The Magic of Brand Experience in Higher Ed

Cathy Donovan [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Campus Spirit, a special series on Innovating Enrollment Success where we explore how brand experience, shape student engagement, and institutional success. I’m Cathy Donovan, agency marketing director at Paskill. This kickoff episode was inspired by a recent trip I took to Disney with my daughter.

While expensive, I’d return in a heartbeat because Disney delivers on brand experience at every touch point. From the graphic design on a resort coffee cup to the seamless connection of all the parks, everything is intentional. Now college isn’t a vacation, but it is a major investment, and it requires emotional connection.

Students root for teams, wear the merch, and carry deep ties to campus long after graduation. Today we’re talking about what higher ed can learn from one of the most powerful brands. And to do that, I’m joined by Paskill Associate Creative Director Frank Delaney, whose career spans hotel promotion, apparel, and now higher ed branding.

Let’s explore how lessons from consumer brands can help universities build a more immersive student-centered experience. Welcome, Frank.

Frank Delaney:
Hey, Cathy. Thanks for having me. What a great topic, kind of excited to talk to you about.

Cathy Donovan:
Awesome. Let’s go. So Frank, your brand work spans industries. Let’s talk about those common threads you see in building strong and lasting brands.

Frank Delaney:
Right. I think one thing that if I were to think back of what sort of connects a lot of the bigger clients and sort of those categories is just brand loyalty. Businesses, they want to kind of create an experience worth sharing and having again. I think that’s a great analogy between the college experience and choosing the right colleges and how that sort of parallels with what Disney has done so well and which you could even say some of the larger hotel brands have done.

They’ve created sort of an experience, a destination, and that brand helps kind of create that expectation of what it’s going to be once you’re there. And it’s usually so good that you want to do it again. You know, you want to go back or you want to share what you’ve accomplished.

So yeah, those are those three areas really have a lot of synergy and connective threads.

Cathy Donovan:
Now we know that Disney does a great job of building up anticipation before guests arrive, and then keeps you emotionally connected for life. So let’s talk about how colleges can do something similar, creating early excitement in the admissions journey, and then nurturing that brand loyalty through the student experience and beyond.

Frank Delaney:
Yeah, the one thing that just keeps coming to the top of my head when I think about Disney, I think of, I don’t know the tagline off the top of my head, but I just think magical. It’s like magical is in their tagline, and it seems like as soon as you sort of say you purchase your tickets. You’re in the communication funnel with Disney.

They really send you a lot of personal communication leading up to the big day. It’s like there’s a countdown. There’s anticipation built in every communication, medium, whether it’s just like a postcard or if it’s they’re sending you your fast pass bands with a little message.

But I guess before the tactical, there’s just that narrative. They create a really great story and it obviously that’s a story that’s been told over the last, you know, I would say multiple decades leading from a media company into a destination theme park. They create a really compelling story, and it’s kind of like what a college would.

As we talk, when we do some of that research, it’s let’s get to that differentiator. What makes this college have some type of intrinsic value or what are some of the success stories and tradition? I think once you create that narrative, you can start to kind of create that early anticipation. I hate to say it, but it’s almost like an arrival experience that they’re building up to.

Cathy Donovan:
Oh, big time. We experienced that as soon as we, you know, a long journey to get there and you’re carrying your bags and then you get to your room and your family’s name is on that screen if you’re staying at the resort. And there’s pins, there’s all these little confirmations of you’re where you should be. We see you, we want you to have a great time.

Frank Delaney:
Absolutely.

Cathy Donovan:
So let’s talk a little bit about apparel. Obviously, with apparel, that’s identity and self-expression are all central to this brand experience. Now I’m curious how colleges can do a better job of tapping into that to strengthen student and alumni connections.

Frank Delaney:
Yeah. I love the apparel industry and just when you think you’ve understood it and you kind of see where it’s going. It reinvents itself through tech. But when it comes to showing, I mean, let’s be honest, everyone loves to show brand loyalty through a t-shirt or through a hat.

We’re just coming out of March Madness and you can see how it rejuvenates everyone and they kind of root for their team. They root for their alma mater. And, even if they’re not in the tournament, apparel’s a great way to show it. And it’s always great when your team has a great logo or a great tagline that lifts beyond just that school experience.

Here’s an example. I grew up in the Mid-Atlantic region and a lot of my friends although they may not have went to Maryland or they didn’t go to Duke, they could relate to the team of the Duke Blue Devils or the Maryland Terrapins because they were always rivalries, but you could embrace them because of their grid and determination.

That’s no different than like a Disney character that’s really spoke to you as a young person. You know, whether it’s Peter Pan or if it’s a transformer character or something, I wouldn’t say fantasy because it’s real to that first-time person experiencing it.

There’s a lot of those analogies in apparel. I’m going off topic, but apparel is a great place where people were able to do that. Now, whenever I’m brought into consult or just talk through a plan for a college or a refresh of a brand, I instantly think of how this is going to look.

You know, it’s my Achilles heel. I always think of how this is going to look on a hat or, where the message, the rubber hits the road. Because if someone’s willing to wear your message, your brand, your colors, whatever, you know that’s means a lot. That means that you’re succeeding.

Cathy Donovan:
Absolutely. And I think there’s a lot of fun in it, too. I know as soon as we got to the resort, my daughter who was, too cool, in her teens when she gets to Disney, it’s like, oh, I want a pair, I want ears. And there’s so many different varieties, but I think that’s the fun of apparel is that if it speaks to you, like you said, and you build that connection around it. But I think for creators of that apparel, you do have to have fun with that brand. I think you have to give your fans a lot of options for their mood with your brand and to really level into it, right?

So, seamless service is a big part of hospitality and apparel. Obviously, these personalized experiences, we’re talking a little bit about can colleges take a page from those industries to make students feel valued from that first recruitment touchpoint to alumni engagement? What would that look like for brands to make that experience way more personalized than it is right now?

Frank Delaney:
You know what, this is a great question. It’s a great comparison because there are so many overlaps here because some folks they think of brand as a physical thing. It’s the brand colors, it’s the logo, but it’s really, kind of like, let’s just keep using the Disney analogy, it’s almost a script of how they put on this experience. I dare not say show, because for college it’s important. This is a decision that’s like buying a new house.

You do your research, you want to be there, but the seamlessness comes, it’s a shift really with the team because it’s not just logos and colors, it’s how your admissions team speaks to prospective students. It’s once you have a brand message, it’s not just colors and logos. It’s how you speak, it’s how you define the differentiator, how you speak to a prospective athlete versus how do you speak to a prospective psych major or someone who is undecided but needs a little prompting.

I wrote a couple things down that really kind of stuck top of mind is just personalized messaging. Not just large mass emails, but send out some things that are a little more white glove treatment, when it comes to sharing itineraries. And really the goal is to make the student feel like, wow, they actually see me.

They actually know what I’m looking for. Another thing is just sort of creating what they say is sort of friction-less, when you go to a hotel and you can just drop your bags at the front desk before check-in. You know, like a way for that is just put itineraries in a digital format.

For prospective students, especially that first year where you’re figuring it out. You don’t know where you fit, you don’t know if you’re going to the right place, put a little more of that. I hate to call it, but it’s like a digital hub someplace where they can feel seen, access information pretty quickly.

Obviously, I think as you go through that seamless journey, I think we often look at getting that student in the door, getting those butts in seats, but it’s also like, how do you create touch points throughout the years? They’re there because their needs and desires change, so you still check in, you anticipate problems and that, and this is really how, like when we do the workshops, you know, we try to help those teams with some of those strategies.

And then when you graduate and you become like an alumni, is there a mechanism for them to seamlessly connect back to prospective students that are going to be psych majors? Is there a way for professionals in their industry, connect back with prospective students? So there’s also, we can’t think of it as just like, let’s increase yield, but let’s not forget about the alumni that, basically they grow every year just as much as we recruit juniors and seniors in high school. So, kind of touched on a few points there.

Cathy Donovan:
No, I hear you.  I think messaging is really important too, where your audiences are with your brand. Keeping that fresh and keeping that alive for sure. But I also think with apparel and giveaways, it can’t just be, you invest in all of this stuff and then everyone gets the same thing.

I know from going on college tours myself that you have to feel like you’re ready for that brand experience to some degree, rather than just like, here’s a bag of stuff. Right? You know, it’s way more meaningful if you have a conversation with someone. They really hear your interests and you say you’re interested in science, and then they, right.

The giveaway is related to some kind of conversation, some interest that you mentioned that gives that brand way more value than everybody gets a pair of socks or everybody gets a pin. There’s so many options to do that creatively and strategically so that your messaging aligns with your experience, your in-person experience, across who you are.

Frank Delaney:
It’s funny that I have two anecdotal stories I’ll share. I went to UMBC, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and you know, it’s a lacrosse soccer school. It’s an Honors Program, it’s pretty, pretty significant. However, I started seeing all these t-shirts on campus and it was like sort of playing with the idea, or it literally just said like, we’re chess champions, UMBC, and as someone who doesn’t play chess or doesn’t follow chess, I started seeing a lot of swag.

Come to find out UMBC, little old UMBC was like the top five in the country in chess at the time. And it amplified the swag and it amplified sort of the bragging rights. And the first place you see it for the general student was in these t-shirts and it almost became ironic that it became sort of another media avenue to kind of put out the school message.

Cathy Donovan:
Yeah, that’s great. And a differentiator too. You wouldn’t expect it.

Frank Delaney:
Exactly. It was very interesting. And then the second one, now my daughter also is looking at colleges and she was really smitten with a school that had an agricultural school and a dairy farm, and they branded the dairy and the cream that is coming out of one of the programs on campus.

Cathy Donovan:
Oh, that’s great.

Frank Delaney:
I think for school, I kind of look at it like it’s a business. It’s an entity that has its own ecosystem. And once our team gets into research, understanding the client’s needs, understanding some of the pain points in the location, the geography, how we’re targeting students, those differentiators are really important.

Whether they have certain programs and we instantly want to amplify those or at least bring them up because we know you can’t find things that you don’t promote. And that’s that consistency. I think it’s everyone on your campus should know those big differentiators and how to talk to them in a way that feels human and not just messaging.

Cathy Donovan:
It has to feel lived and that’s storytelling for sure. Do you want to talk a little bit about how brands might use storytelling to create these powerful emotional ties?

Frank Delaney:
Yeah. I think storytelling has become such a buzzword, but I always think it does two things. It helps align your internal people, your internal teams around the message. Once you get your internal teams sort of vibing and buying into it, it’s so much easier for them to then share it with the prospects or to the general public, so to speak. You definitely have to define a very core story, and it’s more than just a tagline.

It’s not like magical. It’s like the one thing about, going back to Disney is sort of like, you know, dreams are made here. It’s such a lofty concept, but it’s enough that all of us can sort of feel how we can contribute to that concept. So one of those things to kind of align the message is create an umbrella of a concept or a theme that everyone can buy into.

That’s one of those more loftier points. But like anything else that trickles down into everything you do, whether it’s the emails, from your admissions team to how we speak on our social channels and organic social channels, because that’s just as important right now.

And you can look at, as we train, we not only do work to share the graphics, the design of it, the swag, the apparel. But it’s also back to your team members. What’s the script? How are they always reinvigorating the line or the differentiators around the school? And it literally is every person matters in this funnel.

It’s not just having a really great performance marketing campaign. It’s not just meta ads. It’s how did that counselor, how did they speak to you when you didn’t know what you wanted to pick and you were just going to do general studies your first year and they helped guide you into an English program.

Every touch point is important. Sometimes it’s not seamless, but it’s consistency when it comes to that. What you would traditionally call a brand platform, brand message. I guess my final would be it’s just that consistency across students. How we talk to prospects, how we talk to those prospects’ parents, how we speak to transfer students.

That’s just as important as a junior who knows exactly what they want to be to like a second-year sophomore who may think they’re in the wrong place and we want to message them as well. Consistency across that student journey map, you know, air quotes, journey map, consistency really pays off and that’s where it helps the team become efficient when you have an admissions department that’s like two or three folks, you want to create a few processes that are streamlined.

And then I guess, I’m just going to jump into it because I think students that are on campus are also a big part of your brand message, because you can tap into another story that is a tangible story.

A local college wanted to capitalize on TikTok and meta stories. And they just put it out there that like, Hey, show us what you got. We want your voice to be heard, and we’re going to pick 10 of you to get exclusive access. We’re going to give them a digital toolkit and we’re going to allow you to speak on behalf of the college.

So yeah, I guess I’m pushing a little further. Maybe your next question is about how do you do this? But it’s not a one-way street anymore when it comes to marketing. There’s a young audience and a lot of ’em are currently at your college or your school, and they have things to say and they got points of view.

And I think when you give them access to an event where maybe the dean is speaking and not a lot of students can get to, but you’re going to offer that as an exclusive access, you’re treating them almost like roving reporters. I think that’s a new endeavor, so to speak, but I think it’s one that’s very efficient, it’s very affordable. It just takes a little bit of that sweat equity to connect them to your bigger brand message. And then you’ll find a diamond in the rough generally, that there’s a student who might be a psych major, as I said, but really loves marketing. So you know that that’s always like the happy accident when it comes to conveying a brand message across multiple channels, especially like social, right?

Cathy Donovan:
I think a big part of brand story is getting at the why. Why are you going to Disney? Why are you going to this institution? And I bet each story is different, which makes it so great. But, giving folks an avenue to tell those stories and finding them and cultivating them, right?

Because while college is expensive and, it’s about jobs, it’s also such a transformative time where students should feel really excited by what they’re learning and who’s teaching them. And I think there’s a lot of positives that get lost in the transactional piece of college.

But I think it’s still a really vibrant place for young adults finding out who they are and what they care about in the world. So I agree with you on letting those really inspired folks, giving them the floor to tell those stories.

I’m curious though, what is the most effective way right now or impactful way to improve your brand experience in a quick way? I’m guessing it has to do with TikTok and social media.

Frank Delaney:
Well, yes. I think those are definitely platforms and tactics that’ll get the message out quicker, faster, but I don’t think there’s a shortcut to defining who you are.

There’s definitely this tried and true qualitative, quantitative research to understand what you offer as an institution. When your alumni feel, then do some of that, like boots on the ground, research current students, and really get a nice foundation of who you are, where you’re going, and how you’re viewed in the greater higher ed community.

I think once you understand some of that, you can then use all these tactics to bring everyone to the table, whether it’s the athletic director and admissions director and a program that’s a differentiator program, that you’re known for, and you get them all under the same channel, you figure out a plan that is big enough to accommodate all of their needs.

Now the athletic department’s going to have different needs, when they’re in season versus, the yield season, so to speak. That’s always there every year. So there’s always those diverse goals.

But right now, I see personalized postcards are still very valuable. The variable data behind the messaging that comes out through emails and through postcards, obviously is invaluable. It’s just as important to create the user flow. Once you have a prospective student in, understand the program they’re interested in, you could send them a variable data postcard, an email that drives them to an augmented reality experience on campus.

They don’t need to leave the comforts of their device to get a robust experience around the dance program or the maritime engineering program or biology program that’s on the river’s edge. It allows them to bring that experience right to their fingertips. And then obviously we kind of talked about real students connecting with and just sharing that on their general channels.

And I think those three are areas that are tried-and-true and some a little more contemporary for the average teenager.

Cathy Donovan:
Right and brands are always reinventing themselves in some way or another to keep it fresh and engage their fans. You’re never really done.

Frank Delaney:
That’s the goal. I believe once these students make the right fit and they feel like they’re in the right place where they need to be, you build that loyalty. So once their alumni, you’ve created a brand ambassador, for lack of a better word. And it’s not just one and done. It’s forever. You create that. You create that relationship.

Cathy Donovan:
Fantastic. Well, that is it for this episode, our first with Campus Spirit. A big thanks to Frank for sharing his insights. And for the higher ed marketers listening, how does your institution create campus spirit? What campus experiences or traditions are you most proud of? We’d love to hear from you. Join our conversation and share what makes your brand experience unforgettable.