Marketing and Meaning: The ISU Brand

1. Marketing and Meaning:The ISU Brand Unbounded Possibilities Wednesday, August 10, 2011

2. Overview • Office of Communications and Marketing • What is a Brand? • Development of the Brand Messages at ISU • So, What’s UP With That? • Conclusions and Questions

3. Division of Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Communications • ISU Magazine, Marketing, Media Relations, Photography, University Publications, Web Services, and Video Production • Combining EM with MKT/COM is an emerging organizational model in public higher education • Greater and broader understanding of the importance of enrollment • Enrollment is Goal One (Job One)

4. What is a Brand? http://www.borshoff.biz/video.html

5. A “brand” is simply the essence of an organization.

6. The brand is • who you serve; • what you provide; and • how you deliver it (what is special and unique about your provision of the product, service, or need).

7. Our brand is • who you serve – students (parents, alumni, the state, etc.) • what you provide – education (teaching, service, and research); and • how you deliver it – we deliver a quality education with an emphasis on experiential learning, community engagement, and applied research.

8. The brand is a statement about what makes an organization, person, or product special.

9. What makes ISU special? • Experiential learning • Community engagement • Research that matters • Challenging educational opportunities

10. Positioning Statement • ISU (who) is the pre-eminent public institution that integrates teaching and research (what) for high-achieving, goal-oriented students who seek opportunities for personal, professional and intellectual growth on a diverse,civically engaged campus (for whom).

11. Positioning and Brand Promise • From their first day, our students are actively challenged by high-quality, experiential academic programs and are supported by personal attention from our dedicated faculty and staff who inspire students to create and apply knowledge through dynamic partnerships with the community and the world (what’s different). • Our graduates are valued for their demonstrated knowledge and expertise, active citizenship and leadership qualities (so what). • Brand promise: Indiana State University = To Be Engaged and Challenged

12. Does It Resonate? http://www.indstate.edu/classof2014/ • We were up 672 more new first-time students in the fall 2010 semester than the year before (2,707 students) • New transfers were up 3.5% (27 students) and graduate students were up 8.7% (40 students) • Headcount was 11,494 (a 9% increase)

13. What does this mean to your Unbounded Possibilities proposal?

14. Define what is special • We transform lives – impact on first generation college students (including minority students) • Social mobility • We take people places • Students learn by doing from their first semesters at ISU

15. Our daily work and service to the state and the community matters • Leadership for service organizations • Volunteer hours and contributions • Campus resources (facilities, knowledge) • Modeling citizenship behaviors • We educate your neighbors • Indiana needs them, we’re preparing them

16. Research that makes a difference • Applied, practical, immediate as well as long term impact • Addresses the concerns of the region and the state (health care, education, crime, technology, financial responsibility, environment, culturally aware citizenship development)

17. Questions to Consider • Is your proposal an expression of the institution’s brand, its essence? • Does the project help advance something which is special and unique to ISU (why base this effort at ISU versus another institution)? • Can your proposal capture the imagination of others (primary audiences, institutional stakeholders, external funding agencies)?

18. Conclusions and Questions