Transforming the Template

Corporate communicators bring fresh perspectives to campus

Integrated marketing is becoming the norm in institutional communications offices. Because of this shift, many colleges and universities are bringing in corporate communicators who have experience in building a brand.

By Andrea Jarrell

Once upon a time in a land far, far away from college campuses, Joe Hice helped build one of the most iconic brands in the world-Harley-Davidson. Now as the associate vice president of marketing and public relations for the University of Florida, he's working on building another brand that he hopes will rev up a different type of enthusiast-"The Gator Nation."

Hice and other communications pros have been wooed to campuses from Fortune 500 companies like Alcoa and Lockheed Martin, as well as top international advertising and public relations agencies such as J. Walter Thompson and Golin-Harris. If you think they've traded pinstripes and fast pace in favor of tweeds and a slower tempo, think again. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, many corporate communicators are drawn to higher education because of a desire for greater creativity.

On the flipside, institutions whose vernacular has only recently included the "B" word are turning to these pros to bring marketing fire to their communication efforts. While fingers occasionally get burned, many practitioners who have made the switch from corporate to collegiate America say they've never looked back.

It used to be that if you scratched the surface of a campus communications office, more often than not you would find a former journalist. But that began to change when the news-bureau model of campus communications evolved into an integrated marketing operation.

It was only a decade ago that most institutions relied soley on media and public relations to promote their admissions and development efforts. But as colleges and universities found themselves in a new era of competition for students, donors, alumni loyalty, and prestige, they needed a new approach-one that would build on the value of their institutional brands. Integrated marketing brings together a campus's disparate marketing and promotional efforts; but more important, it does so in a comprehensive, more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts way. Integrated marketing is the fuel that powers a brand. It's no wonder, then, that colleges and universities have begun to turn to corporate communicators who have been building brands for decades.

Outside expertise

Florida's Hice says that many schools believe they can introduce new branding, marketing, and communications initiatives more quickly by bringing someone in from the outside. His Gator Nation campaign is a good example. Like Harley-Davidson, the Gator Nation brand campaign invokes membership in a tribe with its own creed, culture, and homeland-the University of Florida. Rolled out three years ago, the initial video introduced the campaign with an arch mythic tale of the founding of the Gator Nation. In the video, the university's president mounts a Harley (of course) and traverses the globe and even the frontiers of space, planting Gator Nation signs along the way.

The message: The foundation of the Gator Nation is the University of Florida, but the Gator Nation is everywhere. The campaign's award-winning television ads feature smiling, successful people from all walks of life sharing the phrase "Go Gators!" According to Hice, the slogan encourages them to go do something great.

Hice, a Gator himself, says that his experience outside the university provides him with a different viewpoint of college marketing and that the campaign makes the most of that. "We no longer feature the beaker shot in the lab or students toiling over the computer," he says. "Our branding campaign and institutional television approach have resulted in a paradigm shift in the way we, and many colleges and universities we compete with, go to market."

Georgia Tech's James Fetig, who came from corporate giants Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, says colleges and universities are attracted to corporate pros like himself for their fresh perspectives and innovative communications practices, as well as a highly disciplined approach to performance and measurement. In the three years since taking on marketing and communications at Georgia Tech, he and his team have expanded the scope and role of market research by integrating it into nearly every project they tackle. "The result is that we no longer guess at what actions we should take," Fetig explains. "The research both guides us and measures our progress."

The corporate environment is much more accustomed to return on investment, says Hice, whose team also measures everything it does. During the three years since the Gator Nation campaign's initial roll-out, the university's percentage of "best university" responses in an annual survey of Florida residents has improved each year. "Today we're listed best university by approximately 43 percent of respondents. That's a nine-point shift," he says. And while Hice doesn't think he can claim complete credit for the continued increase in the university's quality of students, graduation rates, and fundraising efforts, all have improved each year of the campaign.

A blank brand

Higher education advancement's quest for fresh perspective presents a rare opportunity for corporate and agency branding professionals. Marilyn Kail, a former vice president with 30 years of experience working for a national advertising, marketing, and communications agency, says she was drawn to Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania by the opportunity to play a major role in shaping brand communications, as well as starting a marketing communications department from the ground floor.

Kail, who is the university's assistant vice president for marketing communications, says, "There aren't as many opportunities today with major clients to start fresh in defining their brand. More frequently, you are charged with developing effective strategies to communicate about the brand to its customers."

Fetig agrees: "The motivation for individuals coming from the corporate world depends on each person, but for me it was in part the opportunity to build a brand starting with a clean sheet of paper."

For Kail, a new approach to the Carnegie Mellon brand has meant infusing an agency structure and sensibility to its communications. Within the university's advancement division, Kail oversees a team of 35 writers, multimedia specialists, designers, and client services "account reps" who operate much like the university's own in-house agency. Rather than being divided purely by function (i.e., marketing, Web, publications), these professionals are grouped into creative teams that specialize in admissions, development, and faculty research. Each working group has its own writer, designer, and client services liaison who works directly with other departments on campus. "Our job," says Kail, "is to know everything about each 'client's' industry."

Kail's department has brought consistent integrated-marketing muscle to the university's operations that some institutions have long dreamed about, such as demographic research that directs advancement officers; "double-income-no-kids" prospects; prominent product placements in films; help in promoting new products based on faculty inventions; and a watchful eye to ensure that the university receives adequate recognition in intellectual-property licensing rights.

Yet Georgia Tech's Fetig cautions, "The biggest risk for institutions is hiring someone from the business world who extrapolates business experience, models, and concepts one-for-one into the higher-education model. Concepts translate, but not one-for-one and certainly not immediately. The most important skill is listening carefully, followed by the ability to systematically build deep relationships throughout the campus."

Kail believes the ability to build relationships is exactly why her agency background has prepared her well for the move to higher education. In fact, she says that earning the trust of her new colleagues is why she has been able to successfully incorporate an atypical structure at her university. "Agency folks must rely on the power of relationships and persuasion in order to be successful," she says. "Every major campaign I've ever led required guiding a group of stakeholders from multiple disciplines and points of views to develop a clear strategy and execute that strategy on time and on budget with the highest ROI. These successful team-building and collaboration skills translate very well to the higher education environment, where collegiality and interdisciplinary problem-solving are valued."

Culture clash

Although trustees and presidents may be eager to inject real-world expertise into their institutions' marketing efforts, they don't always acknowledge the differences between corporate and collegiate culture. "The cultural differences are a major item to be reconciled," says Fetig.

A friend of Fetig's retired from the corporate world and took a job at a small Midwestern college but left frustrated within six months. Liza Fisher Norman, principal of the firm Turnaround Marketing Communications, says she's seen the same thing at independent schools, which are the clients she works with. She has observed many schools create new marketing communications positions and hire corporate marketers to fill them.

"Director of marketing communications is a new position for independent school administrations, and I've seen corporate marketing managers come in with guns blazing, ready to make their mark, but never stopping to learn about the culture and determine what approaches would be most effective," she says.

According to Norman, those coming from a corporate environment need a primer before starting work. Hers would include assessing where to light fires in their colleagues and where to douse the fire in themselves; where to use the tools in their marketing bag of tricks, such as incentives and giveaways, and where those tools are inappropriate in the independent school world.

Corporate communicators who have successfully made the switch say their biggest frustrations are the pace of change and academia's approval process. Lori Doyle, vice president of communications for the University of Pennsylvania, says, "Research universities are large, complex, and decentralized. Everything is done collaboratively, which makes decision making a slow and sometimes agonizing process."

Fetig's rule of thumb: Initiatives that may take a fiscal quarter or less in business can take a year or more in the academic world. Considering how long change can take, you can never take your eyes off the prize, he says. When he first arrived at Georgia Tech, he put a series of strategic directions and initiatives on index cards. He carries those cards everywhere he goes to help him stay focused. "Now, in my third year, we're about three-quarters of the way through the list and making good progress, undistracted by detours." He counsels all his hires from the outside to be patient, to take a very long view, and to listen carefully.

Florida's Hice, who frequently speaks about the transition from the corporate to academic world, says he is often asked this question: "Are faculty really that difficult?" He says he has learned that faculty members feel the need to provide critique. "After all, that's what they have spent their lives doing, critiquing other people's work as well as their own," he says. Because faculty members are rarely shy about sharing their opinions, he now finds the discussions to be very engaging and a lot of fun.

Given that marketing can still be met with suspicion in academia, beginning any marketing strategy discussion with what the value is to the constituencies is a key to success, says Carnegie Mellon's Kail. Another crucial component is an ability to explain marketing to academics in language they will understand. "Don't assume that your new higher ed colleagues understand-or care to understand- marketing speak," she says. Kail and other corporate transplants suggest building a network of advisers from across the campus who can provide insight and serve as champions when needed.

No turning back

Longtime higher-education marketing advocate Larry Lauer, who is now the vice chancellor for marketing and communication at Texas Christian University, says collegiate communications chiefs need to understand how academic institutions are different from a corporate environment; sometimes, they are more like small cities. He says, "[Communicators] need to have a passion for the business that enables the stamina it takes to handle the politics and to keep going in spite of occasional barriers."

Such passion is probably what indicates success when corporate communicators enter the collegiate world. "I'm a Gator, and being able to come back to the University of Florida and practice my trade has been awesome," says Hice. He encourages communications professionals to be patient, especially those at larger universities. "To succeed in this environment you've got to take the time to get to know your constituents and understand what is important to them," he explains. "It's no easy task, but one I've found to be very enjoyable and rewarding."

When Doyle left her post as general manager of the Philadelphia office of the international public relations agency Golin-Harris, many of her agency peers thought her move to academia was a step down. After eight years at the University of Pennsylvania's Medical Center, she moved into the position of vice president of communications for the entire university, where she has been for the last seven years. "I have never regretted making the move," she says. She finds the issues to be more complex than anything she ever had to deal with in the agency business. She adds that while there is still stress, it's a different and more manageable kind of stress. "The work is intellectually interesting, the people I work with are the best in the world at what they do, and the students at Penn make it all worthwhile," she says.

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IN SHORT

Alligator Stew. Take a look at this delicious dose of an integrated marketing campaign from the University of Florida's Gator Nation at gogatornation.com. The Web site says that the Gator Nation "knows no boundaries," and it allows Gator fans to upload videos through YouTube and photos through Flickr. It also provides interesting news nuggets for alumni-UF serves as the world's largest citrus research center-and shows all the Gator Nation advertising campaigns mentioned in the article above.

Will You Be My Friend? Institutions are looking for corporate branders who bring innovative communications expertise to the table. One of the newest trends in integrated marketing is "friendenomics," which describes social networking communications. According to the Pew Center study of online social networks among American teens, 55 percent of those who are online use social networking sites. As these sites become a bigger piece of the integrated marketing puzzle, institutions will have to adjust strategies. Go here to learn more.

All Aboard. If you haven't jumped on the branding bandwagon, take a lesson from Portland State University in Oregon. The institution's Web site shows how the President's Task Force clarified communications through an integrated marketing campaign. The site shows the timeline for the project, the audit of the marketing department, the key messaging themes, the visual identity creation, and the brand values. If your institution is onboard for integrated marketing, take a page from Portland's book to gain a sense of the process.

You Must Be Mistaken. But don't worry-we all learn from mistakes. That's why Thomas Hayes and Roy Adler wrote University Marketing Mistakes: 50 Pitfalls to Avoid ($19.95 CASE members; $24.95 nonmembers) using real institutions and real mistakes that marketers, whether from a corporation or on a campus, should be on the lookout for. Each case study presents a situation and then offers a marketing lesson to correct the problem. The funny examples chosen by the authors are reminders that erring is human. Buy the book.

This is from the July/August 2008 edition of CURRENTS.