Brand Champions

Brand Champion for Philadelphia

 

This week I am back in the City of Brotherly Love. My experience here the past few months has been exactly that. Like many big cities, Philadelphia is very diverse and faces many challenges for the 21st century. But, this historically significant spot is a great place. I am becoming one of its brand champions.

Each month for the past several, I have spent a week in Philly working with a tremendous client on a brand development project. Every month I look forward with anticipation of visiting what is becoming my home away from home. The experience has been wonderful, especially the people.

You should check out this place and live the Philadelphia brand.

Brand Champions Meet in Chicago

 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting at the Noel-Levitz national conference on student recruitment and marketing. My topic centered on the importance of brand and technology convergence, and the vital role admissions personnel play to ensure that happens on campuses around the world. A brand, what your school stands for, and your technology, a means of making the experience actionable and memorable, are two criteria towards brand sustainability.

The attendees contributed greatly to the discussion, and I appreciate their attendance. I hope I provided a few golden nuggets that they can now take back to their home campuses and make a difference in their school's brand and technology development efforts.

While I was not in town for an extended period of time, I was there long enough to get my annual Chicago fix. What a great city to visit. It looks like I will be back again in October and November to present at two other conferences. I look forward to returning to one of my favorite cities to present on my favorite topic, branding!

Brand Speak in Indianapolis

Yesterday I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present at the 2008 National Catholic Educational Association Conference in Indianapolis. This was the second year in a row that I have had the pleasure to talk to Catholic School educators about the importance of developing a sustainable school brand. As you may know, this is one of the largest conferences in the United States, in terms of attendees.

Like last year, I co-presented with Richard Thompson, Superintendent of Catholic Schools in Denver. As we did last year in Baltimore, Mr. Thompson and I presented the case study of the branding initiative that we have worked on together for the past few years. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the Office of Catholic Schools in Denver are among the leaders in educational branding, and have done a magnificent job of championing the Catholic Schools brand.

For those of you in attendance in Indianapolis, or anyone else, what are your thoughts about branding initiatives for your school, or educational branding in general?

Becoming a Brand Champion

Today I am headed to the great state of North Carolina, where I will be presenting at a national marketing conference for community colleges in the United States. Tomorrow evening I will be facilitating a three-hour session on Becoming a Brand Champion. I look forward to meeting fellow brand champions.

Because brand development is still a relatively new process on many college campuses, there is a strong need for schools to also develop brand champions. For many of the participants, this might be their first introduction to what it means to be a brand champion, and for others this might be an opportunity to hone their brand champion skills. No matter where they are at in their brand champion development process, tomorrow evening will provide participants with the opportunity to engage with like-minded individuals from around the nation in a dialogue about becoming a brand champion.

How do your employees participate in brand champion building programs?

Building Your Brand

I spent the past few days on campus at a university back east. On my flight to and from there I had the opportunity to read Career Distinction by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to build or enhance your own personal brand. The authors provide many  practical steps for personal branding.

I think it is an appropriate resource for brand champions too. After all one of our keys to success, is not only helping our organization develop a sustainable brand so that our organization stands out from the competition, but it is important for us to build our own authentic identities.

If we do not have a personal brand that our constituents trust, then how will we get their buy-in for our brand building efforts. What have been some keys to building a successful brand champion identity within your organization?

Brand Champions Meeting in San Antonio

I spent the past two days in sunny, warm San Antonio helping facilitate brand champion meetings for a school system client. Today they assembled their first branding committee meeting. The session was filled with enthusiasm and many great ideas for how to move their branding initiative forward.

One of the best ideas I heard was to recruit brand champions from each school, who would serve as liaisons between each school and central administration, as well as help other constituents understand, embrace, implement and execute the organization's brand positioning platform at all local school levels.

What are some of your ideas for recruiting brand champions?

Brand Champions to Meet in North Carolina

I want to let everyone in the education world know that I will be delivering a pre-conference workshop at the national Community College Enrollment Management & Student Recruitment Symposium. The session will take place on February 11, 2008, 6:00-9:00 pm at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham, NC.

The workshop entitled, Becoming a Brand Champion on Your Campus, will cover topics including, why colleges and universities are embracing branding, best practices and case studies, the process for developing a sustainable brand, insights about becoming a brand champion. There will be an interactive activity that will allow participants to engage with each other in an "on-brand" experience. I hope to see you there.

You are welcome to email me in advance with any questions or thoughts you might have about the session.

Nation Branding

Today I read with keen interest plans of an international brand for higher education in Canada. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Canadian government is in the process of developing a national marketing strategy to recruit more students from abroad. At a recent conference, preliminary details presented indicate that Canada will position itself as an alternative destination to the United States and Britain, and promises that Canadian education will help students change the world. 

Interfacing with educators and others around the world leads me to believe that Canada can be successful in this venture. Those outside of the US seem to have a much better sense of who they are as a country, and I think because of this understanding of their country's identity, higher education in those countries have a keen grasp of branding. Connecting an education sub-brand to a county's overarching brand could be an effective approach to nation building and recruiting students.

I say bravo Canada!

Fish On Friday For Catholic Schools In Denver

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend a branding symposium as part of the brand development project that I have been involved with for the past three years for the Archdiocese of Denver's Catholic Schools. The keynote speaker, Frank Donaldson, gave an inspiring workshop about relationship building. During his session, Frank made several references to the flying fish at Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market.

Those of you who have visited the Pike Place Fish Market understand what a branded experience is all about. For anyone wanting to learn more about that Pike Place Fish Market brand strategy, I encourage you to read When Fish Fly by Joseph Michelli, PhD. You will note that I have Dr. Michelli's most recent book, The Starbucks Experience listed under the books link on this site as required reading for brand champions.

Experiences like those at the Seattle Pike Place Fish Market and Starbucks are those that we can learn from when we are developing our brands and help us in our role as brand champions.

Thanksgiving Brand, Smells Like a Turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the United States. Right now I am thinking about the sensation that I will experience tomorrow when I smell and taste the savory holiday meal. Thinking about these sensations makes me recall a multi-sensory branding conference that I attended in Berlin a couple of years ago, facilitated by Danish brand guru, Martin Lindstrom.

Martin talked about how most of our branding and marketing efforts focus on what we see and hear. Think collateral materials and radio spots. But what people remember most is what they can smell, taste and touch. A good lesson when we are developing ways to execute our brand strategy. Martin should have a new book out and speaking tour soon so stay tuned!

Wouldn't it be great if our brand had associations that immediately came to mind for everyone, like those we have with Thanksgiving Day? Turkey, dressing, gobble, Pilgrims, Autumn colors, family, tradition, holiday and others.