January 2013 – Page 2 – Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: Immutable branding laws, revisited

As 2012 drew to a close, I spent some time revisiting some reading material that has informed my life, both personally and professionally. One of those materials was a book by Al and Laura Ries called The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (affiliate link). Perhaps you’ve heard of it? In my opinion, it is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of branding, and anyone who does any sort of marketing, public relations or brand management for a living should read it. For that matter, anyone who does any sort of communication work who wants his or her message to stand out should read it.

The Rieses present in concise form, chapter by chapter, 22 branding “rules to live by” that organizations ignore at their peril. They cite example after example of big brand names that follow or violate these rules, and provide plenty of evidence of why a brand’s tactic worked or failed, in the context of one of these 22 laws.

Before going forward, it’s important here to distinguish between the ideas of branding and marketing. I find that people, even people in our business, tend to use the terms interchangeably. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is not a marketing book, although the laws it contains do matter — greatly — to marketing people. Just bear in mind as you read on that branding is about an institution’s identity and its promise to the customer, while marketing is about delivering the product or service that institution offers to the customer. With any luck and strategic forethought, the products and services being taken to market also embody the promise of the brand that offers those products or services.

As the Rieses point out in chapter after chapter, companies have seen short-term success by violating a branding law or two. (For example, when Bayer introduces its Bayer Select line of “aspirin-free” products, in violation of law No. 10, The Law of Extensions.) But the damage to their brand eventually outweighs those short-term marketing victories. The lesson for marketers and brand managers is that what may look appealing from a marketing standpoint in the short term could do permanent damage to the brand in the long term. As the Rieses write in the very first chapter:

Marketers often confuse the power of a brand with the sales generated by that brand. But sales are not just a function of a brand’s power. Sales are also a function of the strength or weakness of a brand’s competition.

Substitute “gifts” or “students” for “sales,” and you see how this applies to higher education marketing.

My copy of this book was published in 2002, which means that many of the examples cited are outdated. Also, there’s an additional minibook at the end titled The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding which, being published in 2002, doesn’t take into account the changes wrought by social media. So if you pick up this book, I wouldn’t put too much stock in that section.

Like many branding experts, the Rieses talk about big, recognizable brand names. You won’t find any reference to colleges or universities in the book.

But that doesn’t mean these branding laws are irrelevant to higher education. If they’re immutable for the commercial sector, they should be immutable for our organizations, right?

Here are five of those laws that I think are most relevant to higher education. At the least, they serve as a reminder of best practices for our higher ed brands.

1. Law 1: The Law of Expansion.

The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.The tighter a brand’s focus, the greater its success as a brand.

This is the big one and the most important law. No wonder they put it first.

Think about the most focused colleges and universities in the nation. How strong is MIT’s brand? How about Oberlin’s? Fashion Institute of Technology’s?

Now, think about how many “comprehensive universities” there are in the U.S. (There are a lot of them.) How many of them have strong brands for being “comprehensive”?

Certainly, comparing the number of degrees an institution offers to the lines of toothpaste Crest offers (38 at the time Immutable Laws came out) isn’t fair. But there’s an underlying principle that applies in both cases. If a college or university is known for something very specific, as MIT is for engineering, it could do some damage to its brand by extending into areas that are unrelated. (Obviously, MIT has very strong programs in business and other areas, but the connection to the institution’s emphasis on engineering and science is strong.)

The strongest brands are the most focused. (See also: Law 2: The Law of Contraction and Law 10: The Law of Extensions.)

2. Law 5: The Law of the Word.

When people think of your institution, what word or phrase comes to mind? A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

Back in the 1990s, before the university I work for changed its name from the University of Missouri-Rolla to Missouri University of Science and Technology, the University of Missouri System conducted a series of focus groups around the state in an effort to find out how much people of our state knew about each of the system’s four campuses. When focus groups were asked about our institution, the most common response was that we were known for “engineering.” That was the word we owned among the public of Missouri in the 1990s. And it’s the word we own today — even more so, now that we have a name that better reflects the intrinsic nature of our campus.

What about MIT or Oberlin? Does MIT own “great engineering school” on a national scale? Probably. Does Oberlin own “great liberal arts”?

In building a brand, Ries and Ries suggest you “forget about the laundry list of wonderful attributes your product has” and instead focus on owning a word in the customer’s mind. “The mind gives meaning to visual reality by using words,” they write. “To get into a consumer’s mind, you have to sacrifice.” This is hard to do for any organization, but especially for higher ed.

3. Law 7: The Law of Quality.

Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone. Here is where the issues of affordability and accessibility come in to play today, and will in the future as The Great Disruption in higher ed continues. (Moody’s negative outlook for the entire U.S. higher education sector, announced on Wednesday, will obviously play in to public perceptions of U.S. higher education as a “quality” product.)

One of my favorite TED Talks, which I’ve written about previously on this blog, is Life lessons from an ad man, by Rory Sutherland of the Ogilvy Group. Sutherland talks about the importance of advertising as a means of adding perceived value to products and services. He even talks a bit about the perceived value of higher education.

“The point is that education doesn’t actually work by teaching you things,” Sutherland says. “It actually works by giving you the impression that you’ve had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very, very successful in later life.”

Sutherland is exaggerating to make a point, and it’s a bit like saying the role of higher education is to be like Wizard of Oz and confer credentials in the form of a diploma to straw men. But the perception of quality is an important component in branding, and as The Great Disruption continues to turn educational products into generic commodities that can be purchased cheaply, or even obtained free of charge, institutions that emphasize quality will have to think about just how well they are selling this intangible to prospective students, as well as how great the demand is for such a, well, quality. And also, whether your brand is really built on quality.

“If you want to build a powerful brand,” write the Rieses, “you have to build a powerful perception of quality in the mind.”

The notion of affordability often flies in the face of quality. Institutions need to decide whether to build on quality or some other factor. You can’t be both cheap and great.

“The customer who wears a Rolex watch doesn’t do so to be more punctual,” write the Rieses. “The customer who wears a Rolex watch does so to let other people know that he or she can afford to buy a Rolex watch.”

4. Law 11: The Law of Fellowship.

Brand managers like to talk a lot about differentiation, about how our brands are distinctive. And this is important (see Law 22: The Law of Singularity). But in reality, you don’t want to be the only one of your kind in the marketplace. Then you wouldn’t have any competition.

Coke needs Pepsi. Staples needs Office Depot and Office Max. Southwest needs American Airlines and United. And so on.

In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands.

When the leadership at our university was building the case for changing our name, they developed a classification of 16 technological research universities — institutions that, like us, were heavily focused on the STEM disciplines but also conducted research and had graduate-level programs. (This process allowed us to exclude fine, undergraduate focused engineering schools like Rose Hulman and Harvey Mudd, so that we could further narrow our scope.) By focusing on these 16 institutions, we intentionally limited ourselves to a ‘fellowship” of similar universities. (We compete with others not in this grouping, but we differentiate ourselves from those institutions by our focus. We are one of an elite group of 16 — and the only one in the Midwest.)

5. Law 13: The Law of the Company.

Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference.

From my perspective, as one who works for one of four campuses that are part of a university system, this law bears great importance when it comes to building a distinctive campus brand apart from the system brand.

Think of a multi-campus university system as the “company” and the individual campus as the “brand.” (For example, the system is like Procter & Gamble and the campus is Tide.) Does the company name need to be part of the brand? Would Tide be a stronger brand if it were marketed as “Tide, by Procter & Gamble” or “Procter & Gamble’s Tide”?

Taking it down to a campus level: Maybe the brand is a school or college and the “company” is the campus itself. Does the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications have a stronger brand identity than, say, “Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications”?

Sometimes, this law conflicts with other laws, such as No. 10 (The Law of Extensions). And when the brand managers (and deans) individual schools or colleges of an institution see their organizations as brands that are distinct from the academic institution, then problems arise. (See Law 14: The Law of Subbrands. What branding builds, subbranding can destroy.)

So Law 13 can be a tricky one to navigate, because companies are employee-oriented but brands are, or should be, customer-oriented.

Your turn

Have you read The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding? If so, what are your takeaways from the book? What law or laws that affect higher education have I omitted? Please share your comments.

The Moody’s forecast: A time for bold action

Moody’s Investors Service gave U.S. higher education a failing grade in finance on Wednesday, presenting a negative outlook for the entire sector, with the exception of only the most elite private and public institutions.

The reason, according to The New York Times, is that “even the best colleges and universities faced diminished prospects for revenue growth, given mounting public pressure to keep tuition down, a weak economy and the prospect that a penny-pinching Congress could cut financing for research grants and student aid.”

“The U.S. higher education sector had hit a critical juncture in the evolution of its business model,” wrote Eva Bogarty, the report’s author. “Most universities will have to lower their cost structures to achieve long-term financial sustainability and to fund future initiatives.”

How can we turn around this pessimism? Bogarty writes:

The sector will need to adjust to the prospect of muted revenue growth. Strong governance and management leadership will be needed by most universities as they navigate through this period of intensified change and challenge.

The Times translates that as “bolder actions by university leaders to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency.”

“What’s new here is not the individual pieces,” a former college CFO told Inside Higher Ed. “What’s new is that in a collective way, the model that we in higher education have been employing since the 1960s is really being called into question by external factors. And it’s that collectiveness that creates a new sense of urgency.”

Sounds like the time is ripe for higher education to take bold action.

It’s our move.

The James Tracy conspiracy

WARNING: Off-topic post ahead.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the communications faculty member at Florida Atlantic University who claims that the massacre of elementary school students at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month may have been staged or may not have happened at all.

To recap:

On his personal blog, FAU communications professor James Tracy wrote recently that the entire incident was staged as a means for the Obama administration to enforce gun control.

James Tracy (top) and James Brolin: One and the same?

The “storyline” of the incident, Tracy writes, “was to a substantial degree constructed by federal and state law enforcement authorities and major media around the theory that 20-year-old Adam Lanza was the sole agent in the massac

re.” The professor further asserts that “This scenario became an established reality through the news media’s pronounced repetition of the lone gunman narrative and meme.” He then constructs a timeline of events, beginning with a September 2012 announcement by Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung of a new security system, and cherrypicks his way through a series of blog and news accounts up to and beyond the Dec. 14, 2012, incident.

The post makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in conspiracy theories. And I have to admit, they fascinate me. Maybe it’s my background in journalism, and my inclination to be skeptical of the good intentions of those in positions of corporate or government authority. From the Apollo moon landing (did it really happen?) to the New World Order to the death of Elvis (is he still alive?), I love reading about conspiracy theories. The crazier, the better. And Professor Tracy’s tale is right up there with the best of them.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Professor Tracy’s explanations are plausible. Because I don’t believe Professor Tracy is real. He’s as fake as he claims the Sandy Hook news storyline to be.

One need only examine the public persona of James Tracy to discern that his is a totally fabricated construct that is part of a vast government conspiracy that reaches even into the hallowed halls of higher education.

First, let’s see how FAU presents the man. Yes, the university does list an employee by that name in its publicly accessible database. Tracy is listed as an “Associate Professor, Comm. & Multimedia Studies.” There’s even a very convincing, cleverly constructed faculty profile page, complete with bio, a list of selected publications and a photo that looks uncannily like the one used in mainstream corporate media coverage of his recent blog post. But, let’s get real. FAU is a public university, receiving public funds from the state government. And we know that public universities are controlled by their state governments. Can we really trust directory information from a public institution?

Moreover, have you noticed how Tracy’s “official” photo looks eerily similar to one of actor James Brolin? (See the comparison above.) Could it be that the government has put actor James Brolin on the payroll to act as a communications and media studies professor who also blogs about conspiracy theories, all as part of an intricate cover up to perpetuate a false conspiracy that the government is trying to take our guns away from us? Brolin is quite a convincing actor. Just watch old episodes of Marcus Welby, M.D. and you’ll see what I’m talking about. (That is, if you can find any. The government-industrial media complex has done a pretty good job of making those programs inaccessible. Probably as part of the conspiracy to influence public perception of general practitioners as uncaring technocrats, thereby ensuring stronger support for totalitarian health care.)

And maybe it’s just a coincidence. But, have you noticed that, according to the trivia section on Brolin’s IMDB page, he’s listed as “a lifelong Democrat” who would therefore be highly likely to go along with such a federal conspiracy? Especially when one considers the fact that Brolin hasn’t had any meaningful acting work since Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2008? The very year Obama was elected to his first term as president!?

Moreover, let’s consider Tracy’s whole notion that the government-police-military-media establishment concocted a “lone gunman” theory to explain the Sandy Hook incident, all as a cover up for the government’s plan. Tracy writes that ” in the days following the tragedy, the untenable lone gunman narrative … [became] firmly established in the public psyche via an overwhelming chorus of corporate media reports and interpretations.”

Lone gunman theory, eh? Where have we heard that one before? Asserted and debunked by the esteemed Warren Commission. BOOM, Professor Tracy! Paging Oliver Stone…

So, based on the evidence I present here, it would appear that James Tracy does not actually exist. In reality, he is part of an elaborate scheme concocted by the government and big corporate media intended to fabricate false resistance to protection of the nation’s public spaces from semiautomatic-weapons toting psychopaths.

Or maybe he’s for real?

And maybe Elvis is still alive.

Hashing out 2012’s word of the year

From phone to phenomenon: the hash mark made its mark in 2012.

Who would ever have thought that the pound symbol, once most recognizable as the least useful telephone button, would ascend to greatness?

But with the rise of Twitter, that innocuous little # has taken on great power. Stick it in front of a word or group of words connected without spaces (#likethis), and suddenly that pound symbol (a.k.a. hash mark) harnesses the chaotic flood of tweets into searchable, contextual and even sometimes meaningful bits of information.

On Friday, the American Dialect Society proclaimed “hashtag” as its word of the year. Finally, the humble symbol has received its due recognition.

“Hashtag” beat out contenders like YOLO, fiscal cliff and Gangnam style for the distinction. While those words all have merit, they also have something in common. They are 2012 words that aren’t likely to carry over much beyond the first few months of 2013. Like YOLO itself (perhaps), these words only live once.

Hashtag, on the other hand, has been a persistent little bugger. It’s been with us for more than five years now, almost as long as Twitter itself. (According to GigaOM,the first tweet to ever carry a hashtag was hatched on Aug. 27, 2007.) And it’s likely to continue to live long after our long international Gangnam style nightmare is over.

But why did it take so long for hashtag to gain traction? Ben Zimmer, who chairs the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society, explains that 2012 was the year the hashtag transcended Twitter and became a truly multimedia phenomenon.

“This was the year when the hashtag became a ubiquitous phenomenon in online talk,” Zimmer said. “In the Twittersphere and elsewhere, hashtags have created instant social trends, spreading bite-sized viral messages on topics ranging from politics to pop culture.”

Think about all the TV shows (and more recently, bowl games) that include hashtags in their promos, or those annoying Facebook connections who affix hashtag to their posts as though they’re on Twitter (even if, or especially if, they’ve never tweeted).

Yes, the hashtag is hear to stay. On Twitter, where there’s a hashtag for everything, there’s even a #hashtag for hashtag. So it’s fitting that it has gained this recognition after struggling in relative obscurity for five long years.

Well played, hashtag. #wellplayed.