Higher Ed Brand Future Proofing: Agility and Elasticity
I’ve become fascinated by the rapid pace of change outside of the walls of higher ed — students opting out/taking gaps, or just not able to afford college, changes to the workforce, political shifts, alt-degrees and employers getting into the business of education, while inside the walls institutions must contend with spiraling costs, rising tuition assistance, shrinking enrollment, program cuts, staff leaving, and a crisis atmosphere…
At the same time, the number of students for all types of education — degrees, certificates, upskilling/reskilling, career advancement — will continue to grow. Where will these students find a solution that fits them? Increasingly it will be provided by cheaper, faster, more agile providers that deliver a more focused product at a lower price when the student needs it.
All in all, it’s clear a great realignment is underway, but is higher ed adapting quickly enough? College leaders were recently surveyed and more than three-quarters of respondents agree that their college will be financially stable over the next decade, even as undergraduate enrollments dropped 4.7 percent this spring or over 662,000 students from spring 2021.
My hunch is that most leadership is either A) willfully ignorant, or B) not publicly acknowledging the threat to their institution or C) scrambling behind the scenes to craft a strategic response to put in place before very hard choices have to be made. I’m betting on a mix of B and C.
What does this mean for you? The competitive landscape that you’ve traditionally focused on is shifting from the 4-year degree-granting peer schools in your region to new entities that provide certificates, credentials, or just plain job training that students can complete in a fraction of the time and at much lower cost, and return later for additional upskilling as their need develops. These are the students your institution will likely compete for very soon to make up for the shortfall of undergraduate and graduate program students. Some are young and some not so young, some less academically prepared and some working full time. Is your brand ready to speak to them?
What’s more, you’ll need to look outside of your existing marketing toolkit for support. Your new customers won’t be fed to you by the College Board, ACT, or managed by Slate. Guidance counselors can’t help you. You’ll staff fewer college fairs and more career advancement fairs.
Is your brand ready to compete in this new landscape? Can you manage the expectations of trustees, administration, and faculty? What about alumni that are captive to their vision of your brand that only lives in their past?
Enter agility and elasticity. Agility to anticipate market changes and respond to your institutional leadership’s need for rapid pivots. Elasticity for the ability to stretch your existing brand to fit new products and new customers, while still maintaining your core values, mission, and vision.
That’s why I’m relaunching lab notes with a different lens. While design and technology is interesting, a better website or a data-driven enrollment campaign are too downstream to spend time on in this moment.
So I’m going to sharpen my focus on trends to pay attention to, and how my readers can embrace and utilize tools and frameworks to build brand agility and elasticity for their institutions. Because if you are reading this there is a very real possibility that you will be called upon by your institutional leadership to help chart a new direction for your school sometime within the next few years. It’s best to be prepared to provide insight and strategic thinking to your leadership well ahead of that call.
trends
From Inside Higher Ed, transfer student enrollment drops, again, mostly due to the community college enrollment drop of the last 2–3 years finally hitting the 4-years.
From the Washington Post, transfer students are getting more attention from elites, but does this raise the issue about what “merit” means if students who never would have made it past the front door at 18 have little problem at 20.
Stackable credentials gives students an expressway into and out of 4-year schools in months rather than years through a career launchpad supported by state businesses to get students into the workforce quickly and return for upskilling as they advance.
But are these credentials taken seriously? New research suggests executives are more likely than their HR managers or supervisors to accept credentials as a replacement for a traditional degree.
Google re-upping their efforts, Amazon, Salesforce, IBM all beefing up their offering. This is where your competition is lurking.
Western Governor’s going big in Skills Development, big data on their students to drive better/cheaper outcomes, and partnering with the Open Skills Network to, in the words of Goldie Blumenstyk, “advance a ‘talent pipeline’ movement that could eventually make hiring more efficient and surface potential opportunities for students before they finish their degrees.”
podcasts
Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO with Jaime Hunt
Here’s a new podcast from an experienced CMO, and her topics and guests are spot on. Only 3 episodes in and she’s talking to Terry Flannery, Jason Simon of SimpsonScarborough, and talks marketing ROI with Josh Dodson.
Future U: Is Consolidation Coming?
Hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn sit down with Kasia Lundy and John MacIntosh, both consultants to higher ed that specialize in advising institutions through the transitions of merging, partnering, or closing down their schools. The conversation covers the different types of consolidations, when to start having those conversations with internal stakeholders and possible partners (now!) and the downside of waiting too long. They expect to see the pace of consolidations increase over the next 10 years, with many outright closures.
The Key: Dropping the Degree as a Hiring Requirement
From the folks at Inside Higher Ed, this episode explores an issue that I’m paying attention to: which jobs or careers will begin seeing non-degree applicants encouraged to apply to traditionally degree-required positions, and what signal will this send to young people? When the centrality of the 4-year degree as a necessary requirement for a good career loses its appeal, how will traditional schools react?
And as a bonus, Brandon Busteed of Kaplan explains how schools can adjust and thrive in this new environment.
booknotes
Scramble: How agile strategy can build epic brands in record time
by Marty Neumeier
I’ve enjoyed the author’s other books and consider them essential reading. This one started well and if you can read past the brand name dropping and lifestyle references there is much to learn from the hero’s journey by way of an agile process to save an ailing company (Big Sky) from a falling stock price.
While not a story about higher ed, there is something here to learn about agile brand strategy. I’d say this is more about using an agile process to develop a new product under an existing brand, and using that process to move the fence of the brand outward. Does that make it agile? I suppose, but I’d like to have seen more around the house brand’s new challenges in adapting to this expanded corral.
Essentially, Neumeier takes the components of brand strategy — research, audiences, product fit, competition — and sprints through the steps somewhat simultaneously, thereby saving time. (What isn’t said: much of sprinting and time-saving is accomplished by the team working nights and over the Xmas holiday, so yeah you can get there faster if you’re willing to sacrifice.)
What’s more worthwhile is the exploration of how your brand’s fence can be stretched to accommodate a new product, which is relevant for those higher ed institutions that are preparing to shift into new markets with new offerings, like online, certificates/credentials, and other workforce-entry solutions.
