I always encourage our clients to set up open forums for us on campus so that faculty, staff, and students can come and hear about our research findings on an institution's brand. We contend that brand strategy development cannot take place in the marketing office behind closed doors. You want your brand to be embraced by your entire community....and reinforced over time by them. So giving your internal constituents an opportunity to hear about your research, react to it, and provide feedback on the direction for your brand is sort of a no-brainer.

And, sometimes it can have an even bigger impact than you might think. Case in point at Loyola College in Maryland. We conducted four open forums on campus last week.  Three were for faculty and staff and one was specifically for students. About 100 faculty and staff members and 30 students participated. Among them was Lizzie McQuillan, a writer for the school newspaper, who following the open forum asked if she could interview me for an article.

The article came out yesterday and it's just terrific. The open forums went a long way toward advancing buy-in for the brand strategy....and the article takes it one step further.  A great example of how to get your campus on that proverbial "same page!"