With all the daily, even hourly, hullabaloo we see and read about the importance of social media in branding and marketing, sometimes we forget just how important it is to maintain a strong brand identity in the offline world.
The idea that “online conversations will spread to hundreds or thousands of people (and maybe more) with the click of a mouse” may be “theoretically possible,” write Keller and Fay, but it’s largely false. According to their research, “most links that are shared reach only 5-10 people.” And fewer than 1 percent of a typical brand’s Facebook fans are what we would consider actively engaged with that brand.
Today’s consumer marketplace is highly social, but not because of particular platforms or technologies. The businesses that will be the most successful in the future are the ones that embrace a model that puts people — rather than technology — at the center of products, campaigns and market strategies.
In this regard, higher education should have an advantage. We are in the business of educating people, not pushing technology.
But sometimes I wonder if we become so enamored with technology or social media in our branding that we lose sight of how we can connect with people in the offline context. Sure, social media has its place, and it is growing as a vehicle for connecting with our audiences or customers. But can it replace more traditional word of mouth marketing?
Today is Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States that was established (originally as Decoration Day) as a day of remembrance for those military men and women who died in service to their nation. But for many of us in the U.S., this day has turned into a sort of second Veterans Day — that day in November set aside to honor all military veterans, dead and living.
Maybe there’s nothing much wrong with that. Holidays have a way of evolving over time. Just as Thanksgiving has come to mark the start of the holiday shopping season more than it is a day for giving thanks, so Memorial Day has morphed into a day of surface patriotism.
But this straying from its original purpose disturbs folks like Gary Thompson, who served in Vietnam and is featured in a recent Memorial Day story in the Newman (Ga.) Times-Herald. “Because of his concern about the loss of meaning for Memorial Day, this time of year he passes out copies of a 2002 statement by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, ‘Meaning of Memorial Day Distorted.’ He distributes the statement in clear plastic sleeves.
It reads: “Memorial Day is supposed to be a day to remember and honor the nation’s war dead. Lately, however, it has become a convenient day also to remember most everyone else. The media has fostered this trend by calling on people to remember their loved ones at a time set aside for those who died serving their country.
“Memorial Day must serve as a reminder only for our war dead. With so many groups being commemorated on Memorial Day, it becomes easy to lose sight of the real sacrifices made in war.”
It’s no surprise that we Americans have turned Memorial Day into an all-purpose celebration of tepid patriotism. After all, we’re a nation that has been at war for 11 years now, so that fact is not far from our minds. As Charles P. Pierce writes in an excellent piece for Esquire (Loving the Warrior, Hating the Wars: Our Memorial Daze), our nation displays support for our troops in many ways. But much of it rings hollow.
We let them get on planes ahead of us, with the elderly and the infirm and the toddlers, but we underfund hospital care and live quite comfortably with the notion that a lot of the functions of the military have been privatized. (Are we that long from Honor The Contractors ceremonies?) We pay tribute to them at ballgames, but send them into battle ill-prepared, and bring them home to decrepit facilities and heedless bureaucracies. We give them parades, but had to be blackjacked into giving them a “new G.I. Bill” that is but a pale shadow of the original one, which did no less than create the modern American middle class.
We are also a nation that seems blissfully unaware of what’s happening with our troops in Afghanistan. Thanks to the volunteer military (including reservists), we don’t have to worry about our sons and daughters getting drafted. Our nation as a whole has sacrificed little during the past 11 years of military action. Afghanistan is not beamed into our living room, as Vietnam was a generation ago. (The mass audience the TV networks relied on to watch those evening newscasts have disintegrated into a zillion fragmented niches. Even if there were regular reports from the front, who would be watching?)
To be patriotic on Memorial Day isn’t that tough. Just fly an American flag from your porch, or plant one in your yard, and call it done. Then pop open a cold one and fire up the grill.
But maybe we could all do a little bit more on this national holiday.
Maybe we could start by acknowledging the true purpose of Memorial Day, that it is a day of remembrance for those who died on the fields of war. Do you know anyone who died in battle? I do not. All of the military people I know are the survivors. Or were, as many of the older vets, including my dad, who served in World War II, have passed on.
But that does not mean I am not affected by the loss of life in battle. Last week, a young man from our community, who died in Afghanistan in the line of duty, was returned and laid to rest. PFC Richard L. McNulty III is one of more than 1, 800 U.S. troops to die in Afghanistan. In April, another young man from our area, Tyler Smith of Licking, Mo., also died in Afghanistan. Two young men from two small towns, where wars are as close as the kids next door. These two young men died serving their countries. We can argue all day about the merits of the war itself, but we cannot deny the fact that they did die in service to their nation. This day is set aside to remember them.
Beyond acknowledging the day’s true meaning, perhaps we could go a bit farther and reach out to those veterans (and active-duty military) we do know and thank them for their service. I know I’m now contradicting the point I made at the beginning of this ramble. But while the military are on our minds, maybe we could take a minute to say thanks before we forget about it and turn our attention to beer and barbecue.
Finally, maybe we could take a little time to educate ourselves on the issues our veterans face as they return to civilian life. You might start by reading this Newsweek piece on the increasing rate of suicide among veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. “About 18 veterans kill themselves each day. Thousands from the current wars have already done so. In fact, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by their own hand is now estimated to be greater than the number (6,460) who have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Some of these struggling veterans — those who have pondered suicide — are no doubt enrolled in our colleges and universities. Maybe it would be good if we knew a little bit about them.
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Before I wrote this post, I was hoping to get to talk with someone in the higher ed PR or marketing field who had served in either Afghanistan, Iraq or even Kuwait (Desert Storm). I sent out a query to my Twitter network and, despite multiple retweets, I did not hear from a single veteran. This lack of response confirmed my suspicion that most of us in the higher ed marketing and PR field are not as directly connected to the military of today as were our colleagues of the past.
It’s Memorial Day weekend. Time to get away for a long weekend. So I’ll be brief. Here are five multimedia-centric resources and gems from the realm of higher ed and marketing/PR.
Ron Bronson videoblogs, and he launches this new experiment with a thoughtful commentary on the need to mainstream the higher ed thought leadership community. I’m looking forward to watching more of Ron’s videos. (P.S. If you don’t keep up with Ron’s blog, you’re missing out on some great writing.)
5 ways to spend your video budget wisely. If you’re like me, you read that headline and think, Video budget? What’s a video budget? Even if you don’t have much in the way of money for video, these takeaways could be helpful. They might even help you make a case for a modest budget.
EDUMusic Blog is a newish site where musically inclined higher ed folks can show off their talents. Yet another web creation of Mike Petroff. (P.S. Mike is quite a talented musician, and was even as a rude boy back in high school, as you’ll see if you scroll to the bottom of this blog and watch the performance by his high school ska band.)
Of all the branding, marketing and PR books I’ve read in 2012 (which, admittedly, is only a few), Brand Like A Rock Star is my favorite by far. And not just because it combines two of my passions — branding and rock’n’roll — but also because of Jones’ straightforward writing style, knack for storytelling and ability to draw lessons from the realm of music to the world of marketing. I highly recommend this book for any lover of marketing, branding and rock’n’roll. You can also follow Steve’s doings on his website, blog and on Twitter (@rockstarbrands). And for Kindle users, Amazon now offers Brand Like A Rock Star: The Musical Companion, a free chapter-by-chapter playlist.
1. You share a name with the Sex Pistols’ guitarist. Did your parents name you after that Steve Jones, or is that just a happy coincidence?
I would love to think that my parents musical tastes were that progressive, but that simply wouldn’t be true! I was also born in 1970, a few years before the Sex Pistols’ rise to fame. But even if I had been born at the height of the Sex Pistols’ fame, I doubt my parents would have known who Steve was. Their tastes were much more folk-oriented. Frankly, I am surprised I wasn’t named after Gordon Lightfoot or Roger Whittaker or someone like that!
2. What inspired you to write this book?
I’ve always been very interested in the human decision making process, and over the course of my 27 years in the radio industry I’ve studied it a great deal. Why does a listener choose one radio station over another, even though both are playing essentially the same songs? It comes down to branding. It comes down to an expectation. Fast forward a few years, and I was sitting on a patio sipping a beer and listening to Jimmy Buffett and the thought crossed my mind that he had built up an incredible brand using only one hit song, “Margaritaville”. I began to think about other rock stars hat did the same thing, like the Grateful Dead. And the concept was born! I immediately reserved the URL “Brand Like A Rock Star” and started blogging about the lessons that business can learn from rock and roll. Over the course of two years of blogging, the book evolved rather organically from there.
3. Of all the branding lessons in your book, which one do you think is the most important for marketers (of any or all sectors) to heed? And why?
KISS proved that “different beats better”
There are two really. One is “Sell The Experience” and the other is “Different Beats Better.” The “experience” concept is simple: Stop selling/marketing/promoting the products you sell, and start talking about the experience that customers have when they interact with you. Great brands spend most of their marketing time (and money) talking about the experience. Think about Apple. Very, very seldom do you see Apple ads that talk about price points or even product features. They are masterful at marketing the experience. My favorite example is the iPhone ad that uses two deaf people communicating via Facetime. Very powerful.
The “Different” concept is equally simple, yet seems to evade so many businesses. KISS proved it: You don’t need to strive to be dramatically better than the existing leader, you need to demonstrate that you are dramatically different. After all, what constitutes “better” differs from person to person. We all have our own view of what a “better” product looks like. But most of us can agree on what is “different.”
KISS was different when they came along, and you couldn’t help but to notice them. Lady Gaga does that today. You can’t avoid her. Are KISS and Lady Gaga the best examples of musical genius in our time? Probably not, to be fair. They are talented, but are they better than everyone else? On the other hand, nobody can dispute that they were both dramatically different.
4. Which takeaway from Brand Like a Rock Star do you think is most applicable to higher education?
Avoid trying to be all things to all people, and build a brand that someone will hate.
I think the higher education institutions that position themselves as “general” are becoming invisible, just like any business that attempts to please everyone eventually does. The schools (and brands) of the future that stand the best chance of success are the ones that stand for something. And when you stand for something, you are going to inevitably have people who dislike what you stand for. Accept that. In fact, celebrate it! If I’m a history buff, I am probably not going to choose MIT. Yet there is no doubt that I probably have an opinion on MIT and an understanding of what they are all about.
So what is it that you do that is special and unique? What do you specialize in? What makes you different than everyone else? Find those answers and use them to build your reputation.
5. When you think of the most recognizable brands in higher education (i.e., the most recognizable colleges and universities), what comes to mind? And to which rock stars would you compare those brands?
That’s a cool question, and not an easy one to answer. I think the higher education brands that come to mind are the schools that stand for something, as I mentioned above.
If you wanted to draw some parallels between rock stars and recognizable colleges and universities, you could look to certain qualities and values. For example, Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale are like Bruce Springsteen — almost royal in their nature, among the very first to ever exist, and likely to maintain their legendary status for many years to come. Liberal schools like Williams College, Amherst, or Claremont are the Bob Dylans of education, leaning heavily on issues, rigorously academic but socially inclusive, and often progressive in their thinking. Schools like MIT and Stanford are like Rush: Very nerdy, extremely intelligent, and uniquely and wonderfully complicated.
Although it is superficial, it is a fun way to look at brands — education or otherwise — and bands.
Bonus question (you know I have to ask this): What are the five albums you would take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?
In no particular order… and with “greatest hits” albums excluded…
The findings or a recent study on how brands use Facebook should cause all of us in higher ed to rethink how we use the social media giant for our marketing efforts.
The study, conducted by Facebook itself and recently reported in Ad Age, suggests that the “touchy-feely” approaches many brands (including higher ed brands) take on Facebook aren’t all that effective. (Thanks to Inigral’s Brandon Croke for sharing that Ad Age article via Twitter.) Analyzing 1,200 posts from 23 different brands, Facebook’s researchers found that for those brands, getting a lot of “likes” or comments on posts may be less effective than Facebook “shares,” which redistribute a brand’s post into users’ timelines and is viewable by all of their Facebook pals.
“Compared with likes, shares represent a bigger investment from the consumer and occur less frequently,” writes Ad Age’s Matt Creamer. “Thus, shares are often going to be more meaningful from a marketing perspective. After all, they suggest the brand is tapping into that friend-of-fan network that’s central to Facebook’s viral proposition.”
Good point. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting a thumbs up on your Facebook post, but that like is little more than a simple nod of approval from someone who is already connected to your brand. Wouldn’t you rather have members of your Facebook community avidly share your posts with their own networks. This moves people into more of a brand ambassador role, sharing information from your organization with others who may then choose to get on board with you.
But whether you’re talking about likes, comments or shares, the best brands share information that is relative to the brand as well as to their Facebook community, Sean Bruich, head of measurement platforms and standards at Facebook, told Ad Age.
“By far, the biggest predictor of engagement was that the post was on a topic relevant to the brand,” said Bruich. “It impacts everything, from lightweight likes to more invested shares. It’s actually one of the most important things a brand can do. People are seeing the content because they liked the brand, and it makes sense that content about the brand will get them engaged.”
