Billboards and branding

A Missouri S&T billboard in Kansas City highlighting the school’s Mars Rover Design Team, which won a world championship.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is apparently the odds-on favorite to win a lot of Oscars at tonight’s Academy Awards ceremonies. But whether the movie brings home any trophies, it has reaffirmed something many marketers in our digital age may hesitate to admit:

Billboards  work.

Friday Five: Building brand equity, the ‘Iconic Advantage’ way

Iconic Advantage is a new book by Soon Yu

Today’s Friday Five is lifted straight from the pages of a book I recently picked up called Iconic Advantage: Don’t chase the new, innovate the old, by Soon Yu with David Birss. This isn’t a book about branding or marketing. It’s a book about building on the intrinsic “iconicity” of a brand, product or service. But it contains troves of great information for any brand manager or marketer. An early chapter on brand equity offers five great reminders about what drives iconic brands. Even if you don’t think your brand is iconic, you can learn from Yu’s wisdom.

What higher education can learn from strong digital brands

What can colleges and universities learn from digital brands like Dollar Shave Club?

As brands, colleges and universities occupy an interesting space. We don’t like to talk about our students as customers, although some would argue that we should change our mindset. Many of us in academia also would prefer to not think of our enterprises in business terms of any sort. But as branding takes on a more prominent role in higher education, there’s also a shift in perspective among administrators, communicators, marketers and faculty that acknowledges the importance of branding and marketing. That shift has led to a greater appreciation for brand management as a function to help influence and shape audience perceptions of our institutions.

Friday Five: #GroundhogDay edition

@PunxsutawnyPhil has seen his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter.

Happy Groundhog Day, gentle reader. It is now official: Punxsutawny Phil has seen his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. So stay warm, pour yourself a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, and cozy up to a short list of list-like posts, all relevant to your higher ed interests.

Reflections on rebranding, 10 years later

Photo by Sam O’Keefe/Missouri S&T

UPDATE: A proof of my journal case study on this topic is linked at the bottom of this blog post.

Ten years ago this month — on New Year’s Day, in fact — the university where I work changed its name from the University of Missouri-Rolla, or UMR, to Missouri University of Science and Technology, or Missouri S&T for short.