And Carrie On

Last week, I had the privilege of chairing the CASE Annual Conference on Marketing and Branding. I began serving as faculty at this conference three years ago and have loved every moment of it.

Helping the next generation of MarComm leaders prepare and advance has always been close to my heart, and this conference does exactly that because it is geared toward coordinators, managers, and directors.

That said, I always leave having learned new insights, and this year was no different. I was able to network with dozens of people and attend several sessions.

Five Takeaways from the Conference

Here are five takeaways from the conference that stood out to me across the sessions

You are at war for the mindshare of your customer. You have to get into their soul.

The CMO of the Denver Broncos Football Club, Hailey Sullivan, kicked off the conference talking about how they work to build fan affinity. She challenged the audience to find ways to be authentically themselves and embrace a little bit of weird. Doing things specific for your audience and that matter to them is how to build affinity and cut through the noise of all the competition.

For the Broncos, weird is a wrestling ring once a year and giveaways at every game. When asked how higher education can cut through the noise, she reminded people the value of the weird. She said if budgets are limited, staffing is limited, then the only lever you have is culture. Weird is culture. She also reminded attendees not to worry too much about leaning into weird. If the worst thing that happens is it falls flat, it’s always worth the risk.

Return on Objective

When talking about building partnerships with the local community, Sandy Young, VP of Marketing and Partnerships at the Denver Broncos, shared she measures return on objective. She challenged the audience to think about outcomes, not investment. Her reasoning was thinking about return on investment was too focused on tactics. Was the thing worth the money spent? She advocated for an outcomes-based approach. What is the goal at hand and how is this particular effort helping to meet that goal.

She noted that since switching to that mindset her team and the partners they support have better conversations and deeper relationships because they are aligned on a specific goal and working toward it together, instead of merely focusing on tactics.

Make it Easy For Newsrooms

Resources are incredibly tight in newsrooms, which can make it hard to get positive news coverage or in-depth coverage on a topic. Logan Wilbur from Utah State shared an interesting approach he’s been using. He has started regularly sending video, interviews, and scripts to the local television stations for them to use on certain topics. He’s found they’ve been willing to use his content, often without substantive edits.

I did this when I worked at Arkansas Tech University for major events, but I didn’t employ this tactic for daily coverage. Additionally, I’d never thought about using it when there was a local station in the market. This is something I look forward to exploring in the next few months to understand how it would work in my local community.

Price Transparency Matters

One of our keynotes focused on the value of college. Jeff Selingo argued about the importance of price transparency, in addition to focusing on affordability. He argued that we would never go to a nice steakhouse after a conference dinner and order a meal if prices weren’t listed. However, that’s what we ask families to do when we are not direct in pricing. We help them fall in love with our campuses, only to then share the price. He claims that, for some, this leads to heartbreak, as they don’t have the means to make it work.

He also warned of some data he is seeing about the practice of discounting. For the first time this year, he is seeing a trend of families looking to barter about the cost of college. His belief is that this results a from lack of clear pricing and families recognizing that the price can differ among students. He encouraged institutions to be as transparent as possible about the final cost and to share that quickly in the process.

Community Matters

In multiple sessions, the importance of human community came through. In speaking about AI, each of the faculty panelists talked about how they work to prioritize community in their AI work. Additionally, several other sessions talked about students needing to find community and how we can make sure they do that. The student panel also talked about community and how showing an authentic view of the university helps students find their people and feel like they belong.

I would take this farther and say the profession also benefits from community. Being together for a few days to share, learn from each other, and occasionally commiserate was exactly what my spirit needed. We are better together, and I was continuously wowed by how much people are willing to share to support others who are doing the same work.

Looking Ahead

I left the conference tired (who doesn’t after chairing a conference) but also energized and excited to get back to my office and begin implementing some of the takeaways. It was a fabulous few days, and I was honored to spend them among other MarComm members. This next generation of marketing leaders has some challenges to address, but I firmly believe they are going to rise to the occasion.