ECC Brand Platform 2015

2015

Branding

Communication

Platform

Introduction This document is intended to provide guidance to our staff, faculty, senior executives, and partners of Erie Community College based upon our recent market research. This foundation outlines key attributes that translate to the benefits our students are seeking. These attributes are presented within the context of integrated brand marketing and recruitment. The attributes connect to each other through the promise we make to our audiences based on survey and focus group results. Each attribute includes a key message, a strategic rationale, and sample proof points to support and effectively communicate these attributes. Each attribute is interpreted for key audiences in an appropriate language. Also provided is guidance for using these attributes within our recruitment communications sequence and presenting them visually. This platform is a foundation from which we will build various communication and marketing vehicles that help Erie Community College make and keep its promise.

Background Erie Community College began in 1946 as the New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences at Buffalo, one of five, tuition-free, two-year technical institutes for high school graduates. As public higher education evolved in New York, the college also evolved, becoming part of the State University of New York, strengthening its ties to Erie County, and, in 1960, moving to the present site of the North Campus in Williamsville, New York. The last name change occurred in 1969, when the institute became ECC. In the early seventies, ECC added its City Campus in the early 1983 and the South Campus in 1972.

Buffalo has been a pioneer in public education since the first public school opened here in 1839. In 2012, Say Yes Buffalo began supporting K–12 education and funding tuition for high school graduates at two- and four-year colleges. This opens up college as a financially viable option for many students and widens the field of financially accessible institutions, especially for those who aim for a four-year degree.

ECC has suffered declining enrollment in recent years, as well as increased competition from other institutions. As workforce demands change, demographics shift, and the economies of higher education change, ECC must also change.

Brand Marketing Overview Brands simplify decisions and draw people together around shared values. For educational institutions, brand builds reputation and engages people beyond their transactional experiences with the institution. A good brand has enduring value, turning students into proud alumni and professors into supporters. Brand must be built on authentic and actionable attributes. Brand marketing is also subtle and long-term process. It is more than a recruitment campaign, more than a logo, and more than a tagline. It is the heart of the matter. Brand is how mission gains substance. It is built out of every experience people have as they interact with our college—from the website to parking to registration. The most successful brand marketing efforts integrate with all audience touch points. It cannot be the sole responsibility of a public relations or marketing team, but the responsibility of everyone at ECC.

Brand Communications Brand must be built into every interaction, yet communications to our external audiences are particularly important. Just as graphic standards ensure uniform logo use, brand standards ensure uniform messages. The vehicles responsible for brand communication include: Advertising—responsible for paid placements; advertising can build the general reputation or call for action, such as attending an information session. This may include promoted social media or custom landing pages that then lead to the .edu site

Marketing—responsible for all general public communications that encourage engagement with ECC or that strengthens our reputation. This includes social media, publications, recruitment tools, and content for the .edu website (not our portal) Media Relations—responsible for press releases, unpaid mentions (free advertising), story and reporter cultivation, and the news section of the .edu website

Brand must be communicated from those working in other offices also:

Admissions/Enrollment Management

Alumni

Athletics

Foundation

Government Relations

President’s Office

Special Events

Trustees

Brand Marketing Although all communications must provide brand awareness, some publications, ads, events, displays, and web pages will be created to build the reputation of ECC among our audiences. Examples include billboards, vehicle wraps, clothing, flags, table banners, and “about” pages. These types of media do not call for any action; they build name recognition and, through visual communication and strategic choices (type of vehicle to wrap), they connect ECC’s brand attributes. These must be carefully designed to communicate the brand because they do not have a direct call to action.

Direct Marketing Direct marketing should aim to move our students to take some action. These are the postcards that encourage our prospective students to visit, a newspaper ad that invites the community to an event or a web page with a prominent “apply” button. These may have our tagline or style of a particular campaign and should reflect our college’s brand.

Brand Architecture A brand is driven by a promise, attributes, editorial guidance, and visual style. Although names, logos, and colors can be changed, they are usually the most long-lasting parts of a brand.

A brand promise is the suggested experience or benefit of a brand. Some consumer brands with recognition include; Volvo and safety, Walmart with low prices, and Apple equals great design. These promises can be carefully crafted, tested among audiences, and confirmed as the touchstone a company. ECC suggests a promise from our market research as well as our mission, history, and place in our community.

A brand attribute serves as a foundation that focuses brand, particularly as it relates to recruiting our traditional and nontraditional students. Through repetition (brand discipline), our attributes will come to be associated with ECC. Our goal is that audiences in several years would list our brand attributes as ECC’s top strengths when surveyed.

Through a messaging chart, we can show how each attribute becomes a benefit for each of our key audiences. This chart can change as some messages may be stronger than others over time.

Most brands have a signature editorial and visual style. Voice, color, mood, and the type of story told all come together to reinforce the brand attributes. Advice for the visual interpretation of the attributes and a template for writing and speaking that communicate the attributes will follow later in this report.

For ECC, a strong brand helps to develop a strong reputation based on the unique experiences and opportunities that we offer. The combination of increasing competition, a reduced pool of traditional aged prospective students generates the need for a stronger brand image and reputation.

Erie Community College operates in a highly competitive marketplace where prospective students, donors, employers and other audiences have many choices. We require a relevant, distinct and believable brand promise.

Reasoning

The recommendations in this report are a result of different sources using an effective combination of research methods. Information was collected through meetings with administrators; through small focus groups on campus during our brand; through staff questionnaires; and through online surveys.

Web-based surveys to our internal audiences:

Current students

Staff and administrators

Faculty

External audiences that helped establish how ECC is perceived in our community:

• Prospective students

• Traditional age

• Nontraditional

• Residents of Erie County and the contiguous counties

• Not currently enrolled at or employed by ECC

• Have heard of ECC before

On-campus focus groups included:

Current students

Traditional age

Nontraditional age

Transfer programs

Career programs

Staff and senior executive administrators

Employers of ECC graduates

Alumni, both traditional and nontraditional, from a variety of programs

The market research helped to identify perceptions of ECC. This included the college’s perceived strengths and weaknesses.

ECC Brand Promise The ECC brand promise combines our core values (mission, vision, and strategic priorities) and what key audiences believe you can deliver. The brand promise should be used as foundation for all our marketing efforts. This is an internal statement—not a slogan or tagline—against which all external messaging should be developed and measured.

Through small classes and disciplined programs, Erie Community College makes it easy to start college, clarify professional paths, change careers, hire skilled workers, and contribute to the growing vitality of the area.

This promise builds on the established reputation of ECC as “easy,” but shifts that to the difficult tasks our audiences pursue.

ECC Brand Attributes Our prospective students look to us for many things. In our communications we need to focus on a limited messaging that gets to the heart of what our students see in us.

Brand attributes come out of ideas that relate to our brand promise, and by communicating them, we solidify our claims. Our brand promise serves as an internal guide and foundation for our marketing strategies and messages, these attributes should be used on a regular basis in all our communications. This can be from recruiting and promotional materials to casual conversations with campus visitors.

Our brand attributes come from the brand promise statement and are supported by the findings of our market research into current perceptions about ECC. The attributes below can be utilized to distinguish ECC in our community. They provide the foundation for all future brand marketing efforts.

We need to constantly build and strengthen them:

Easy Start

Education that Fits

Earned Confidence

Attribute 1

Easy Start

Key Message

Whether you are starting toward a four-year degree, launching a new career, seeking employees who are ready to retool, ECC is the place for smooth beginnings. This should translate to simplified services also; apply, register, etc…

Rationale

This attribute builds on “Start here. Go Anywhere!” as well as our reputation of “Easy Credit College.” Research confirms that ECC is not an easy credit college, and our current students know it. However, our transfer students see ECC as an easier transition than immediately moving to a four-year campus. Nontraditional students and career learners see ECC as an easy choice for their own beginnings. Employers and the community could know ECC as the college that graduates people who are skilled and ready to work—an easy choice for them. “Easy Start,” captures the equity of the negative reputation and turns it in a more positive direction, toward the ways in which ECC is genuinely and appropriately “easy.”

Backup

Open admission

Hundreds of articulation agreements

Attribute 2

Education that Fits

Key Message

With small classes and a competency focus, an ECC education fits—this moment in a student’s life, what employers need, and the community’s evolving prosperity.

Rationale

This attribute builds on the perception of ECC as accessible, and it builds toward a hoped-for perception of ECC’s academic strengths. Early uses of this attribute should emphasize the accessibility: exactly the classes I needed; a program that fit into my life. Eventually, depending on the strength of the given program, it can move toward the educational excellence side. ECC might seek stories that sound something like this: “The program was tough, but it gave me exactly what I needed to get hired in my field and to succeed.” For transfer students, “I came into my junior year at University of Buffalo well-prepared and ready for the larger classes.”

Backup

ECC transfer students appreciate the personable small classes and support systems that make it possible for them to learn.

Career-oriented students appreciate the focus and professional experience that professors bring to those small classes.

Employers appreciate the preparation ECC graduates bring to their work.

Attribute 3

Earned Confidence

Key Message

ECC graduates have the confidence that comes from real skills, earned achievements, and a goal-driven education.

Rationale

Both transfer and career or technical students choose ECC because they have particular goals; they also often have some hesitation about either their personal or professional preparation to achieve those goals. The primary emotional benefit they seek from ECC is confidence, the self-assurance they need to walk into a large lecture hall at some far away campus, or to speak with a client about a service they need. For some, it is a matter of maturing into the confidence; others need to prove their abilities in a small but challenging program. For either kind of student, ECC boosts their confidence. This attribute further distances ECC from the “easy credit college” reputation and speaks to the needs of employers.

Proof Points

Employment rates out of the CNC program

Nursing exam pass rates

Transfer student graduation rates (for their four-year degrees, too, if available)

ECC Brand Attribute Matrix

Prospective Traditional Age

Students Prospective Parents

Prospective Nontraditional

Students

Community (Alumni, Donors, &

Employers)

Easy Start Whether you are starting toward a four-year degree or starting toward a skilled and rewarding job within a year or two, ECC is the place for an easy start.

ECC gives your child an easy transition from high school toward achieving their long-term goals.

Changing careers and changing your life are difficult and rewarding tasks; choose ECC for an easy start to the education you need for your goals.

In an economy built on innovation, education needs to be accessible, an easy start to a first or second career.

Education That Fits

With small classes and a competency focus, an ECC education fits this moment in your life as well as what you need for the next step.

An ECC education is the right size at the right time—our classes are small and our programs are built for exactly what students need to transfer or to start working.

Choose ECC for an education that fits your life and your goals; our small classes and competency focus means you get exactly the program you need.

With small classes and a competency focus, an ECC education fits; ECC fits this moment in a student’s life, what employers need, and what our community needs for evolving prosperity.

Earned Confidence

As an ECC graduate, you will have the confidence that comes from real skills, earned achievements, and the education that helps you meet your goals.

When your child completes an ECC program, they leave with the confidence that comes from real skills, earned achievements, and goals met.

As an ECC graduate, you will have the confidence that comes from real skills, earned achievements, and goals met.

ECC graduates have the confidence that comes from real skills, earned achievements, and a goal-driven education.

Using our Attributes The chart provides examples of ways that we want to express ECC’s attributes to our key audiences. These are suggested and simply examples to communicate the benefits each audience will find in each attribute. As we continue to develop our enrollment funnel and send out our recruitment communications, the attributes must inform those communications as well. For example, when communicating with prospects, we will want to address each of the three attributes equally. However, the president’s letter might address the academic elements of each (open admission, small classes, new programs, and success rates), while the visit invitation might focus on the benefits of each attribute (comfortable setting, no wasted classes, and the confidence to achieve your goals). After application, communication should shift to the first two attributes, which are more demonstrable ECC advantages on this side of a program. When re-engaging non-applicants, the phone script might be set up to probe which attribute matters most to the individual. We would then customize communication to those concerns. These attributes are written in accessible and straight-forward language that suits ECC’s primary audience and mission. That tone should continue through all communication with prospects. It is especially important that we speak to prospects in plain language and not slide into either administrative or academic jargon. This supports our mission and the first two attributes, and helps deliver the third attribute. Unfamiliar terminology can confuse and put out prospects. Help them gain confidence throughout their experience with ECC, from their first contact to commencement.

The Visual Language of ECC’s Attributes ECC’s attributes will be expressed through actions, experiences, colors, photographs, typography, and design—page and publication design, environmental graphics, user interfaces, advertising, etc… Just as the verbal messaging needs to be consistent and repetitive, the visual language of the brand needs to repeat a consistent theme that makes starting seem easy, learning seem to fit in to a student’s life, and confidence appear attainable. An easy start requires a simple visual environment with a clear order for the information. The elements of the design must fit together in new ways, suggesting an educational journey that fits and that opens up new opportunities. The overall feeling must be confident and assured. That confidence will come through the color, typography, and the focus of photographs. Accompanying this report are suggested design foundation documents and style guide.

ECC Brand Platform 2015

Documents

Transcript of ECC Brand Platform 2015