School Ads Drive Enrollment

The Independence School, a long-time Kelsh Wilson client in Newark, Delaware, went public with a multichannel ad campaign that proved the power of creative awareness-building just when it was needed most.

Sometimes there’s just nothing like the power of an inspiring imperative—like the headlines in the highly successful ad campaign the Independence School has underway. One announces:

I am a writer. Give Me Independence. WATCH ME SOAR.

Another:

I am a scientist. Give Me Independence. WATCH ME SOAR.

Each message is paired with a portrait showing the confident and hopeful face of a different student at the school, and over the course of the campaign, the changing headline provides the chance to spotlight all the many roles in which they excel—as a leader, a musician, an athlete, and more.

Developed with a combination of in-house inspiration, creative execution from Kelsh Wilson, and beautiful student portraits by a talented Independence parent, the messages have reached the world through a full range of media channels: through digital and print ad buys, as weekly social media messages, as rotating banners across the homepage of the school website linking to themed content below, and reproduced as posters for the walls outside the school’s admissions office.

And, they’ve been a hit, attracting more 3,000 unique pageviews to date, just on the school website.

“The ads are simple and bold,” explains Claire Brechter, director of marketing and communications at Independence. “And they say something that’s both true and special about the school.” She says the original intent in planning the campaign was to focus on outcomes, that is, not just what’s great about the school, but the great things it helps its students achieve and become.

The campaign was just recognized with a Bronze award in the InspireEd’s Brilliance Awards—a notable achievement given that the competition is global and Independence was the only U.S. school to place. Judges praised Independence for a “well-rounded, all-encompassing campaign!”

Even more importantly, the ads shifted the needle on public awareness, getting the Independence name in from of families just as the disruption of COVID was motivating many to go school shopping.

“We had a very good story to tell about our success in distance learning,” says Brechter, “but we wouldn’t have had such a large audience ready to hear it if it weren’t for the fortunate timing of Watch Me Soar.”

It goes to show the eternal impact of a strong headline, paired with a great photo and a few carefully chosen proof points—a classic ad executed for the digital age.

Happy Holidays!

Marketing Messaging for a Unique Moment

Despite all its innumerable challenges, COVID has also presented many independent schools with certain opportunities, especially in terms of enrollment. The right messages delivered in the right ways right now can help those schools make the most of the moment.

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When our staff members at Kelsh Wilson talk with friends and colleagues at independent schools these days, we sense that most have pivoted so many times since the COVID crisis hit that they now feel dizzy—also tired. It’s been a long time to struggle with so much uncertainty and to work so hard.

Yet these times have not been all bad. Many private schools have, in fact, seen a surge in enrollment from families seeking a more robust experience during the pandemic. In this respect, our clients span a range.

Those who have seen growth in interest from new families, but found that balanced out by attrition among current families who are financially stressed.

Those that have seen increasing applications, but were forced to cap enrollment to maintain safe distancing (How frustrating!)

Those lucky enough to have grown total enrollment to a meaningful degree, at least temporarily.

Clearly, circumstances have treated some of these institutions better than others, but all are in the position of welcoming new families who would likely not have applied if not for COVID. And all face a critically important challenge: to retain these new families.

In some ways, this is the opportunity admissions teams have always dreamed of. Many have said that if only they could get families to try independent education, those families would never go back. For all those wishers, this is the moment of truth. Can their schools satisfy these new and somewhat atypical clients? Can the admissions and communications teams do their part to seal the deal?

If this is a challenge you now face, we would like to share a few points of advice we believe will help.

1. Take a page from the development playbook.

   Specifically, follow the example fundraisers set in their commitment to stewardship. Every development staffer, whether in annual fund or major gifts, can tell you that retaining a loyal donor is easier and far more cost-efficient than acquiring a new one. That’s why sustaining and deepening connections with current donors have evolved into an art. How can you steal lessons from that art? To start, you may want to consider some branded bling to welcome new families. People never seem to get tired of hats and mugs. But the real heart of the effort needs to be personal outreach. Every family needs a check-in call from the most senior person on your campus you can persuade to make that call. And every one of them needs a follow-up note. At minimum. Families must know that you care and are listening, and you have to prove it by being responsive to the concerns they raise, whenever possible.

2. Expand your definition of multichannel marketing.

   To many, the term “multichannel marketing” means print, digital and social media in various combinations. When your goal is retention, these are all important to consider, but so are parent-to-parent word of mouth, carefully crafted surveys, and focus grouping. “Surveys and focus grouping?” you ask. Yes, we say. Asking people about the best part of their experience helps focus them on how positive that experience has been. Asking them to confirm your belief that your faculty’s commitment is inspiring helps them realize just how inspiring it is. And bringing them together in a (virtual) focus group gives them the chance to articulate their feelings and have those feelings validated. Of course, if genuine customer satisfaction issues arise, you will have the advantage of being alerted early.

3. Paint a picture of life in a normal year.

   The good news for independent schools is that the pandemic has pushed new customers to try their product. The bad news is that this is at best a strange year when it comes to product quality. Field trips are missed, assemblies curtailed, art shows virtual, sports a giant disappointment. The sense of a warm and welcoming community new parents would normally experience is present but attenuated. These disappointments can’t be allowed to dominate the conversation, but a bit of explanation is in order. This can come in the form of casual remarks worked into those check-in calls. (I just wanted to let you know that this is the time of year when we usually are in the middle of our whole-school celebration of homecoming, and you wouldn’t believe the energy …). Or you could consider an informative, even illustrated, letter cataloging some of the highlight experiences families can hope to share in the future.

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One key to success in all these efforts is a clear, shared sense of your school’s message and marketable strengths. When you check in with a new family on how their year is going, you want to know the one or two takeaways you’d like to leave them with if the discussion gives you an opening. The same is true if you are guiding a focus group, prepping a group of parent hosts, etc.

So revisit your brand guide and make sure your colleagues do as well. Too often, solid communication strategies are left in binders on shelves. And think about whether you need to update your message. You will likely find that some chapters in your school’s story are as fresh as ever, but others may need reshaping to hit home in this strange, stressful time.

Optimizing Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool

Too many organizations spend too little time focusing on their single most important marketing communications tool—their website. A smart, focused audit can be the answer, identifying low-cost, high-impact opportunities for improvements.

Your website is a marketing communications asset of unsurpassed importance. Yet it can be easy to fall behind in keeping your site as fresh and powerful as it should be. You may fear that once you start thinking about opportunities for upgrades, the list of things to do and people to involve will begin to grow. And—particularly in the stressful whirlwind of 2020—there are always other priorities to attend to.

At Kelsh Wilson, we’ve found that a web audit can be a great way to focus attention where it needs to be and get the process started. The idea is to complete a systematic review of your site and develop a prioritized list of opportunities for improvement. If you then find you have time to make only some of those improvements, at least you know you are focusing on the right ones, and you have a rationale to explain your approach to stakeholders, if needed.

In some ways, the thinking that goes into an audit is like the planning that goes into rebuilding a site from scratch, just scaled to be faster and more manageable. However, the driving question is not “What would be the best of all possible websites to advance our marketing goals?” but rather “Given the site in place, what additions and tweaks would deliver the greatest added impact and the best ROI?”

To find the answer, we explore the site from several angles.

First, we do some scenario testing. We navigate through in the shoes of a visitor with a specific goal (for example, finding the softball schedule, planning a campus visit, making a gift). We want to make sure the site works for audience members with each of these goals—and that it’s working for you at the same time, positioning your organization to advantage. Taking test journeys is also a good way to identify improvements you can make to the naming and placement of links.

Second, we make some key comparisons. We think about the first impression visitors will take away from the website versus the first impression they’d get in person on, for instance, a campus tour. Is the site revealing your organization accurately and to best advantage? (This is one of the points in the process where having the fresh perspective of an outsider can help.) We also compare the site messaging with your most up-to-date branding strategy and the site design with your graphic standards. This may seem simple, but it’s common to discover gaps between the image an organization has decided to project and the one it’s actually presenting online. We also consider the site in the context of your other important communications to see whether they are working together consistently.

Finally, we do some imagining. We think about features that are not part of the site but could be. As in life, sometimes the greatest sins in the world of website development are those of omission. Video may be underutilized. Student work and voices may be missing. Or a really memorable presentation of your value proposition might never have been developed.

There’s more to the methodology than this quick overview can capture—from reviewing competitor sites to testing functionality on mobile devices to the detailed work of analyzing the costs and benefits of upgrade options in order to prioritize them.

However, the value of completing this process is simple and clear. By stepping back and evaluating your website in terms of the job you need it to do, you can find the best ways of helping it do that job more effectively.

At Kelsh Wilson, we’ve completed this process dozens of times with organizations large and small and always found it productive. Sometimes we confirm people’s suspicions concerning issues within a site. Sometimes we locate total blind spots. So far, what we have not encountered is a website so good it can’t be made better.

Brand Answers For Now

Branding Certainties in Uncertain Times

In the coming months, schools and colleges will face extraordinary stresses and will need to respond in a range of new ways. When it comes to branding, one thing is clear: The same discipline in messaging that’s always mattered will matter now even more.

All of us who experienced the economic collapse of 2008 while working at a college or school will never forget it. We emerged into a new normal with operating budgets cut, aid budgets increased, staff sizes adjusted, and new pressure to execute on the marketing front. 

At that time, Kelsh Wilson completed more branding projects than ever before. Institutions felt the need to boost advertising, but they sensed they first needed a clearer message. In most cases, they were right.

Now, sadly, it looks all too likely that education is about to be shaken again, and harder. No one knows how long a recession we face or how deep, but it is difficult to imagine a future in which just as many full-pays apply, endowments are not hit, donors are not cautious, and ancillary revenues don’t fall. Schools and colleges will need to market harder. This may mean looking at their mission and impact through a new lens. They will have to refine their message to explain why they matter now. 

Whether that proves necessary for your school or not, one thing is certain: You will need to exercise utmost discipline in ensuring brand consistency. That applies to your message. It also applies to the visuals of your brand—your logo and all the graphic elements, from type to color, that come together to give your communications a recognizable look.

You may find yourself wondering, why this particular piece of advice now? It doesn’t have much to do with times of crisis. However, what it does relate to is impact.

In branding, consistency equals impact. In fact, you could say that consistency is the ingredient that makes a brand a brand.

So, as you look to market your school or college more effectively and to assert your value proposition more pointedly, the first smart move you need to make is to audit everything you say through every print, digital, and personal channel and make sure it matches.

Might you need some creative new concepts? Quite possibly. Might it be wise to boost your communications budget? Almost assuredly. (But is that going to happen?)

Whether these things turn out to be true or not, you can be sure you will not be generating an optimal return on your marketing investment unless you have pushed hard on consistency.

Doing so is more a matter of vigilance than strategy. If you need it, a smart firm like Kelsh Wilson can help define your brand and document it for users, but the real challenge—the real decider of success and failure—is a matter of coordination, cajoling, and enforcement. It’s how consistently you work to keep people consistent.

We know how this sounds. It sounds like you went to your doctor feeling bad and she told you to eat better, sleep more, and exercise. “Avoid stress,” she said. 

You already knew these things, but that makes them no less true. The question is, are you going to go home and plant some veggies and dust off your bike, or are you going to find another doctor with something fancier to offer?

Our advice is to plant and to pedal. It’s to go back to the basics and do them better before you try anything else. 

Please know that as you do, we applaud and support your every effort. Too many good institutions stand to be damaged in the next year. We hope they won’t. We hope good luck outweighs bad. We hope that all the hard work on the part of all our clients and all their peers pays off.

Telling Your School’s COVID-19 Story

Even in these awful days—especially in these days—we all encounter inspiring stories. Don’t let them go to waste.

As the pandemic challenges schools and other organizations in so many ways, it is also bringing out the best in so many of our people. Now is the time to record and report their stories of strength, kindness, and resourcefulness. 

When bad and frightening things happen in the world around us, Mr. Rogers famously told us to look for the helpers. Always, he said, you will find people stepping forward to show courage and kindness. Take assurance from them.

As we’ve followed the news from schools across the country that Kelsh Wilson Design has worked with, we see that Mr. Rogers was right. People are rising to the challenges of this moment, lending assistance, supporting each other, and also adapting at a speed rarely seen in the world of education.

At Kelsh Wilson, our job is to help organizations advance their missions by communicating effectively. Our advice right now is to research and report the many stories that can reveal your school community at its best.

We know, of course, that communication teams everywhere are already operating in overdrive. There’s so much news to share, and things change so quickly. We also know these teams are working hard on messaging that’s upbeat.

Our recommendation is to go a step further. It is to think creatively and plan intentionally for storytelling that is a degree deeper, exploring the kind of content that you might usually focus on in a magazine feature story. Maybe this content will populate future magazine pieces, print or digital. Or maybe it will become a special web microsite. Or maybe you will divide it into bite-size morsels and share them through social media. In any event, the idea is to go beyond breaking news that will be forgotten quickly and develop something meaningful and memorable—and to collect the assets now that you will need to shape these stories later.

The actual topics you might explore span a broad range, from profiles of heroes making life better within your community (even administrators can be heroes!) to lighter items, such as collections of quirky coping mechanisms and advice or day-in-the-life snapshots. In more normal times, we often counsel schools to spotlight stories of teaching and learning; that is, to get inside the student experience by exploring real projects and lessons up close. Following that advice now means capturing the realities of virtual learning. What do students and faculty say about this adventure? What tips and tricks have they picked up to do it better? How is it different—and maybe not so different—to have French or geometry or PE by Zoom?

As with all the storytelling you do, this is a chance not only to engage your audience but also to position your institution. Pick the story angles that will show your people at their most resilient and resourceful, and your organization at its most organized.

This kind of communication presents a wonderful opportunity for community building. It lets you celebrate virtues that members of your community hold dear—perhaps the same values you look to instill in students. It also helps nurture a feeling of connection because no matter how many times we are told that we are in this together and will come through it together, the lived reality of this pandemic is isolating. We need shared stories.

There is one other reason to dedicate creativity and care to documenting this strange experience: for history. Your community can find itself strengthened by a successful response to a difficult challenge. And your shared sense of identity can be strengthened by stories that spotlight this response, for readers now and in the future. Be sure that when those future readers look back, they discover stories as inspiring as the reality you are witnessing firsthand.

Good Communications in Bad Times

Content Marketing—Now More than Ever

If you are striving to find the right tone and content for your marketing communications in these challenging times, the answer may lie in content marketing practices that have always worked—connecting with people by sharing genuinely useful insights. 

If your nonprofit’s mission truly matters, then it matters that you continue to tell your story and connect with stakeholders, even in these strange, sad times. The questions is how?

At this point we’ve all received messages of concern from businesses we’ve patronized or organizations we’ve supported. They range from the tasteful and touching to the instantly forgettable, to the nakedly self-serving. 

Our advice at KWD is to think seriously about the opportunities presented by content marketing, the practice of connecting with audiences not by selling something or seeking something, but by sharing something of value. 

That valued commodity typically comes in the form of useful insights or expert advice—something entirely appropriate and often welcome in bad times as well as good. For a school, timely content marketing messages might feature wisdom from educators on how to guide your children through stressful times and advice on answering difficult questions. Or it could be tips for learning effectively online and managing screen time in reasonable ways. Or it could just be a list of links to useful third-party resources.

For a university, content marketing appropriate to this moment might involve a virtual round-table with a group of thought leaders on the implications of emerging from this crisis—or a blog post from a specialist in supply chains explaining where all the toilet paper went.

The idea is to look across your organization to identify thoughtful people who have something worthwhile to share, and then decide the best way to share it, whether through email campaigns, webinars, or YouTube videos. 

This is also a chance to look back into to your archives for existing content with fresh relevance—author talks you’ve hosted or student performances you videotaped. (A few minutes of shared joy is a valuable commodity too.) You might also consider taking content originally created for an internal audience and offering it more broadly, to your admissions inquiry list, for example.

Right now, people everywhere are seeking connection. So, if you sponsor an online alumni book group or continuing ed courses or any other virtual experience of community, promote it with fresh vigor. Folks who never had time to read may finally find they have it. Others who shunned virtual engagement in favor of “the real thing” may be more open-minded. With luck, you will not only capture people’s attention during the crisis and offer them a meaningful form of social interaction, but also establish channels of connection that stay active when normalcy returns.

Similarly, you may discover new forms of content marketing that you choose to sustain after the pandemic. After all, the idea of engaging people by sharing information that they find real value in is a powerful one, and not just in these exceptional times.

An Update / An Insight / And A Few Good Wishes

First, a quick note on things here at Kelsh Wilson: Work continues, although a few projects have paused or are moving forward with adjusted schedules. It's tough to get out and take photos these days, but brand strategizing, writing and design are all proving successful in the world of social distancing. In fact, we’ve been a virtual, work-from-home team for a while now, so that transition hasn’t been as traumatic as it might have been.

Second, the insight: It’s about the power of work to provide a sense of purpose and a hint of normalcy in times when it seems nothing else is quite normal. Maybe we never appreciated as fully as we should have just how much it can mean to sink your teeth into a task you love (especially something creative!), but we won’t soon forget. We hope you are finding the same newly vivid appreciation of your own professional activities.

Finally, the good wishes: All of us at Kelsh Wilson hope everyone is keeping well and that we’ll all be back to our usual forms of collaboration—handshakes and all—before long!

Make the Most of Your School Magazine

In this age of fleeting tweets—in fact, more than at any recent time— alumni, parents, and donors love getting your magazine. They’ve told us exactly that. So it’s worth the effort to make the most of this unique publication. In projects for three different partner schools, Kelsh Wilson shows how.

The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, NY, The Independence School in Newark, DE, and Penn Engineering, part of the University of Pennsylvania, are three very different institutions, each publishing different school magazines. But all have partnered with Kelsh Wilson in order to take the opportunity—at several key points each year— to put their best foot forward.

Kelsh Wilson has worked with each school to develop new design approaches for their magazines and to produce issues of their periodicals that reflect this design consistently over time. In certain instances, we’ve also helped with photography and with writing of high-profile feature stories.

The look and feel of Penn Engineering, The Masters School’s Bulletin, and Indy’s Spirit differ in ways that reflect the school’s individual identities. All, however, reflect several key approaches.

1) Sophistication in Design

We’ve all seen periodicals from educational institutions that actually feel more like newsletters—from clunky typography to a suffocating absence of white space. Readers often tell schools they love these magazines, because they do love the news they contain. In reality though, publications like these damage the image of the schools they represent.

The design of your magazine is a chance to project the quality and professionalism of your institution through the quality and professionalism of your design choices. This is about more than pure aesthetics. In a world where every reader sees hundreds of examples of smart design every day, it’s about putting your school in the right company. It’s positioning yourself as the kind of organization that inspires pride, loyalty, respect, and support.

 2) Practicality in Imagery

From the photos that make National Geographic the wonder it is to the signature cover illustrations of The New Yorker, it’s no secret that an enormous part of a magazine’s impact comes from its visual content. It’s also no secret that most schools don’t have the kind of budgets these national titles do to commission photographers and illustrators.  

The answer is to work practically with the images that are possible given your budget. When you do spend money, focus it on the most important visuals in your publication: the cover photo and the images to support your feature stories. Conversely, when you have to make do with less-than-inspiring existing shots, run them small. When you have the chance, shape your story list around the visuals (i.e., don’t make the cover story about your gala if you know it’s going to mean a dozen paralyzing grin-and-grabs).

When you do have the chance to hire a photographer, make the most of your investment. Schedule efficiently—as Penn Engineering always does in working with Kelsh Wilson’s photographers. And, grab everything you can—not just the big planned shots but student faces, architectural details, and found moments—little gems you know you’ll use to brighten up otherwise dull pages.

3) Strategy in Content

Too many magazine staffs exercise too little imagination when it comes to developing their story lists. Yes, there will always be events to cover and sports to recap. There will always be a place for a snowy campus scene. The questions, however, that too often go unasked are: What is the content we need to feature to build our brand? And how can we show our stakeholders our mission in action?

These are the kind of questions that lead your team to develop meaningful, original content—pieces that generate real reader feedback.

Customize Your Collaborations

If the challenge of making your magazine into the publication you want it to be seems daunting, think of all the ways you can get help. Yes, you can hire a creative agency to take over the project, or you just can get some focused strategic advice on content planning.

Yes, you can partner with a design professional to layout every issue, or just to do a one-time facelift and create a set of templates that your in-house team can use going forward. 

Yes, you can find a top-notch photographer to fill every issue with beauty, or you can get that same great photographer to give you one day of his best work twice a year and really make the most if it.

Be smart. Be practical. Be the magazine people admire!

Secrets of Effective Messaging

Branding is about expressing your school’s message consistently, effectively, to all the right audiences, and through the all right channels. But what should that message be? Here’s how we find out.

Any major marketing effort, whether led by an internal team or outside consultants, needs to start by defining your message. Yet as organizations plan for marketing projects, we find they often don't think in enough detail about the best way to do so.

At Kelsh Wilson, we see message development as part art, part science, but even more fundamentally, as a process. That means it's a series of steps you take, from building an understanding of each of your audiences and their concerns to surveying the message landscape you inhabit—all the stories all your competitors are striving to tell.

At the heart of this process is an exploration involving people who know your organization well and believe in it. In our experience, they will be your source of inspiration. How do you discover the brilliant thoughts inside their heads and turn them into language that will persuade others? Here are four key steps:

ONE

Ask good, simple questions. Why do you believe in this school? What sets this organization apart from others? What makes you proud to be part of it? Questions like these are in plain English that anyone can understand and answer. They do not have multiple parts or qualifications. They don’t ask people to play marketing strategist. They do spark engaging conversations shaped with the right purpose.

TWO

Ask thoughtful follow-ups. You should know that no matter how good your questions are, most of the first answers you hear will be vague and predictable. It’s the people. It’s a feeling I had when I saw this place. Or worst, It’s hard to put in words. Simply transcribe these answers, and you will have vague, predictable messaging. Instead, ask people to explain what they mean. Request examples and anecdotes. Gently challenge them to tell you how what they are saying really differs from what advocates for another institution would say. Then wait patiently. People need time to think, and the shy ones may need the pressure of an awkward silence to fill.

THREE

Measure what you hear against what you expected to. What is coming through that’s most surprising, therefore most interesting and distinctive? Determining this requires some judgement. It’s also where experience getting to know many different organizations over a period of time can help. When people tell you that students at a school have the chance to explore multiple interests and are not typecast as jocks, drama kids, or science geeks, you know that this is a wonderful thing, but that it’s also common to every good independent school. On the other hand, when they tell you that the warmth of the community matters more than the school’s academic rigor, you pause and ask to hear more. (Nearly always, the quality of the academic experience ranks first in families’ thinking, with “softer” issues related to fit trailing behind.)

FOUR

Go further. The most distinctive strengths that you hear described with the greatest passion are likely to be the foundation of your key messages. But you’ll want to evaluate them against competing messages in circulation, with attention to any image issues or misperceptions you are looking to correct, and in connection with the enrollment or strategic goals you are working to advance. You will also want to take the time to do some creative writing. Your first notes might indicate the diversity of your educational community to be a key selling point. But the headline you go public with won’t say, “The Diversity of Our Educational Community.” It will say, “Meet the Whole World on One Campus.” Your rough notes might document an abundance of co-curricular options as a marketable strength, whereas the final phrasing might be, “Explore This Place of Possibilities.”

Making the Message Your Own / The Haverford School

Working with The Haverford School, an independent school for boys just outside Philadelphia, Kelsh Wilson helped create a campaign communications program that supported the development team in meeting their $50 million goal—and that captured something truly unique about Haverford.

Each year, eighth-grade boys at The Haverford School mark the end of Middle School with a transformative journey, the “Rite of Passage.” As part of this experience, they race dragon boats on the Schuylkill River and explore Philadelphia on a scavenger hunt. They spend the night aboard the USS New Jersey battleship then hike 12 miles back to campus, where the school community gathers to welcome them home. 

As the Kelsh Wilson team noted in a brochure celebrating this tradition, “The experience teaches many lessons—among them, the power we have to reach ambitious goals with shared commitment.”

It’s a lesson of value both to eighth-grade boys and to all the members of the school community who were being called upon to help make Haverford’s fundraising campaign a success.

The publication featuring the Rite of Passage was titled “Marking Milestones,” part of a suite of materials including a case statement that Kelsh Wilson created to support Haverford’s $50 million campaign, Character at Our Core. The concept connected the milestones that eighth-graders mark in their urban adventure with midstream milestones the school was able to report in its campaign progress—from $34.9 million raised to 92 gifts of $50,000 or more.

Choosing the boys’ journey as a theme gave the brochure wonderful story quality and great photographic possibilities—injecting an added level of interest into the overview of campaign accomplishments. It also accomplished another important goal. By celebrating and finding meaning in a distinctively Haverford tradition, it made a statement only The Haverford School could make.

The brochure was a hit—and part of a family of communications that helped Haverford hit its goals and, among other priorities, build a stunning new middle school. The project illustrates an important truth when it comes to creative communications: The pieces you produce should reflect your institution’s distinctive identity, and the best, most reliable way to do that is by populating your communications with content uniquely your own.

We’ve all heard someone at meeting to review work in progress say this about an idea on the table:

“It’s great, but if you took our name off the cover, it could be any school.”

To this comment, the members of the seasoned but affable creative team at Kelsh Wilson have two answers:

1)    By no means should you take your name off the cover. It’s simply self-defeating.

2)    Wait until your pictures and people are on the page, telling stories only your school can tell.

Tell these stories well, and you will make a statement uniquely your own. You will show your audience the school they know and love and remind them exactly why. Just ask the team at Haverford.

THE HAVERFORD SCHOOL / PROGRESS REPORT

THE HAVERFORD SCHOOL / CASE STATEMENT

6 Universities, One New Brand / Cardinal Education

Kelsh Wilson teamed up with the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and four other partner universities to brand a major distance learning collaborative. The project presented our creative team with fascinating challenges and yielded valuable lessons.

Kelsh Wilson recently had the privilege of completing an ambitious new branding exercise for an exceptional organization. Now known as Cardinal Education, it is a consortium of six public universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and for 30 years, it has been a pioneer in distance learning. (Long before the internet, students gathered at regional “receiver sites” to join classes through a special broadcast network.)  

The organization provides a singularly successful model of a higher ed consortium that really works and in fact, keeps growing. Current members include George Mason, Old Dominion, U.Va., Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia State, and Virginia Tech. It is also a partnership that has faced some unusual challenges when it comes to branding, for instance:

• A complicated name and an outdated logo. Until the rebrand, the consortium was officially known as the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Partnership, but went by the nickname CGEP (that’s “C-Jep,” not “C-G-E-P”).

• An unusually wide array of key audiences. Not only prospective students, but also the employers who often fund their degrees, state policy makers, and “internal” stakeholders—faculty and administrators on all six partner campuses whose buy-in is essential.

• A vast competitive landscape. Spanning not only the consortium’s original Virginia service area, but now, anywhere and everywhere the internet reaches.

Kelsh Wilson’s solution started with a new name and logo for the program. These were important both because of problems inherent in the old name and logo, and also to signal a fresh start. (In the world of distance learning, it turns out that being the oldest isn’t always best.)

A thorough creative exploration yielded the new name “Cardinal Education.” Easy to pronounce and remember, “Cardinal” also happens to signify “first” (as in a cardinal rule). The name is also a tip of the hat to Virginia’s state bird.

The bold new logo—a sort of badge of learning—features a classic Greek column and rays of progress radiating outward.

In addition to these core brand elements, the Brand Guide that Kelsh Wilson developed also features a set of key messages, starting with the theme The Power of Six. (All the consortium’s competitive advantages, from the breadth of course offerings to the chance for faster degree completion, trace back to the fact that the program offers the best of six member schools, not just a single institution.) Other components of the guide range from tips on tone and voice to a standard boilerplate description of the consortium, along with guidelines on logo usage.

One key lesson this project yielded was that the more complex the client, their audience, and the creative challenge, the more important to find a simple solution. Developing a multi-tiered messaging strategy for Cardinal that addressed audiences at different stages of engagement would have been entirely possible—but a disservice to the partners on the six consortium campuses charged with telling a single story about their program. Here simpler is clearly better.

The second lesson is in the value of process. The goal of a project like this is not simply to produce solid creative work, but also solid consensus around it. And the only way to work with representatives of six consortium partners toward this kind of consensus is step-by-step, by moving methodically from discovery, to creative exploration, to sharing and revising work based on feedback. It’s inclusive, iterative, and patient.  

Only by proceeding in this methodical manner can you keep everyone on the same page and bring new-comers up to speed. Importantly, this lesson applies whether you are communicating on behalf of a consortium of multiple partners or an organization that’s complex in an entirely different way, for instance, a national advocacy group with regional chapters or a comprehensive research university with a couple dozen schools and units.

In fact, you could say that no matter the organization, following a disciplined process is the cardinal rule of brand development.