SimpsonScarborough: Intelligent Marketing for Higher Education

All of us at SimpsonScarborough are mourning the loss of our friend and colleague Christopher Simpson today. It is so difficult to put into words the impact that Christopher Simpson had on my life. Working with him has been the most fulfilling and energizing professional experience of my career. It hardly ever felt like work. More like a professional playground. We just had so much darned fun working together, with our clients, and with the incredible team we’ve built over the last two years. Today, it feels as if it were almost too good to be true.

If you would like to share your thoughts and prayers for Christopher, feel free to leave them here. We will make sure they are delivered to his family.

Also, please visit Christopher's Memorial Page.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (28)

I have only one suggestion for those watching the NIU tragedy as a case study to test their own response—at the initial press conference after a tragedy, have your president stand in front of the cameras to express condolences, begin the grieving process, reassure confidence in their leadership, and gently pivot towards a forward-thinking stance. Then, have your official spokesperson walk through the chronology of events and take questions about the response. My colleague, Loretta Cooper, likes to say that the president/chancellor is like a quarterback—it is the responsibility of staff to run the quarterback’s plays or block to ensure the can do their job. In a crisis, you might be asked to do both.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Inside Higher Ed ran an article on Monday that differentiated the coverage of Northern Illinois University and other campus shootings, trying to find the differentiator between NIU’s coverage and the reportings of Louisiana Technical College’s Baton Rouge and Virginia Tech’s campus tragedies. For me, the difference was NIU’s ability to influence the message and flow of information after the shooting. Their response time was commendable and the resultant media coverage of the incident illustrated their ability to spread facts and dispel rumors quickly.

I continue to recommend that the keys to a blind crisis website include: its ability to activate instantly; the site addresses the institution’s key audiences; it include facts, statements, press releases, updates that are archived – hourly in some cases, daily in others; the website provides links to contact proper authorities for more information; and the text and links provide information as deemed advantageous. NIU hit each of these elements with its crisis site.

I encourage you to visit their site and take a screen shot of their layout, resources and hyperlinks. I think the layout and content should be the gold standard for information provided online during a crisis. Their site has been able to walk the line between sharing information and allowing for grieving. That’s not easily done, and especially not easily done well.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven’t signed up to get Karen Kang’s newsletter, take two secs and do it right now. It’s called “Positioning Pays” and includes great little snippets on branding and positioning that are easy to read but will remind you of important fundamentals. I just got a new one today and she tackles an issue people are always asking me about, “Can one position fit all?” She also talks about positioning professional services which is sort of akin to positioning an educational experience. Karen hasn’t sent out a newsletter for a couple of weeks, but that’s only because she’s been so busy with clients. No surprise there. She is obviously super sharp. That’s why I’m gonna start calling her King Kang.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2008 has already been an exciting year, having left my ‘comfy job’ at my beloved alma mater, UC Berkeley, to join SimpsonScarborough as Vice President of Marketing and Branding. But what I did not realize is how much of a fond return this would be to the kind of brand and marketing strategy work that I experienced and loved when I worked for Prophet Brand Strategy back in 2000 before the www.com bust. And while I have found myself pleasantly back at ‘home’ with SimpsonScarborough among fellow brand strategists doing exceptional analytical work for interesting clients with exciting opportunities, I quickly realized that I needed to refresh myself of the core fundamentals of strategic marketing and branding. I mention this as my first blog entry, since I think it behooves us all to not only purchase and digest the newest marketing/branding books on the shelves to help advance our knowledge, but I have found it remarkably insightful to also revisit some of my favorite books that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf. Besides, hopefully you’ll find your old highlights and margin notes, as I did, to help you skim along making them an even quicker read!

So as a starting point I’d like to share my two favorite ‘re-reads’, to hopefully stir up some input and discussion around other ‘classic’ marketing and branding books out there, and how what you re-learn from re-reading them now applies (possibly in a whole new manner) to higher education.

I highly recommend the following two ‘classic’ marketing/branding books: ‘22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’ by Al Ries and Jack Trout, and ‘Building Strong Brands’ by David A. Aaker. Both of these books are quick (esp. with previous highlights!), fun and extremely insightful reads, and will enthusiastically welcome you, back, to strategic marketing and branding!

Oh yeah, and read carefully for the higher education example that Ries and Trout provide displaying the power of being first in your customer’s mind!

-Lo de Janvry

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There’s a lot of talk out there about “elevator speeches.” As branding becomes more and more popular, most colleges and universities are embracing the idea of getting on that proverbial “same page” about how an institution is described and positioned. But, in a lot of ways, we are only making baby steps. An example of what I mean can be found here on the Centre College Web site. I was delighted to find this page and see that Centre College has obviously put a great deal of effort into developing its elevator speech. But, when I read, “Here are 10 paragraphs that succinctly describe Centre,” I realized something was terribly wrong. 10 paragraphs? Is this elevator going to Saturn? This is not an elevator speech. It’s a statement of the College’s history, size, successful alumni, recent notable news, location and a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn’t belong in an elevator speech. I’ve read it three times and I still really don’t understand how Centre is different from other colleges. I know it’s a top-50 national liberal arts college; but there are 49 other schools who can claim the same thing. I also see a lot of familiar (non-differentiating) words, “transforming,” “value,” “personal,” and “success.” For a lesson on elevator speeches, go to this site. It includes a super funny video and a strong message about what an elevator speech really is and why it’s so important.

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I was with Dowling College on Long Island the other day. I was meeting with the President, Provost, VP of Development, Director of Communications, and VP of Enrollment. We were describing our final brand strategy recommendations which were based on months and months of qualitative and quantitative research with internal and external audiences. So, it’s a big important meeting because we are essentially pitching the President and Provost on our proposed positioning strategy which will basically define how the College is marketed for the foreseeable future. About 20 minutes into the meeting, I realized that Bob Gaffney, the President at Dowling is a different kind of President. Bob is a lawyer and a former Suffolk County Executive. The years he spent in politics significantly developed his ability to craft a powerful message, deliver it with charisma and emotion, and stay on it. While we were in this meeting, right there in front of me, he took our positioning as I gave it to him and transformed it into a speech of his own. As I described the positioning strategy, he would repeat it back to me in his own words as if I were a parent and he was trying to convince me that Dowling is the best place to send my daughter to College. By the end of the meeting, he had described to me how we would shape the same message just slightly for a variety of different audiences: prospective undergraduate students, graduate students, an alum, a community resident. It was amazing. Wouldn’t it be great if all college presidents had a little more politician in them? I’m so excited about the development of Dowling’s brand strategy because the senior leadership of the College has already embraced the language and is setting an example for the rest of the institution. Branding at its finest!

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The devastation and loss of life from Tuesday’s tornadoes in the south is monumental. Our hearts go out to the 54 people who lost their lives and the thousands impacted by the storms. Of note was the miracle that occurred at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. The dorms of the Baptist college were decimated by the storms, with rescue efforts taking hours to free the trapped students. Despite damage on campus estimated at approximately $30 million dollars, nobody at Union was seriously hurt or killed.

Today is the perfect day to take your crisis plan off of the shelf, remove the dust and ask if your campus could sustain a trifecta of crises: $30 million dollars in damage; emotional and physical crisis to the students, faculty and staff; and a closure of campus for at least two weeks. And, as importantly, how well would your plan communicate these details to internal audiences, parents of students on campus, alumni and the local media when power and cell lines were compromised? Remember that a solid crisis plan should cover the mundane but also adapt to the extreme.

Despite many, many obstacles to overcome, Union should consider itself lucky. But remember that luck, like hope, is never a strategy.

-- Teresa Valerio Parrot

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven’t heard about the University of Maryland’s or the University of Cincinnati’s branding campaigns of the last six to eight years, you need to set aside a few minutes right now to go and read about them. I just got home last night from an Academic Impressions conference on branding that was held in Charlotte. I was teamed up with four other fantastic presenters; two from Lipman Hearne who really know their stuff (Jim Bernard and Joselyn Zivin), Terry Flannery from University of Maryland, and Mary Stagaman from University of Cincinnati.

Terry shared Maryland’s positioning statement and talked about the process they went through to develop it, generate buy-in throughout her campus, and launch it internally and externally. Then she described Maryland’s wildly successful “ZOOM” campaign, the first designed to bring the brand strategy to life. Finally, she transitioned over to the current “Fear the Turtle” campaign which builds on the original brand positioning through an updated and revised creative strategy. It’s an absolutely fascinating story with great measurable ROI.

Mary’s story at University of Cincinnati is equally incredible. She was put in charge of marketing eight years ago; the first campus employee to have the word “marketing” in her title. Her budget back then was $0! She is now responsible for managing a vast marketing team and budget and is a great case study for best practices in marketing and branding. You can learn about her branding initiative here.

If you ever get the chance to attend a conference where these fantastic women are telling their story, you must attend. Mary is a food & wine connoisseur so if you call her up and offer to take her to dinner, she might even give you a private lesson. She can school you in branding AND help you find a great red zin to pair with your pork!

-- Elizabeth Scarborough

Posted by Meredith Simpson at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)