Managing Brand Consistency Through Presidential Transitions 1

Managing Brand ConsistencyThrough Presidential Transitions

AMA ConferenceNew Orleans, LA

November 12, 2012

Peter Holloran – President Cognitive Marketing Inc.Janet Morgan Riggs - President Gettysburg College

Paul Redfern - Executive Director of Communications & Marketing Gettysburg College

Managing Brand Consistency Through Presidential Transitions

Our Premise• Your brand is your framework for the effective telling of the

your story: not the story of a given presidency.

• Take care to develop your brand: not every brand articulation deserves to survive a transition.

• A great brand strategy by definition is designed to grow in strength and relevance with the institution it presents. If yours is a truthful, accessible, and compelling brand identity, it can bend without breaking.

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Questions we’ll address• So what makes new leadership decide to retain instead of

replace a brand?• What sort of brand building process can increase the

likelihood that a new president will stick with it?• How do you educate your board and senior leadership

team?• Why should you care?

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Great ‘brand’ schools have:• Histories in which they take pride

• Traditions that bind the generations

• Alumni who remain engaged for life

• The confidence to be themselves

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When developing your brand, be sure it is:• Rooted in the institution’s core values

• Distinguishing

• Single-minded but inclusive

• Reflective of your reality and your aspiration

• Timeless, eloquent, elegant

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Your new president is more likely to stick with your brand if it:

• Isn’t personal to the previous president• Is undeniably true• Hasn’t been beaten to death through overexposure or

poor stewardship• Is fertile enough soil in which to grow the legacy of a

new administration• Exists as more than an ad campaign or a “tagline”• Is flexible enough to bend

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Your new president would be wise to “rebrand” if:• The brand is thin, frail or obsolete

• The brand cannot support a new administration’s mandate

• The brand speaks narrowly to a previous administration’s “version” of the truth of the institution

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Why is it desirable that a well-conceived brand outlive those who created it?

• Because your brand is your institution’s story, and so long as the institution exists, it can never be completely told

• Because your brand is supposed to help you build institutional reputation, and its capacity to do this expands with the passage of time

• Because it’s clear evidence of institutional integrity, good stewardship, and constancy of purpose

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2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Pres. Haaland holds brand development workshop

Long-term brand strategy approved and implemented

• Marketing Committee reshaped to be Brand Council• Search for new President begins, positioning statement used

Pres. Will retains brand strategy

•New seal

for 175th

Pres. Riggs era begins

• Key messages adopted• Integrated marketing plan developed

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The Brand Signature of Gettysburg College:

Do great work

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Building brand coherent traditions:

• Class Flags/Convocation/Graduation

• The First-Year Walk

• The new and more proudly displayed college seal

• The History of the College exhibit

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Considerations for maintaining brand:

• Just getting traction

• Represents Gettysburg well

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Promise statement:We will prepare students to lead energetic, engaged, and enlightened lives.

Need for change due to close tie to person and prior campaign.

Gettysburg College prepares students to be leaders and active citizens in their professions, communities, nations and the world.

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Brand as it exists today• Do Great Work• Gettysburg Great• What does it take to be Gettysburg Great?• What will you do to be Gettysburg Great?• Gettysburgreat—a campaign to make Gettysburg and Great

inseparable• Examples of living the brand

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Some Do’s and Don’ts• Do: take care to guide the use of your brand, but also take care not to

suffocate it.• Don’t: treat it like an ad campaign, or it will wear thin like an ad

campaign

• Do: think broadly about building brand; remember, it’s a three-dimensional idea, not a three-word phrase!

• Don’t: Let your brand devolve to nothing more than a slogan—live it!

• Do: treat the brand with the same respect you wish others to give it• Don’t: be impatient. The brand needs ultimately to come to live in the

minds and hearts of people, and for that to happen, one needs to take time and care with it.

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Peter Holloran – President Cognitive Marketing Inc.peterh@cogmark.com

Janet Morgan Riggs - President Gettysburg College

Paul Redfern - Executive Director of Communications & Marketing Gettysburg Collegepredfern@gettysburg.edu