Bonus Material: Content is King

The Bonus Materials i.e. outtakes, deleted scenes and "the making of" are one of my favorite parts of any DVD (and the only drawback to iTunes movies). So here is a little bonus material from my latest CASE CURRENTS article.

During my interview with William and Mary's Susan Evans she told me, "Marketing and communications is changing so much. There is nothing that doesn’t require multimedia-based technology at this point. But one of the things I see people do is focus on technology when they need to be working on core messages instead." The kicker is that Evans is a technology expert. She spent 12 years working on the IT side at her institution before becoming its director of creative services on the central communications side.

She went on to say before you think about technology "you've got to focus on your institution's core values. What are you trying to accomplish? What do you want people to know about? Content is king."

I hate leaving good stuff on the cutting room floor. This is a gem.

Photo by Edgley Cesar

Partners vs. Vendors

In case you missed my column on working with consultants in the September CASE CURRENTS, here you go. It features words of wisdom from Missouri S & T's Andrew Careaga (if you're not reading Andy's top higher ed blog already, it's a must), William and Mary's Susan Evans (many thanks to Michael Stoner for connecting me to this sage who discusses what she was looking for in a consulting partner when she chose mStoner to help develop the college's new website), CCA's Dan Kehn (undoubtedly one of the top strategist/account managers I have ever seen), George School's Odie LeFever (she has the Midas touch when it comes to working with consultants and turning out gold), and the University of Richmond's Nanci Tessier (an enrollment management star who has helped her university become the envy of peers and a first choice for prospective students and parents).

A Client’s Brand Primer

The best sign that branding I’ve done works is when those who live the brand really own its ideas and language and make it their own.

In terms of my own brand, I was reminded of this when Andrew T. Weller, Dean of Admission at Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, told me what he tells other schools they can expect from working with me. I’ve worked on three school branding projects with Andrew (partnering with Turnaround Marketing Communications). He understands the process inside and out. He doesn’t use my language when he tells people what I do. Yet it is exactly what I hope clients get from partnering with me. His insights are a great brand primer in general.

Courtesy of Andrew Weller:

1. I assure people they are not going to be told who they *should* be or become but rather have reflected back to them who they already are.

2. I highlight the research done into other schools the client provides as well as the consulting team’s collective knowledge from experience. What’s the point in a brand someone already has?

3. I let them know that the work will distinguish between what is great about the school and what is great about the school that the market cares about. Who cares if we take pride in our plaid skirts from the 1880’s if prospective families don’t?

4. The end result will be market-friendly, market-digestible language – the school’s “insider” identity will be crafted in a way that resonates with the audience.

Read more Dr. Weller here.

Hallelujah, the Copywriting Matters

Recently, a few higher ed marketing communications friends and I passed around another list of words we're sick of -- breakthrough, innovation, excellence, global, real-world.

So it was with a pang of pity that I noticed a university ad in this week's New York Times Magazine in which the copy was composed almost entirely of these words.

What I didn't say when the list of overused words went around is that sometimes I wonder if we school communicators have dipped into the excellence-global-innovation well so many times that not only have we drained these words of meaning but we've emptied our thesaurus canteens as well. I also didn't say that sometimes I wonder if design has become the only way to make a message really sing.

So I was delighted to turn to the back cover of the same issue of the Times magazine and see the ad for Mount Sinai. Like the university ad, it's about breakthrough research. Indeed, both ads use the word breakthrough -- one of the ones that made it onto our trite words list.



Yet the Mount Sinai ad is powerful, persuasive, emotional. Why? For a dozen reasons that all have to do with the way it is written. Here are just a few: an intriguing hook related to something bigger than the subject of the ad (the three characters walk into a bar canon of jokes), some celebrity sizzle (the comedian mentioned is a Saturday Night Live writer and performer), a compelling story (the ad makes us care about the stakes -- the guy's life is on the line but he's not wiling to sacrifice his voice and career -- what would we do?), and a satisfying payoff (Mount Sinai docs invent a solution and save the day).

So the next time you/I despair that our word well has run dry, let's remember it's not about the words. It's about the writing.

My Take on Godin’s Higher Ed Melt-down

When Seth Godin posted The coming melt-down in higher education (as seen by a marketer) yesterday, several friends and colleagues eagerly asked me what I thought. I admire Godin and value his insights but for those of us in higher education marketing, he didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. I’m not going to examine each point. University web developer Dylan Wilbanks does a nice job of that.

The higher ed bubble has been expanding to a scary bursting for several years. In terms of marketing, the last two decades were “boom years” for higher education. The combination of one of the largest college-bound populations in history and a thriving economy led to too many applicants for the best schools. Every college and university that had the philanthropic support to do so became more competitive – adding faculty, programs, and amenities.

Given the competition for space at top colleges, lesser-known institutions were able to expand the public’s perception of the prestige category of schools beyond the Ivy League, the “Little Ivies” like Amherst and Williams, and the public Ivies like Cal Berkeley and Michigan. Marketing colleges became huge business with media outlets all too happy to produce guidebooks and websites offering new categories of “hot” colleges, “New Ivies,” “Colleges that Change Lives,” and “Colleges with a Conscience.” During this period many colleges and universities not only became stronger due to new resources, they also increased their visibility and prestige.

These boom years are over at least for the foreseeable future. The same factors that led to the boom – greater numbers of college-bound students and a thriving economy have reversed. At the same time the public and government leaders are critical of the high cost of higher education. This has been an issue for several years as tuitions rose at a much higher rate than the cost of living, but economic stress has intensified the issue. This makes perceptions of value versus prestige more important.

In addition a revolution in technology is changing the way the public accesses higher education and the way institutions think about the education they deliver. With more and more online courses and programs being offered even at top universities many in higher education have posited that a sea change is coming just as it has in the newspaper industry. No one is quite sure what the new landscape will look like and what it will mean. But if the institutions I work with are any indication most are trying to figure out how to navigate the new landscape and remain relevant.

I think the truest thing Godin says is that students and their families are not willing to blindly pay for “the best” anymore. He’s also right about the lack of quality in the majority of (but not all) direct mail students receive. (The Wilbanks post is especially insightful on this). Institutions do use direct mail to increase applications. But they also know increased applications are no longer a great measure of success given that students apply to more schools than ever. The real metric institutions pay attention to is the “fitness” of their applicant pool and their matriculating “yield” of admitted students – in other words, the students who actually enroll after being admitted.

Given that pundits have been predicting the end of higher education as we know it for most of the last decade for the reasons that I've described above, my real question is will the “end” come with a bang a la the financial meltdown or by degrees? To my mind, the rise of value versus prestige is one of the biggest changes that has been happening for a few years now. How institutions develop programs of value and prove that value in today’s world is what we higher education marketers need to be marketing. What we’ve been marketing has been mostly about real or wannabe prestige.

Lessons Learned: My Portfolio

Like a lot of my school, college and university clients I know I need to get the word out about the great things that are happening in my business. But I'm often so busy living the story that it's a challenge to make the time to tell it.

For the last year, I've wanted and needed to add a portfolio feature to my web site to showcase the projects I've been working on. At the same time, I've been striving for more regular blog posts. Inconsistent posting can kill even the best of blogs and mine has been idling for a month as I've been traveling, presenting, and creating the work.

Solution: Each of my next 10 to 12 posts will feature one of my projects. By the end I'll have my work up and out for all to see and I will have fueled my blog.

Each project will focus on a lesson learned -- key insights that become part of AJ's School of Thought.

Photo by StreetFly JZ

If your school was a novel what would the opening line be?

Describe the hero of your school’s story.

What’s the plot of your school's story?

Choose a place on your campus and convey your school through sensory details – the way it looks, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells.

You have 10 minutes. Go.

The goal of this exercise is to practice using fictional techniques to tell your institution’s brand story. As much as we think and talk about brands as stories, we often fail to consider the essentials of a good story—character, plot, dialogue, scene, place, point of view, and sensory detail.

Next week, I’ll be leading a brand storyteller’s workshop formatted like a writers’ workshop at the CASE Annual Conference for Publications Professionals. Participants will dive into these and other exercises and I’ll be sharing some of the ways fictional techniques have helped me develop brand stories for William Penn Charter School, Swarthmore, Yale, and others.

This kind of workshop is something I have always wanted to do. I'd love to know if the idea intrigues you.

Photo credit

Give the Second Person a Rest

When I first started writing college admissions communications, no one addressed "you" the reader. It was all about "we" the institution. I spent a lot of time convincing institutions it was not only okay but would be more effective to break the fourth wall and talk directly to students. Now I wonder if we've gone too far.

A high school senior recently handed me a bag stuffed full of college search brochures he'd been sent. I spread them out on my office floor. Almost every one was some version of "Picture yourself here." "Fill-in-the-blank university and you." "X university is coming to you." "Your future." "You are bright." "You are extraordinary."

In this sea of publications, the second person no longer sounded warm and personal. Rather, the use of "you" hit me as cliched at best and presumptuous or cynical at worst. Out of the entire bag of brochures only one coverline made the institution itself stand out as a place confident enough to tell me what it cares about.

I've always counseled clients to answer the question, "What's in it for your prospect?" We try to answer this question powerfully and originally but head on. Indeed, I've just completed two admission campaigns that incorporate "your" in the tagline. These campaigns have been working, I believe, because their two- and three-word titles name what's essential about the institution and call it "yours." But I'll think twice the next time I use "you."

"Remember your reader!" One of my favorite writing teachers used to say. In other words make your reader care. Most great writers know how to make you care not by addressing you directly but by telling you a great story. I believe brand storytellers can do the same.

But then, you knew that.

Image credit

Forget Your Elevator Speech

Here’s a theory I’d like to test with you: The old idea of an elevator speech – a pitch you can deliver to someone summing up what’s great about an institution in the time it takes to ride an elevator – doesn’t work.

It’s the summing up part that is misguided. Here are two reasons why:

1. Your listener doesn’t want to be pitched.
2. Your listener can’t absorb and won’t remember a whole elevator speech.

Most listeners do, however, want to be intrigued, inspired or enlightened. So, when you have the opportunity to talk about your institution try this instead. Rather than attempting to sum up what’s great about your institution, give your listener one compelling fact or statement that makes them think “wow.”

Here are a few intriguing statements that apply to some of the institutions I work with:

• Even the presidents of other universities say this university does undergraduate education better than any place else.
• It’s one of the only women’s colleges ranked among the top 25 by U.S. News & World Report.
• It’s one of the best places in the country to do undergraduate research.
• You can graduate debt free and earn two Ivy League degrees for the price of one.
• That one small campus is the birthplace of blogging, hypertext, and the technology behind online shopping – and it’s a liberal arts college!
• It’s been ranked one of the top colleges in the country and one of the most beautiful – they say brains and beauty come together there.

My theory is these intriguing statements are short enough and powerful enough to be remembered and better yet, repeated. I also think they are more likely to engage your listener in wanting to know more.

As the conversation continues you can deliver more wow statements, eventually enlightening them on all the points you might have included in an elevator speech. Only with this approach they want to listen to you and you’re summing up what’s great about your institution in a way they’re more likely to remember.

It’s a theory I’ve been trying with some success. I’d love to hear how it works for you.

The Frugalista School?

I've always seen a connection between fashion branding and school branding.

High fashion and elite education are both luxuries but clothes and school are necessities. If a pair of jeans can cost $14 or $400; if you can go to high school for free or for $40,000 a year, anyone selling these luxury options better be able to explain why they're worth it.

When it comes to schools, each family uses its own subjective set of scales to weigh and balance a school's prestige, cost, quality, experience and outcomes to determine if that school is worth it. By necessity a school's brand tries to weave the perfect blend of these same factors to attract its market.

For some people, prestige trumps cost. They'll go into debt to get it. For others, affordability is king. But what if you could have both? That's the allure of elite magnet schools and public honors colleges. And that's the sweet spot of the new Target "Frugalista" campaign. For several years, Target has done the seemingly impossible -- marrying cachet and low prices by bringing top designers to Target without cheapening the prestige of those designers (Anyone remember the disaster of Halston and J.C. Penny?)

But now, Target has gone further, giving its affordable prestige brand a persona -- the Frugalista. Emerging victorious from the post-2008 economic wreckage, she's just right for our times. She's a Mini Cooper not an Escalade. She believes, as Oprah declares in this month's O Magazine that small is the new big. The frugalista's sensibility is one that the marketers of elite private schools, colleges and universities should pay close attention to.

The crucial fact to note is that the frugalista is not a wannabe wearing knock-offs. She chooses not to spend more but she still wants the real thing. (Look, there's Project Runway's own Nina Garcia now loading up a red Target hand basket with frugalista chic to prove it.)

So how can schools, colleges, and universities market affordable prestige? First of all your school has to have the elements of legitimate prestige -- successful outcomes, excellent faculties and programs. Second, to be a real frugalista you have to make cost and affordability a key message. I'm working with an Ivy League institution that is marketing two degrees for the price of one and graduating debt free as part of its primary message. Another Ivy League client is heralding "the good news about cost."

Schools that are in the best position to take a frugalista approach are those that produce great outcomes but really do cost less than their competitors. I've worked with two independent schools that have superb college matriculation lists (face it, these lists matter to parents) and are priced more like parochial schools than their independent school competitors. Now is the time for schools like these to forge a single powerful message out of quality at a low price.

How does Target do it? By getting fashionistas like Nina Garcia to embrace the ethos. Schools have known for a long time if they can get one influential family to value their program more will follow. So, once you have your affordable prestige message in place, who are the frugalistas in your parent and alumni community who will spread the word?

Leadership vs. Success

Writing for schools, colleges and universities means that the words “leadership” and “success” come up a lot. I may not always use those words, but conveying that schools deliver an education that develops leaders and successful people is behind most school stories. In fact, I think a lot of people unconsciously substitute the word “successful” for “leadership.”

It’s not a leap to think that if you’re successful you’re probably a leader of some kind – a leader in your field, a leader in your community, a service leader. But while leaders may be successful, there are lots of successful people who are not leaders. A Seth Godin passage on "discomfort" from Tribes made this clear to me. He says, “Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.”

When I read this, I immediately thought of Brad Rourke. Yes, he happens to be my husband, but this post isn’t about patting him on the back. He just happens to be a great example of Godin’s point that I’ve seen up close and personal. Three years ago, Brad started a city blog called Rockville Central. The success part is that the blog has quickly become the second most read local blog in the state. Brad’s won awards for his work. RC has been featured in conferences and articles. In short, the blog and Brad have become influential in our town, especially in local politics.

The leadership part however is that on a regular basis I’ve watched Brad struggle with polarizing community debates, miffed and even angry friends, and personal attacks on his character. I see him weigh the pros and cons of how to keep RC politically neutral and how to keep the conversation open but civil. In short I’ve watched him repeatedly step up despite daily discomfort.

Next time I write about leadership for a school, I know I will think about its meaning differently. I will also wonder if most parents really want their kids to go through the discomfort of being leaders or do we just want them to be successful?


Photo by flikr user aloshbennett

Is It Worth Printing?

Whether to print school publications or not has become an old saw. The financial crisis has made fence sitters consider the question more urgently. Harvard recently announced an end to a print version of its course catalog and other publications. I'm not going to tell you whether you should print or not -- who you need to reach and how you need to reach them will dictate that. (Although I have written about this for CASE CURRENTS.) But if you do choose to print, make sure you're giving people something worth printing.

The Best Test
Will they want to keep it? Or is it a throwaway? I was reminded of this when I saw Lois Kelly's post about brag books. The post is about a real consumer product, but the series of books she mentions reminds me of the approach I try to take with viewbooks and case statements.

More than a Brochure
As I write these publications, I want to give people more than a "brochure." My goal is to give them a useful keepsake that tells the institution's story at the same time:

• For Oglethorpe it was a how-to change the world guide and a collection of personalized maps to Atlanta.
  
• For Chestnut Hill Academy it was separate how-to guides to middle school and high school.
  
• For William Penn Charter School, the case statement was a series of four little books asking provocative, relevant questions like "How do you define success?" The series became extraordinarily popular. One alum requested copies to give to people at his church.

What I like about these publications and those I admire that others have done (get your hands on the Yale case statement if you can) is that they are highly successful in achieving their goals, but they also intrigue, inform, and entertain their readers. They strive to be worthy of the special institutions for which they have been created.

To print or not to print? There's more than cost to consider when you ask, "Is it worth it?"

Ask Better Questions

I collect good questions. I've gotten them from StoryCorps, Teri Gross, Deborah Solomon, creative writing exercises, and colleagues, and interview subjects themselves.

One of my favorite parts of the job I do is to "discover" a school's* story. While focus groups with students, teachers, alumni, and parents are de rigeur in my line of work that doesn't mean all focus groups are created equal. To tell a school's story i.e. market a school in a non-generic way you have to ask questions that will get past the similarities between schools. You have to ask questions that will reveal what is compelling about that particular school's programs and culture.

That means asking questions I don't already know the answers to. If I ask, "What makes this school special?" Nine times out of ten, a student will say "the people," which gets me nowhere. But if I ask, "What impresses you about this school?" the answers are not only more specific to the school but are often different for each of the individuals in the focus group.

I have some tried and true questions. My favorite is asking faculty and school leaders, "Where do this school's ambiguities lie?" It always gives me gold in terms of revealing an institution's particular culture and any communication challenges that exist. But I'm also on the look out for new questions.

When I saw Seth Godin's "FiveTips for Better Online Surveys," I immediately wondered if they applied to in-person interviews and focus groups as well. Indeed, they do. "Make the questions entertaining . . .Boring surveys deserve the boring results they generate" is a good example. You want to ask questions that are intriguing and fun. "If this school didn't exist, would it need to be founded today?" falls under the intriguing category for most teachers and school leaders. "What's your favorite place on campus and at what time of day?" always brings a smile to students' and teachers' faces.

One of my all-time favorite questions came from an article I read about Anna Deavere Smith helping emergency room doctors ask better questions of incoming patients. The question was simply, "What happened to you?" I don't ask it just like that, but that question underlies many of the questions I do ask. If I can get a student to tell me what happened to them (what did they learn about themselves and about the world, who did they meet, how have they changed and why is that meaningful) at a particular school, I'm on my way. After all "what happened" is the plot in any good story.

*In this blog "school" refers to independent schools, colleges, and universities.

“I’m gaining on you.”

Whenever my 13 year-old daughter measures her height she says to me, “I’m gaining on you.” The same could be said to any communicator who markets to her generation.

I recently interviewed an independent school branding consultant for a CASE CURRENTS story. She was blown away by the fact that the 11 year-olds in her focus group could not only tell her what photos they would take to represent their school but what camera angles and lighting they’d use.

Her surprise is what surprises me.

Just check out any middleschooler’s Facebook page. Not only are they experts at shooting, editing, and adding graphics to their photos, they can tell their own brand stories with enviable style and wit (the brand being themselves).

After watching a professionally-produced Stanford video and a student-produced MIT video back-to-back I was struck by how similar they were. Sure the MIT video didn’t depict the ethnic and racial breadth a college office would want but there wasn’t a lot of difference in the level of message and execution.

So, as school or college marketers we have to ask ourselves what do we bring to the table? How can we up the ante, using our savvy to capitalize on next-gen talent and expectations?

Because they’re gaining on us.