If you are dealing with this, then it’s important to make the right moves. It is quickly becoming a real issue for public relations professionals at colleges and universities—especially for those whose presidents are supporting the idea. 

Over 100 college and university presidents across the country are supporting the Amethyst Initiative,  a group promoting the concept of dropping the drinking age in the United States to 18.  Here’s the list of presidents who are on board. 

More details on the group and the story are available from the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Needless to say, it’s a hot topic. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving are not happy with the presidents who are supporting lowering the drinking age .  The media coverage is growing because it’s an interesting story—and newsworthy. 

How to Handle It 

What’s the best way to deal with this from a public relations standpoint? With any issue that will directly affect students and people in the neighborhood, I say be proactive and take the issue right to them. If your president has not signed up for the Amethyst Initiative then you could have discussions with those who will be most affected. The dialogue can take place anywhere from public settings to online. It can involve the president or it can even be handled in residence halls. The point is it’s important that you solicit audience input before making a decision to join, or not to join, this group. Then, when the boss does take a position, people will appreciate the fact that he/she did some research and audience analysis. Most people understand that the president will think for himself/herself anyway. Still, soliciting input is a smart move.

Are You on the List? 

If your president has already joined the list, it’s time to tell people why if you haven’t already. This is one of those issues that could really get people upset unless they understand how and why the president made the decision. You can hear uninformed people talking now, right? “I can’t believe that idiot president, voting to give alcohol to 18-year-olds. What’s he thinking?” 

The Amethyst Initiative organization has done a terrific job using media relations to get its goal out to a national audience. However, the reasons for supporting the initiative are numerous and somewhat complicated. Many people still don’t know why presidents are supporting this. So, using the media to explain may not be enough. 

Use Your Available Tools 

Whether you’re explaining your president’s stance or you’re seeking input from students and other groups, there are tools at your disposal. Consider these options:

• Podcast- A great tool in this case. Interview the boss and ask what led him/her to support (or not support) a lower drinking age. If a decision has not been made, it’s an effective way to share what’s on the president’s mind at this point. Podcasts are easily forwarded from person-to-person so the word will spread. A podcast also allows the boss to speak without being interrupted. Media can quote the podcast which can cut down on time consuming interviews.
• Blog – If you have a president’s or school blog on your site use it to discuss where your administration stands. You’ll get feedback, and some won’t be good, but the audience will hear you and appreciate the fact that you threw it out there for discussion. 
• Town Hall – You might have a town hall-type meeting where your student affairs director explains drinking on campuses. (I don’t advise putting the boss out there on stage. Nasty things can happen in that type of environment.) It doesn’t have to be a for or against lowering the drinking age event—that will come up during the Q&A session anyway—but just bringing the drinking discussion out in the open will generate valuable feedback and put you, your administration, and school in a positive light.
• Online Video – A video on your website would be helpful. The president can speak right into the camera and deliver comments. No interruptions.
• Letter to Editor – A letter, written by the president, to the school newspaper is an option. The boss could get slammed a bit in the next issue when they print replies but the boss gets slammed anyway. Writing a letter to the school paper says, “I care about your views and want you to know what I’m thinking.”
• E-Mail – A possibility, of course, but I’m not completely crazy about using e-mail in this instance. Students don’t read them anyway and it’s difficult to reach the townspeople. 

Positive Positioning 

Utilizing numerous communication channels can make the debate and issue grow and that’s not your goal here, so choose your tools wisely. Also, use the tools that allow you to state your case fully (podcasts, blog, online video). This is one of those issues where a short quote in the newspaper or sound bite on TV can cause trouble because it could be misinterpreted by the public. A sound bite is not the place to explain your position regarding a complicated issue. 

The drinking age debate won’t go away but if you employ the right strategy and tactics to your communication efforts, your president and school will gain respect and be positioned correctly regardless of what stance the boss is taking on this particular issue.

Groundswell

There’s a book out there you should read. It could change the way you think about your work on a day-to-day basis and on a strategic level. It’s perfect for those of us in higher education communication, marketing, and branding. Once I read Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, I immediately ordered copies for everyone on my team.

What’s a Groundswell?

 ”The groundswell is a social trend in which people use technology to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations,” says Li and her co-author Josh Bernoff on page 9. That includes colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning. I met Li at a recent conference co-hosted by my colleagues at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hass School of Business at the University of California Berkeley.  Li spoke on the opening night.

Big Takeaway

You’ll find several very important takeaways from this book including Li and Bernoff’s categorization of online media users. Once you know where your target audience (prospective students, adult students, alumni, etc.) fits, you can tailor your strategy and online tools to connect with them. The authors place web users into the following buckets:

• Creators:  People who write blogs, have a web page or site, and upload videos to places like YouTube. Creators, according to Groundswell, make up 18% of web users.
• Critics: These people react to content online. They’re the individuals who post comments on blogs, rate hotels and other products/services online. Li and Bernhoff say 25% of Americans fall into this group.
• Collectors: This is a small group (10%) that saves URLs and votes for sites on a service similar to Digg.
• Joiners:  A big group, say the authors, (25%) who have profiles on places like Facebook and Linkedin.  In our business—higher education—it’s important to remember prospective students/younger adults/millennials tend to fall into this group.
• Spectators: They listen to podcasts, watch videos, and read blogs. Almost half (that’s a huge number!) of Americans are in this group. Prospective students, alumni, journalists all fall into this category.
• Inactives: Still, over 40%, say Li and Bernhoff, are “untouched by the groundswell.” That means the online world has a ton of room to grow in terms of audience. 

Strategic Thinking

Sometimes we all feel as though we’re drinking from a fire hose when it comes to new media. You may be spending time worrying about all the tools and how to use them. Money is bound to be poorly spent on it and technology will come and go. But if you approach it strategically and thoughtfully, you can win with new media.

Knowing these categories and your target audiences will help you create your communication and marketing strategy while connecting with your customers. For instance, if your audience consists of a high number of spectators, then give them something to consume—podcasts, blogs, and online video. If, like millennials, they are joiners, start social networks on your site for incoming freshmen or other new students.

I encourage you to read Groundswell. I think it will change—for the better—the way you approach online communication and your audiences.

BE AUDIENCE-CENTRIC

When I was working for a university in the Midwest,  research indicated the most effective way to reach our target audience (college bound high school students) was to advertise on the radio in three specific markets. We rotated our commercials, or “spots,” every two months. We would run the spots for two weeks, take two weeks off, run them again for two weeks, and so on. We did this for six months each year.

Each time the production team would send me a new spot I would share it with colleagues on the president’s cabinet. The president usually gave a thumbs-up. One VP, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Each time, he would find fault with the spot saying the music bed was inappropriate, or the content was inappropriate, or the voice was inappropriate, or even the radio station was inappropriate. Then I would ask, “Inappropriate for whom?” He would quickly answer, “For me!”

I wasn’t interested in him. I was interested in college bound high school students—not some administrator who worked in higher education for 30 years.

DON’T THINK THAT WAY

That type of thinking is unbelievably common in higher education and it often kills potentially effective marketing and branding plans. The most important ingredient in any successful campaign is connecting with your target audience. I’ll say that again. The most important ingredient in any successful campaign is connecting with your target audience. Who cares what the financial aid director or a tenured professor thinks? They are not members of your target audience. In fact, they are entirely too close to the school to make any judgments regarding what the target audience will like.

MR. DRUCKER SPEAKS

Longtime management and leadership guru Peter Drucker often referred to the importance of the audience in many of his writings. “In marketing one does not begin with the question: “What do we want?” One begins with the questions: “What does the other party want? What are its values? What are its goals? What does it consider results?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker 

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU

I have never been able to understand why so many intelligent people refuse to consider the target audience. Instead, many only consider themselves. A longtime employee doesn’t think the way a high school student thinks. Not even close. But, show that longtime employee your school’s proposed magazine ad or web site home page and he immediately decides whether it will be effective or not based on what he likes. That’s why so many university marketing committees fail. Often, several people on the committee see things through their lenses and not the lenses of the audience. But that’s a topic for another post.

THESE ADS ARE TERRIBLE!

Look at magazine ads for higher education. Talk about a complete disregard for the audience. Augh! You’ll find there are basically three types of ads for colleges and universities. The first type features a photograph of an academic building with pillars. The second type features a group of five students, representing various genders, races, colors, nationalities, and religions all looking at one another and smiling. The third is a tight shot of a good looking (but not too good looking) student facing the camera.

Do these ads actually connect with college bound high school students? Of course not. They appeal to administrators who think higher education means buildings or diversity. The ads are a complete waste of money because they do nothing for the target audience. We could remove the name of the school from one ad and replace it with the name of another school and nobody would know the difference. So, try something different. Something that clicks with your audience. To see some a good cross section of effective ads, check out, the “Admissions Marketing Report,” a monthly publication targeting professionals in admissions, communication, and marketing.

IT TAKES GUTS

Very few colleges and universities have the courage to run ads that actually appeal to the audience of prospective students. Why? Mostly, because it’s a difficult sell internally. If the decision makers at the school examine it from their viewpoints and not the viewpoint of the audience, then we’ll be seeing ads with buildings and small diverse groups of students forever.

DO THE RIGHT THING

Know your target audience. Survey them. Talk to them. Determine what they want and how they want it delivered. Then, let ‘em have it. Your campaign and other communication endeavors will stand out from all the noise out there and you will succeed.

This blog is about the branding of higher education, how it works, and how it can benefit you, your career, and your school.

If your institution of higher learning—university, college, school, department, professional school, prep school, private/public, you get the idea—is not involved in branding, your institution will lose. I guarantee it. The days of branding being beneath higher education disappeared years ago.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

This blog will show you, in easy-to-digest posts, how to create a brand for your school. If you’re not terribly familiar with branding in higher education, this is definitely the place for you. If you’ve been in the field for some time then I invite you to share your thoughts here and help our new colleagues. We’ll talk about communication, marketing, media relations, public relations, publications, alumni relations, rankings, web communication, social media and how it all relates to branding in higher ed.  I have two goals for the blog: 1) Get people exchanging ideas, thoughts, and questions about branding, communication, and marketing issues in higher education and 2) Help newcomers learn about the field.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

After eight years in television sportscasting, I changed careers at age 29 and became a communication professor. A few years into my teaching career the university’s president invited me to move into a public relations position at the school. It was 1995. The web was really just getting started and nobody knew what to do with it or what it would become. (Can you imagine? No web?! No Google searches? Cell phones weighed about five pounds then.)  Anyway, I loved the job but I had to learn on the fly.  There weren’t many books on the subject then. In fact, only a couple of universities had marketing or branding personnel. So, besides the occasional conference, CASE, IABC, and PRSA, there weren’t many places I could go to learn the business. That certainly has changed, but we still lack places for quick and easy idea exchanges and education. I’m hoping to provide that with this blog.

INVITATION

Whether you’re new to higher education communication & marketing, a transfer from a related field, or someone with a ton of experience in higher ed branding, I invite you to be a part of this discussion. Please subscribe, tell others, and post your thoughts. Hopefully, we can help newcomers learn quickly while also advancing the discussion in our profession.  Thanks.