SimpsonScarborough: Intelligent Marketing for Higher Education

I have waited a full week to assess Virginia Tech’s response to the horrific tragedy that claimed the lives of 33 students and faculty and I still reach one conclusion: the institution – though facing an incredible tragedy that few could imagine – didn’t put its best foot forward in the first 36 hours following the on-campus shooting. My opinion was formed by the following:

Information was slow to be posted, particularly in the first three hours – a time when thousands, you can assume, turned to the site worried about the fate of loved ones and friends as the news reports first surfaced.
The main website crashed on several occasions, victim to inadequate bandwidth, which the institution should have anticipated in times of crisis.

On several occasions new information was posted, but then garbled in unreadable fashion due to technical glitches.

Information was promised on the site – such as the president’s first comments – but unavailable due to technical problems and delays.

While Tech rebounded well by day two in its digital communications, it is important to note that in times of crisis, you have a moral obligation to communicate well. As noted, thousands of friends, families and loved ones of Tech students, faculty and staff rushed to the web when news accounts first broke and cell/telephone access was limited. What they should have found was a bounty of information, links, background, archives, etc. That didn’t occur.

In times of crisis, your goal is to control the message and flow of information, thus influencing the outcome of news stories. We scanned the networks and cable TV shows on Monday, Tuesday and through the morning shows on Wednesday and found a profound lack of Tech officials. With few exceptions, network TV shows and key interviews in print media included brief statements by the president and chief of police– but no one else at Tech. In this vacuum, reporters find their own sources. Tech fared well in that the vast majority of students were caring, articulate and impressive. Luck is part of the game but shouldn’t be part of your strategy.

In hindsight, Tech should have gathered sources for the media – the president, key VPs including the VP of student affairs, grief counselors and campus religious leaders (ministers, priests, rabbis, etc.), elected faculty leaders and elected student leaders and flooded the media with these individuals – and all should have been well prepped for the media attention.

None of us in higher education communications have ever dealt with the multitude of casualties that confronted the Tech PR/media team last Monday. But the shootings, unfortunately, could have happened on any campus. Should the unthinkable occur anywhere else in the future, are you prepared?

-- Christopher Simpson

Posted by Teresa Valerio Parrot at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If only I had a dollar for every college and university administrator or board member who suggested the use of TV advertising to fix a variety of issues at their institution. The tactic is age-old but misses two important points: viewing habits of prospective students have changed dramatically and, correspondingly, the cost of TV ads has skyrocketed.

So, how good of an investment are TV ads and what makes the most effective use of the medium?

My listserv subscription to Ad Age MediaWorks alerted me to a first time study by Neilsen Media Research on the television viewing preferences and habits of college students. Although college-age viewing patterns have been tracked previously, this was the first study of the age demographics’ TV preferences in settings outside of their parents’ home – and the results are intriguing. Neilsen confirmed that college students watch “a lot” of television after 11 p.m., averaging 30 hours of television viewed per week.

Coincidentally, Elizabeth Scarborough, our firm’s president, compiled a comprehensive online listing of TV ads colleges and universities have employed.

The timing of the two made me reflect on a conversation I had recently with a college administrator who suggested their institution might want to advertise during “Jerry Springer,” because they were losing students to those schools who advertise on daytime television.

Rather than suggest jumping feet first into television advertising, think strategically. If college students are watching an average of 30 hours of television per week and a significant portion of those hours are not daytime television, then what impact will your daytime media buy bring? How do you ensure your media buy is effective? Is it “Jerry Springer” or MTV? And truthfully, do you want your institution associated with that kind of programming?

Ask yourself this set of questions: how could your marketing dollars get more bang for your buck? Should you, for example, consider online advertising, such as Google ads, or beefing up your website – which is your single greatest and most important marketing tool? Where do you have communications holes that those dollars could patch? What external audiences are not being addressed by your current efforts and how could those resources help to reach them?

Finally, how do you ensure your TV ad is as effective as possible? We think all communications to prospective students should have intertwined goals of raising awareness while driving potential students to your website. Check out the lengthy list of TV commercials that have been employed in the recent past and good luck on your quest.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Teresa Valerio Parrot at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Shock jock Don Imus was wrenched today from his CBS radio program and yesterday from the MSNBC television simulcast. In an era of bawdry lyrics in rap music, increased debauchery on public and cable television and a host of other foul-mouthed radio personalities, how did Imus find himself on such a slippery slope?

He violated three basic rules in good crisis communications.

First, pardon my language but I must be blunt, in a crisis communications situation you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit. His despicable, sexist and racist description of the Rutgers women’s basketball team is indefensible. In crisis work we are asked often to wave a magic wand over a deplorable act, thus righting the wrong. There is no such thing and no one can “spin” the Imus tale into a positive.

Second, the Imus team failed miserably in good crisis response by letting the story drag out for seven full days before MSNBC pulled the plug on his television simulcast. Anyone can withstand a body blow in times of crisis; it is the day to day pummeling that proves fatal. Imus and his team should have brainstormed worst case scenarios the day after his comment when the story became white hot in the media. Anyone with crisis experience could have suggested a worst case – and likely – outcome involving the story spinning out of control and ending with his show being yanked off the air. By not addressing the situation on day one, two or three, he allowed the nation to speculate if his show should be removed from TV and radio.

The original comment and subsequent poor planning led to Imus being firing twice in two days. In retrospect, when the story became national news, Imus should have suspended himself indefinitely from radio and TV – buying time and not giving his opponents a clear opening to attack. Instead, he appeared each day on radio and TV debating the issues, which brought the story front and center in the national news. Further, when the story grew larger he should have moved immediately to meet with the Rutgers team – not 13 days after the story broke. The players and coach may hold his fate long-term, and his odds of returning in any format worsen with each passing day.

Third, never, never, never get into a PR battle with someone holding the majority of the cards. If you saw the Rutgers women’s press conference day five of the story, you saw 10 very poised, impressive, intelligent and articulate young women who simply asked, “how can this man rob us of one of the most important moments in our lives?” He called them by a guttural term; then we learned the team captain, for example, is a straight A student, piano virtuoso and, by the way, impressive as hell on the basketball court. No one could be further from the grotesque description Imus used than the young women who spoke at the press conference.

In violating these rules, he may have ended his long media career.

-- Christopher Simpson

Posted by Teresa Valerio Parrot at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even though TV is not a primary component of most college marketing plans, it’s fascinating to look at the TV spots created by various institutions to get a sense of how they are attempting to position their brand. So, we’ve compiled a list of them on our website as an online resource: http://www.simpsonscarborough.com/resources.html

We are not suggesting that we feel all of these are strong ads. In fact, take a few minutes to review these and the basic principles of branding will become painfully clear to you. Some ads are the “same old, same old” with a montage of images of students and faculty and promises of personal attention and endless opportunities. But some are different. The Utah State space ad communicates a powerful and simple message, “Utah State sends more experiments into space than any other university in the world.” How’s that for differentiating? Big university ads tend to focus on the benefits of their research to their state’s population. But, Florida State effectively weaves in the emotional attachment to athletics without overpowering academics as the focus of the ad. A delicate balance perfectly struck. Take a look at these examples and let us know which ones you think are the most powerful.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Teresa Valerio Parrot at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)