Romancing the Brand

College Park, Md.

If Terry Flannery ever doubted the link between an institution’s image and its prosperity, the death of Len Bias in June 1986 disabused her of that notion.

Ms. Flannery took a job in the admissions office of her alma mater, the University of Maryland at College Park, shortly after Mr. Bias, an All-American basketball star, died in his campus dormitory room of a cocaine overdose. Local and national news media jumped on the tragedy, reporting that Mr. Bias and several of his teammates had flunked out during the spring semester. The scandal seemed to confirm Maryland’s reputation as a party school with low academic standards.

It was August, the fall semester was about to start, and students who had accepted offers of admission began backing out. Ms. Flannery was given the unenviable task of trying to persuade applicants on the waiting list to fill the newly vacant slots. She learned, one uncomfortable phone call at a time, just how much reputation matters.

Seventeen years later, Ms. Flannery is still burnishing the university’s image. As Maryland’s executive director for university marketing and communications, she steers a muscular marketing machine that has recast the university’s identity with one of the boldest promotional campaigns ever seen in higher education.

Maryland has worked hard to improve its reputation, but it is hardly unique. As the market for higher education has become more competitive, and the battle for resources fiercer, many colleges and universities have adopted practices usually associated with selling Big Macs and BMW’s. Campuses now have marketing departments and are hiring professional directors to manage their images. They are turning to outside design shops and advertising agencies to retool their corporate logos and develop multimedia campaigns. And they are spending sums of money on marketing that until now would have been unthinkable.

“Institutional branding” is less esoteric than it may sound, says Deborah L. Wiltrout, a member of Maryland’s marketing team. “Marketing is your relationship with your customers,” she says. “A strong brand is a really good relationship.”

For decades, college leaders viewed Madison Avenue-style promotions with skepticism -- if they considered them at all. To the extent that marketing did exist, it often was amateurish and scattered. Until recently, for example, divisions of the University of Western Ontario were using 79 different versions of the institution’s logo.

Moreover, trying to sell a university as if it were a box of Cocoa Puffs was thought to be financially suspect, not to mention unseemly. Andrea M. Naddaff, vice president for business development at Corey McPherson Nash, a marketing company, recalls a time not long ago when educators would take umbrage at the suggestion that their institutions could benefit from marketing. Now, she says, those people call her.

“Branding,” she says, “is not a dirty word anymore.”

Standing Out in a Crowded Market

Institutions have had to rethink their disdain for commercialism in a hurry. Colleges are competing among themselves and against noneducational institutions for state and federal appropriations, research money, and foundation grants and private gifts. Competition is heating up to land the smartest students, the best scholars, and the highest rankings in surveys of institutional quality. And for-profit educators, unburdened by the high cost of conducting research, are gobbling up educational market share on the cheap.

Suddenly, the name recognition enjoyed by a breakfast cereal with a well-known slogan (“Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs”) looks pretty good.

Among the institutions that have recently undertaken multimedia branding campaigns to differentiate themselves from the pack and raise their statures are Ohio State University (“Do Something Great”); Florida State University (“Ideas that Move”); and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (“Why Not Change the World?”).

In addition to the chatter, they are putting their money where their mouths are. The University of Houston (“Learning. Leading.”) has undertaken a five-year, $5-million effort to position itself as a top urban research university.

Brighter Teeth, Fresher Breath

When the University of Cincinnati wanted to update its image, it turned to Libby Perszyk Kathman, a marketing company that has buffed reputations for IBM, Hallmark, and Procter & Gamble, itself a branding juggernaut whose 300 consumer products run the gamut from Aussie shampoo to Zest soap.

In recent months, California Lutheran University hired its first vice president for marketing with the aim of creating an institutional brand, and both Case Western Reserve and Vanderbilt Universities rolled out new logos. Case Western also jettisoned the use of “CWRU” as an everyday reference in favor of “Case.” Market research had indicated that the acronym was difficult to pronounce and remember, and that it was poorly recognized outside Ohio.

“The idea of universities representing themselves this way is part of the natural course,” says Maryland’s president, C.D. Mote Jr. “As the dinosaurs taught us, adapt or die.”

Ms. Flannery’s overarching goal has been to transform Maryland’s image from that of a middling “safety school” to one of a top-tier research university. If statistics are any measure, the marketing seems to be working.

In the past four years, applications for freshmen admission have risen to 23,000, from 17,000. Over a five-year period, membership in the alumni association has grown 35 percent, and the number of donors who contribute to the university annually has nearly doubled, to 41,000, from 21,000. During the 10-year period that ended in 2001, the endowment grew to $270-million, a more than fivefold increase, thanks in part to higher giving.

At the same time, the average high-school GPA of incoming freshmen rose to 3.75, from 3.01, and their average combined SAT scores climbed to 1246, up 73 points.

“There is no question that there is a heightened appreciation for what’s happening on this campus,” says Thomas Kunkel, dean of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

More important, perhaps, Maryland’s marketing efforts have generated buzz. State politicians have cited factoids gleaned from the university’s ads. Maryland attire has become fashionable in Baltimore. And Maryland’s first major branding effort, the “Zoom” campaign, has altered the local lexicon.

“The word ‘zoom’ has become part of our vocabulary,” says Brodie Remington, vice president for university relations. Like others on the campus, he has heard the term and its various conjugations issue from teenage students and elder statesmen alike.

The buzz hasn’t all been positive, however. Peter Wolfe, a professor of mathematics, counts himself among the naysayers. “I’m very skeptical of these marketing efforts and their value,” he says. “It’s not like we’re selling toothpaste.”

From Reputational Rags to Riches

The death of Len Bias forced the university to take a hard look at itself. In retrospect, it was the beginning of a new era.

In 1988, the Maryland legislature created the current state university system, naming College Park as the flagship institution. Until then, College Park did not even have its own alumni association. Over the next few years, administrators moved to raise the quality of students, slashing enrollment by 20 percent to 24,000. In 1998, the legislature reinforced that commitment to excellence by passing a law that requires the College Park campus to perform at minimum levels on a wide range of measures. Every year the university’s progress is compared with that of a peer group of public institutions that includes the Universities of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles, and the flagship campuses of the Universities of Illinois, Michigan, and North Carolina.

By the mid-1990s, Maryland’s administration had deemed itself ready for its first major fund-raising campaign. An attempt to gauge how much support there was among potential donors for making the institution a top research university produced disappointing results. Maryland, it seemed, had taken for granted that its constituents -- alumni, donors, parents of students, business leaders, and legislators -- knew of its progress. The public, in fact, largely unaware of the strides taken at College Park, had an image of the institution that was fixed in the past.

“We were a diamond in the rough,” says Robert Krapfel, director of the Center for Global Business at the university’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Our light was under a bushel basket.”

To start solving the problem, Maryland established a one-person marketing office. That person was Terry Flannery, whose job was to create a unified image for the university.

The first order of business was to develop a coherent visual identity, primarily through adoption of a standard institutional logo. College Park had been using a dozen or so symbols, including one that employed the state seal, an intricate and stodgy design that failed to convey a sense of the university. Nor did it reproduce well.

In addition, Maryland’s promotional brochures lacked focus. To make that point, Howard Frank, dean of the business school, once spread reams of the school’s brochures on a conference table and challenged people to discern the core message.

“What does it tell you?” he asked. “Not a damn thing. It tells you we don’t have our act together.”

Eager for a new logo that would represent the entire university, Maryland hired David Ashton and Associates, a firm that is well known for its architectural and environmental design work for Oriole Park at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles, and other professional sports stadiums. A series of focus groups generated seven “descriptors” that the university wanted the logo to represent: ambitious, spirited, friendly, creative, traditional, diverse, and excellent. The central feature of the winning design, chosen in 1998 from 250 submitted by Ashton, is a sphere with markings that evoke the state flag, which itself incorporates the family crests of Maryland’s founders. It was a calculated political choice, a nod to state legislators who control higher-education funds.

“We were completely mindful of the fact that if we did something that reduced our link to the state that they wouldn’t like that,” Ms. Flannery says.

Over the next two years, Ms. Flannery -- who soon had a growing staff -- worked to implement the new logo throughout the university. Determined to wipe out loyalty to the old logos, she deputized members of the printing department and other “logo police” to hinder recidivism.

Too Commercial?

But as the university’s marketing efforts escalated, so too did pockets of resentment, particularly among people who view commercial concerns as antithetical to the pure pursuit of learning.

“There was a lot of natural resistance, particularly from faculty who don’t want to become too business-focused at the expense of things that make a university unique,” Ms. Flannery says. “There continues to be a debate about how commercial should we be.”

Mr. Kunkel, the journalism dean, at first had misgivings about the branding effort. “Universities are fairly buttoned-down places,” he says. “The whole idea of doing a marketing campaign was sort of out there. I had reservations about it.”

Overcoming such resistance, say people who have both succeeded and failed, requires the advocacy of an institutional champion. Maryland’s campaign was buoyed by its president, Mr. Mote, who insisted that the endeavor be bold.

“I did not want another typical university television spot,” says Mr. Mote, alluding to clichéd images of students ambling across the campus and white-coated scientists in the lab. “The university is supposed to be a clever place. It’s not supposed to be humdrum.”

By 2000, the institution had begun planning a full-blown branding campaign. Another round of focus groups identified Maryland’s core “brand values": quality, discovery, and impact. A fourth value, momentum, was added a year later.

Those core concepts became the touchstones of the story Maryland wanted to tell: a great research university whose commitment to discovery and learning is a catalyst for fast-acting economic development and social and cultural vitality.

Maryland hired the Stern Agency to develop the campaign, pushing the creative team to take chances. Some early concepts were considered good but too safe. One proposal, “High Fives All Around,” envisioned professors, students, parents, and others slapping hands in celebration. The idea was deemed cute but not “edgy.” Then one day in 2001, the agency’s head, Ed Stern, who created the original branding campaign for Ikea, called Ms. Flannery and told her there was something he wanted her to see.

Mr. Stern unveiled his rough sketches for the Zoom campaign. He had drawn a globe that opened up like an egg, spilling forth scholars, artists, and athletes. His vision was for the sphere to zoom onto the scene and show the audience through movement and motion what was inside. The concept tested well with focus groups, and university leaders loved it. When production was completed, the kinetic television ads included an original music score and a voice-over touting the university’s accomplishments.

The campaign blitz began that fall with campus banners; a “viral marketing” campaign that sought to spread the word via e-mail messages circulated among alumni; full-page ads in The Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, among other publications; a Web site; and 60-second television spots during The West Wing, ER, 60 Minutes, the World Series, and a Maryland football game. The goal was to reach powerful and affluent constituents in the 35- to 54-year-old age group.

The timing of the $650,000 campaign was impeccable. The football team, exceeding all expectations, made it to the Orange Bowl, and the basketball team won the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship. Each time those teams’ games were on television, the branding spot ran as a free public-service announcement, a perk of playing in NCAA-televised athletics events.

No opportunity was lost to pound home the message. When Nelson Mandela visited the campus, concerns for his security required audience members to be in their seats at Cole Field House two hours before the program began. Keen to exploit a captive audience, the marketing department cobbled together a series of ads and other promotional videos that ran in the basketball arena.

The campaign continued for two years, in a less splashy mode, with the Zoom theme showing up in promotions throughout the university, including a marketing campaign by the business school.

In the two years after the Zoom campaign began, applications to the freshman class increased 24.7 percent.

Bumps in the Road

Despite the success, there were setbacks. Students grew weary of the branding effort. Protests ensued when the university’s marketers took liberties with the large “M” made of flowers at the main entrance to the campus, “Zooming” the landmark by adding a “Z” and the necessary vowels.

The serendipity of the athletic teams’ successes was offset, on occasion, by plain bad luck. A widely distributed admissions video, seeking to promote the university’s internship programs, included a segment about a student’s experience at Arthur Andersen. The video was already circulating when the accounting firm was convicted of obstruction of justice for its role in the Enron debacle. As if that were not enough, the video also promoted Maryland’s journalism program by featuring a former journalism student, Jayson Blair, whose plagiarism and fabrications at The New York Times created a scandal earlier this year.

Those embarrassments, however, have largely been viewed as aberrations, evidence that Maryland’s rebranding effort is working.

Successful branding, the experts say, fosters awareness, support, and loyalty for the brand. Seventeen years ago, when the university’s brand was weak, the Len Bias tragedy reinforced a mediocre reputation and stigmatized the campus for years. Today, the Jayson Blair and Arthur Andersen missteps are dismissed as mere bumps in the road.

“It was a nuisance,” says Mr. Kunkel, the journalism dean. “That’s life in the big city.”

The true test of brand loyalty, however, is whether customers will choose a brand even though they have to pay a premium for it. As such, Maryland’s big test is yet to come. The university imposed a rare midyear tuition hike prior to the spring semester to offset reductions in state appropriations, and in the past few weeks, a regent of the University System of Maryland proposed raising annual in-state tuition at the College Park campus to $15,000, from $6,700, over the next five to six years.

Meanwhile, the promotion continues. “If you want to keep audience attention,” Ms. Flannery says, “you can’t keep using the same old thing.” Last month the campus rolled out its latest campaign, “Fear the Turtle,” a sly nod to the athletic teams’ Terrapin mascot. A television spot features a turtle that appears to roar.

Branding, it would seem, is here to stay. “These days, you’d have to market free ice cream,” says Mr. Kunkel. “You cannot assume anything anymore, including people’s perception of you.”

Marketing lessons learned at the University of Maryland:

• Identify a strong leader (preferably the president, the provost, a key vice president, or a dean) who will be the institutional champion of marketing, someone who will support and defend the strategy and results.
• Take risks -- within reason. Creativity stands out in a crowded field. Originality will serve you well as long as you remain true to your core values.
• Don’t underestimate the desire of students to have a voice in how marketing efforts represent the institution. If you don’t include them, they will be vocal in their criticism.
• Have a thick skin. What you do is visible to everyone with an institutional affiliation. Learn to accept feedback graciously.

MILESTONES IN MARKETING AT MARYLAND

July 1997 Office of University Marketing established with a one-person staff.	THEN Pre-1998 logos
November 1997 All marketing and communications functions brought under supervision of an executive director for university marketing.
January 1998 David Ashton and Associates, a design firm, chosen to create a new visual identity for the university.
September 1998 University logo unveiled. Usage standards implemented.	NOW Post-1998 logos
Summer 2000 Research begins to identify “core brand values.”
Fall 2000 University of Maryland at College Park Board of Trustees’ marketing committee formed.
June 2001 The university approves $650,000 for a major branding campaign.
July 2001 Stern Agency chosen as the campaign’s external creative team.
March 2002 Basketball team wins national championship.
2002-03 “Zoom” continues, integrating with other communications messages.
Fall 2003 “Fear the Turtle” campaign unveiled.	Photograph by Dennis Drenner