of communicating the benefits to him.

It's a good lesson for me to look back and say I need to always talk about the benefit of acting according to a campus wide marketing plan and not letting people get mired in the process of creating the plan.

In a way, I wanted to get frustrated and throw up my hands - but in the end I think it's just a good lesson of what needs to be communicated. Either that or the prozac is working.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Good P.R. raising the stakes

This article from Missoula, Montana http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/09/08/news/top/news01.txt serves as both a great piece of public relations and an indication of how high the stakes are getting for colleges in terms of production values. I have worked with some of the people on the UM campus and I can tell you that they are definetely top notch and the production crew that was in place was top notch as well.

Plus, how many of us in higher ed marketing wouldn't give our right arm to hear a professor say in the newspaper that promoting the college is a priveledge. We all have professors who feel that way, but to see one quoted so well in a publication is priceless.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Ready, Set, Whoa

The stage has been set and we have launched the plan for how we will go about getting feedback into the plan. We are going with a parent committee that is relatively small, four standing committees in specific areas, and then we are using a focus group approach to gain feedback from a wider group.

The timeline is that we are going to get the first round of feedback by October 30, so I have a lot to do. It will be a strange year as we work simultaneously on the new "look" and brand plan at the same time we are talking about doing some major surgery.

If an area of concern has come up recently it is in the adult programs. For so many years online and adult programs were very low hanging fruit for us. Basically, it was put a few ads in the paper and they would come. To me it is a key brand indicator, because what it says is that locally we just still aren't that well known.

I'm also starting to think about larger economic forces and wondering what an economic slowdown means for a campus like ours. In short, I think it means we better get a lot better at proving that what we do is valuable, and that is in the back of my mind as we begin coming up with key messages. I don't think in the coming years it will be enough to be "fun" or "a great experience", I think we are going to have to talk about the kinds of outcomes that two year colleges and others have been talking about for a lot of years. However, the classic debate of what the outcomes of a private, more or less liberal (in a completely conservative way) college type experience should be are likely to be a key point of debate.