filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHaving a licensing partner also places the school\u2019s brand footprint in all the appropriate areas. Agencies can locate vendors where current or prospective students are located, whether it be local mom-and-pop bookstores blocks from a university or national retailers. A Badgers sweatshirt has an obvious home in a retail shop in Madison, Wisconsin, but it also has a less-obvious\u2014and perhaps equally important presence\u2014in a sporting goods store in Minnesota, a state where <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////registrar.wisc.edu//wp-content//uploads//sites//36//2018//02//report-enrollment-2018spring.pdf/" target=\"_blank\">2,630 University of Wisconsin-Madison undergrads <\/a>hailed from in the spring 2018 semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=https://www.ama.org/"https:////player.vimeo.com//video//237583004/" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n\u200b\u200bBranded products are one of the most iconic ways to market a school, as evidenced by the recognizable white on navy Yale University apparel (which inspired a similar \u201cKale\u201d sweatshirt popularized by Beyonc\u00e9) or the University of California, Santa Cruz Fighting Banana Slugs shirt John Travolta wore in \u201cPulp Fiction.\u201d A licensing partner can keep those visuals consistent, remaining true to the school\u2019s mission and identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWhen Miami\u2019s marks are displayed on merch and sold at retailers, we see this as basically a walking billboard for the university,\u201d says Laura Driscoll, manager of trademarks and licensing at Miami University of Ohio. \u201cIt\u2019s free publicity. With that said, we are very intentional when we\u2019re licensing our marks because we want to make sure that \u2026 the products that our brand is being produced on align with the university\u2019s brand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nDriscoll says the school\u2019s licensing partner handles administrative tasks that include processing licensing applications and renewals and managing high-level relationships with retailers and vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Unexpected Perks<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nA licensing partner can open up relationships with national and regional vendors to carry products that feature colleges\u2019 marks, but it can also present some unusual opportunities for schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLearfield partnered with sports cap company New Era, four Latino artists and six universities in Texas, New Mexico and California for the Hispanic Heritage collection. The art featured on the caps was influenced by street art that included hand-drawn letters and Mexican Day of the Dead iconography. The project is now entering its second year, during which Learfield is expanding into additional apparel and partnering with new artists and 20 schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe strategically chose these artists not only for the Hispanic demographic but also for lifestyle,\u201d Emmons says. \u201cNot everyone wants to necessarily wear [traditional college apparel]. The student body is so diverse, we wanted to be sure we could design different types of product.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne of the greatest benefits of this nontraditional college apparel is how it\u2019s appealed to a new audience\u2014both students and retailers. Emmons says the caps were sold at traditional retailers (LIDS, Fanatics and on-campus bookstores), along with some local streetwear boutiques, where it opened a new avenue for marketing to a fan base the school otherwise might not have reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLearfield has also worked with country music stars on product partnerships, and other unique relationships have bloomed between colleges and brands like Victoria\u2019s Secret PINK. Some schools have tapped their own student experts. Driscoll says Miami University\u2019s fashion and design student organizations help the school create on-trend jewelry lines that were produced by some of its licensed vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Getting Started<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nHaving a licensing partner can be beneficial whether a college is rebranding or simply trying to organize and promote its marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMake sure you\u2019re working with partners that align with the university\u2019s brand, and don\u2019t go at it alone,\u201d Driscoll says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nShe recommends taking advantage of on-campus resources and knowledge, as her school did with its fashion and design departments, to gain better insights on customers. She emphasizes the importance of a solid administrative foundation. Once partnerships are in place and branded products are available, it\u2019s time to place them in front of the audience in marketing materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe hadn\u2019t ever integrated licensed merchandise into the equation for some of our photoshoots,\u201d Driscoll says. \u201cNow we\u2019re being much more intentional and making sure we\u2019re highlighting Miami\u2019s brand, versus whatever just shows up in the photos. We\u2019re partnering with our retailers to ensure the brand is there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nPrior to reaching out to a potential licensing partner, Emmons says schools should spend time understanding their brand and their goals\u2014and that means across all departments so the college-wide marks are cohesive. He also makes one simple request: \u201cHave your colors consistent. We\u2019ve had schools with five different shades of green.\u201d<\/p>\n","post_title":"Licensing Basics for Higher Education","post_excerpt":"Colleges are turning to license partners to keep branding consistent, legal and on-trend","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"licensing-basics-for-higher-education","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:37:35","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:37:35","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=2875","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":2503,"post_author":"15","post_date":"2017-11-12 22:23:49","post_date_gmt":"2017-11-12 22:23:49","post_content":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-experts-predict-that-university-enrollment-numbers-will-stagnate-here-s-how-marketers-are-coming-to-the-rescue\">Experts predict that university enrollment numbers will stagnate. Here\u2019s how marketers are coming to the rescue.<\/h3>\n\n\n\nEach new school year, the same boastful \nplatitude rings out across American universities: \u201cThe largest class \never!\u201d The campus clich\u00e9 may be warranted. In fall 2017, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////nces.ed.gov//fastfacts//display.asp?id=372\%22 target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">20.4 million people enrolled in colleges or universities<\/a>,\n per the National Center for Education Statistics, which is equivalent \nto 6.2% of the American population. This was an increase of 5.1 million \nstudents from the fall of 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, the safety in numbers and clich\u00e9s \nmay be in danger. Public and private high school class sizes are \nstagnating, leaving university enrollment poised to drop. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAmir Rasool, managing content director of higher education at Hanover Research, says enrollment numbers are predicted to be flat or decreasing over the next 15 years, save for an uptick in 2023. And universities can\u2019t only worry about the future: Estimates from <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////nscresearchcenter.org//currenttermenrollmentestimate-spring2017///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Student Clearinghouse<\/a>\n Research Center show that enrollment was down 1.5% from spring 2016 to \nspring 2017 at U.S. institutions. When pulling back to 2015, nationwide \nenrollment is down 2.9%\u2014a loss of more than 500,000 students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe typically find that when the economy is \nfaring poorly, enrollments go up,\u201d Rasool says. \u201cWe saw this most \nrecently in response to the 2008 recession. Conversely, when the economy\n is thriving and jobs are more plentiful, enrollments tend to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nEach region will feel the enrollment drop \ndifferently as student populations change, Rasool says. For example, the\n Northeast and Midwest will likely see drops in enrollment, while the \nSouth and West may see increases. The Northeast, he says, may be most \naffected because of its greater concentration of higher-education \ninstitutions and a projected drop in student population. National \npredictions don\u2019t tell the whole story; each university needs to do its \nown math on how to fill seats. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHow universities will solve that math will \ndiffer by institution. Hanover Research\u2019s 2017 Industry Trend Report for\n Higher Education found that universities will attempt to redress the \nenrollment problem through tuition fee review and discounting, reviewing\n the university\u2019s portfolio and recruiting out-of-state students. That \nthird option appears to be the de facto formula for many universities. <\/p>\n\n\n\nSchools winning over out-of-state students is\n a popular option because it\u2019s the easiest way to address the \nenrollment\u2014and therefore revenue\u2014crisis. Each year students pay billions\n of dollars in tuition, and universities can\u2019t afford to lose that \nrevenue, especially as threats of diminished education funding loom at \nboth state and federal levels. If tuition isn\u2019t the raison d\u2019\u00eatre of a \nuniversity\u2019s business, it\u2019s close. <\/p>\n\n\n\nDavid Burge, George Mason University\u2019s vice \npresident for enrollment management, says private universities have \nregarded enrollment numbers as dollar signs for years, but the notion is\n a recent revelation\u2014perhaps 10 to 15 years old\u2014for public institutions.\n Winning new students is now \u201ccore to the work\u201d of all universities, \nBurge says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThis renewed focus on enrollment falls \nheavily on the shoulders of university advertising and marketing \ndepartments. The proof is in the ballooning budgets: A report from \nEducational Marketing Group and Kantar Media found that advertising \nspending at universities grew 22% from 2013 to 2016. However, as Rob \nZinkan, associate vice president of marketing at Indiana University, \nwrote in a piece for Inside Higher Ed, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.insidehighered.com//blogs//call-action-marketing-and-communications-higher-education//are-we-asking-higher-ed-advertising/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">outspending the competition isn\u2019t a viable advertising strategy by itself<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nInstead of using blunt-force spending, \nuniversity marketers must use guile, creativity and a bevy of marketing \ntools. Here\u2019s what some successful university marketers have done to \nkeep enrollment high. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-know-your-geography\">Know Your Geography<\/h2>\n\n\n\nBefore marketers reach out to students on the\n other side of the country, universities should be sure they have a need\n unmet in their own backyard. For example, Zinkan is still able to \ncomfortably lean on bromides, saying that Indiana University Bloomington\n has a \u201crecord-setting class\u201d of incoming students, 70% of whom are from\n Indiana. While this doesn\u2019t mean Indiana can stop worrying about its \nenrollment rates, Zinkan says the numbers have allowed the university to\n divvy up its marketing budget \u201cfairly evenly\u201d between in-state and \nout-of-state students.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDespite the national trends, George Mason\u2019s \nBurge says his university has seen an uptick of high school graduates in\n parts of Virginia. However, the university is forecasting a \n\u201csubstantial decline\u201d of students within 10 to 15 years. This decline \nshows why each university must understand its own market, Burge says, as\n a local enrollment rate may be high this year and desiccated the next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-data-and-measurement\">Data and Measurement <\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe University of Alabama is one of the \nsuccess stories of out-of-state student recruiting. In the past decade, \nAlabama\u2019s attention to data seems to have paid off: In fall 2006, 15,761\n students applied to Alabama; in fall 2017, there were 43,693 \napplications, a 177.2% increase. Approximately 5,000 students from this \nyear\u2019s freshmen class of 7,407 were from outside of Alabama, says Linda \nBonnin, vice president of the University of Alabama\u2019s Division of \nStrategic Communications, who joined Alabama in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Data and measurement have played big roles, \nBonnin says. About 15 years ago, Alabama executives noticed a decreasing\n number of in-state students and started digging into the data. What the\n school found was clear: If the school was to create a sustainable \nmodel, officials needed to aggressively recruit out-of-state students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe know exactly how we can drill down to \nhigh schools and determine what the plausibility is of students from \nthat high school choosing the University of Alabama,\u201d Bonnin says. \u201cIt \ncan get quite specific in the data. And to me, that\u2019s what\u2019s exciting. \nIt\u2019s not a guessing game. You can determine that you know the viability \nof being successful with a particular market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt George Mason University, Burge says data \nand segmentation have played a similar role in building \u201cthe largest \nfreshman class\u201d ever this year. Approximately a quarter of the new \nclass, 753 students, were from outside of Virginia in 2017, up from 626 \nout-of-state students in 2013. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe expanded our marketing operational \ncapacity to allow us to segment communications and we thought critically\n about how we identify students in the college selection process,\u201d Burge\n says. Data is especially important for George Mason, as the school has a\n growth aspiration of 100,000 career-ready graduates over a \n10-year-period. Burge says the school uses metrics to review potential \nstudent conversion from lead to application, application to admission \noffer and admission offer to attendance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe begin each year with very specific \ntargets of new student enrollment, which we have arrived at through a \nbackwards calculation of the number of graduates that we want to achieve\n over time,\u201d Burge says. \u201cWe then break that down by market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nBy this point, Burge\u2019s team can figure out \nwhich students should come from Virginia and how many students need to \nbe recruited elsewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-arriving-in-the-digital-age\">Arriving in the Digital Age <\/h2>\n\n\n\nBefore Bonnin arrived at the University of \nAlabama in 2015, the school was \u201cnot in the digital age.\u201d This had to \nchange, she says, as digital marketing is essential to win over the \ngeneration aptly referred to by some as the iGeneration. \u201cThey have \neverything in the palm of their hand, so the more you can put in the \npalm of their hand the better,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNow, Alabama has joined the digital age, and \ndigital marketing is the most impactful piece of Alabama\u2019s marketing \nplan, giving the school a tool that is both effective and inexpensive, \nBonnin says. Alabama has tried social media ads, geotargeting, \nretargeting, rooftop targeting, geofencing and \u201cevery other kind of \ntargeting you can think of,\u201d Bonnin says. These tools can track ROI to \nshow universities what is working and what to scrap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou can adjust it as you need to, based on what you\u2019re learning from the metrics,\u201d Bonnin says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-adding-a-personal-touch\">Adding a Personal Touch<\/h2>\n\n\n\nNo matter how important digital marketing is,\n students won\u2019t be won over by e-mail and retargeting alone. A personal \ntouch is needed, Bonnin says, and Alabama reaches out with receptions \nheld across the country. These personal touches need to be \u201c50-50\u201d with \ndigital marketing, she says, lest the digital effort be wasted. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe personal touch has become nearly \ninseparable from digital marketing; Bonnin says Alabama recruiting \nevents surge in attendance\u2014anywhere from 30% to 200%\u2014when they\u2019re \nbolstered by targeted digital marketing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-recruiters-across-the-country\">Recruiters Across the Country<\/h2>\n\n\n\nJust as Alabama\u2019s football coaches recruit \nthe best athletes from across the country, the university\u2019s enrollment \nand marketing departments recruit the best academic students from across\n the country. Like many U.S. universities, Alabama has recruiters \nstationed in multiple states. Their job: convince America\u2019s brightest \nstudents to come to campus for a tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have a very organized, strategic and \nfocused effort to recruit out-of-state students,\u201d Bonnin says. \u201cThis is \nfrom the top-down, all the way to recruiters on the ground. Everybody on\n our campus recognizes the importance of recruiting students. We don\u2019t \nwant to lose one single student to another university, so all our \nefforts reflect that commitment to recruitment. We go after the best \nstudents in every market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nBonnin won\u2019t comment on how many recruiters \nthe university employs, but says they\u2019re in every U.S. state, with \nmultiple recruiters in Alabama. Each recruiter has a set number of \nstudents they\u2019re expected to recruit, with the data-determined goals \nvarying across the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\nGeorge Mason\u2019s recruiting arm isn\u2019t on the \nsame scale as Alabama, Burge says, but the university does place \nrecruiters in regions of the country where they\u2019ve found potential for \nenrollment growth, including Texas, California and the Southeast \nregion. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough recruiting works for George Mason, \nBurge says it must be done alongside other key investments to \nsuccessfully develop a new market. University officials must ask \nthemselves questions such as, \u201cAre we buying ACT and SAT names in \ngreater numbers from this area?\u201d and \u201cAm I investing in the right \nmessaging?\u201d to have a successful recruiting program. Plunking a \nrecruiter with vague goals into the middle of America reduces a \nprogram\u2019s chance of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThere can be a downside to out-of-state \nrecruitment. \u201cSome state institutions are experiencing a negative public\n reaction from in-state students and their families,\" says Rasool. \n\"These groups feel that their tax dollars are helping to fund in-state \nuniversities, and therefore they (or their children) should get priority\n admission. Additionally, some states (North Carolina, for example) have\n laws capping the number of out-of-state students a public university \ncan admit, and institutions risk losing state funding if they exceed \nthat number.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-having-a-consistent-message\">Having a Consistent Message<\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe digital marketing, the data research, the recruiters\u2014all go to waste without a consistent, central message. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s essential,\u201d says Burge, who adds that \nhis position\u2014vice president for enrollment management\u2014was created to \nwork toward better recruiting and a unified message. \u201cYou need to have a\n smart and thoughtful process to develop the right lead marketing \nmessages,\u201d Burge says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPut differently: Your talking points can be \namazing, but they won\u2019t do anything if they aren\u2019t thoughtfully crafted \nfor each market. Good, unique messages must be delivered to different \nmarkets, but the messages must be on brand. \u201cBoth have to be in place \nfor success,\u201d Burge says of good messages and good strategy. \u201cYou can\u2019t \nbe successful without them. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-word-of-mouth-and-authentic-branding\">Word of Mouth and Authentic Branding <\/h2>\n\n\n\nStates like Alabama, Virginia and Indiana may\n not sound like magnets for young people, but branding and word of mouth\n can do yeoman\u2019s work in spreading a university\u2019s message. For example, \nmany Alabama students come from the Northeast and the West Coast, Bonnin\n says, two regions rife with prestigious universities. No matter; \nAlabama students, alumni and parents move back to these regions and hype\n potential students with stories of their college glory days. \u201cIt just \nbegins to spread,\u201d Bonnin says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWord of mouth comes easily to universities \nthat are authentic in their messaging and actions. Whether students \nvisit for a campus tour or consider enrolling in classes, their \nimpression of the university must match the messages preached during the\n marketing campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t go into a market trying to be \nsomething that you\u2019re not, changing your message from place to place,\u201d \nBonnin says. \u201cJust own who you are. Make everything that you do \nauthentic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nGeorge Mason doesn\u2019t have the same \ncoast-to-coast name recognition as Alabama; the farther potential \nstudents live from George Mason\u2019s Virginia campus, the harder it becomes\n to deliver the brand\u2019s message. George Mason\u2019s staff must work harder \nto get a potential student\u2019s attention, keep their attention and inspire\n them to apply and enroll. <\/p>\n\n\n\nLess-recognizable schools must take an \nauthentic assessment of themselves to create branding that draws \nstudents\u2019 attention, Burge says. In George Mason\u2019s case, this may be \nreminding potential students from California or Texas about the \nuniversity\u2019s proximity to Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe remind them [by saying], \u2018Here\u2019s how that\n proximity improves your college experience,\u201d Burge says. \u201cEach \ninstitution [needs to] have something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-bright-lights-big-reach\">Bright Lights, Big Reach<\/h2>\n\n\n\nAlabama\u2019s football team has given alumni and \nstudents plenty of reason to yell \u201cRoll Tide\u201d\u2014the school\u2019s rallying \ncry\u2014as the team has rarely lost a game over the past few years. Bonnin \nis right there yelling with them, as Alabama\u2019s athletic success has \nhelped her spread the university\u2019s message. In December 2015, for \nexample, Alabama was playing against Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl, \ngiving Bonnin a chance to demonstrate the power of digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe excitement was peaking and the football \nteam was there for the game, so we went into both markets with a strong \ndigital presence,\u201d she says. \u201cWe began to carry our messages to \nprospective high school students and their parents. It was really \neffective for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile sports can mesmerize prospective \nstudents, Bonnin says athletics should only be a piece of the wooing \nprocess. \u201cIt gets a lot of attention at certain times of the year, but \nwe also want them to understand the academic quality of the \ninstitution,\u201d Bonnin says. \u201cThat\u2019s a message that we drive pretty \nconsistently across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nEven so, the hollering of University of \nAlabama\u2019s rallying cry is likely a draw for students across America who \nsee the excitable crowds, convivial atmosphere and thrilling games. More\n than 25 million viewers watched the Alabama Crimson Tide defeat the \nClemson Tigers in the 2016 National Championship game. You can\u2019t buy \nthat kind of reach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-remember-your-mission\">Remember Your Mission<\/h2>\n\n\n\nUniversities can recruit new students from \nacross America to bolster their enrollment numbers, but Burge says \nuniversity officials must remember their school\u2019s core mission and \nvalues. <\/p>\n\n\n\nFor example, two of George Mason\u2019s core \nvalues are diversity and accessibility, which Burge says dovetail with \nproducing great outcomes for graduates. This means George Mason \nofficials look for \u201cthe right applicants \u2026 for the long-term growth of \nthe institution\u201d as it pertains to the university\u2019s mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI counsel anybody engaged in this work to \nthink critically about who they are and who they set up camp with to \nhelp them achieve this goal,\u201d Burge says. \u201cAnd to remain true to their \nmission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nPart of George Mason\u2019s mission\n is targeting the neediest students\u2014especially from Virginia\u2014and \noffering them merit scholarships. When the scholarships aren\u2019t \navailable, Burge says there\u2019s an ethical question of whether a student \ncan afford a four-year degree, which is $34,370 per year for \nout-of-state students as of 2017-2018. Telling students the truth about \nmoney is important, so students don\u2019t feel like they\u2019ve been bamboozled,\n Burge says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.ua.edu//about//mission/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Alabama\u2019s mission<\/a>\u2014to\n \u201cadvance the intellectual and social condition of the people of the \nstate, the nation and the world through the creation, translation and \ndissemination of knowledge\u201d\u2014also shines a light on how the bulk of the \nschool\u2019s scholarships and discounted tuition are allotted: to students \nwith high academic achievement. Bonnin says more than 40% of this year\u2019s\n freshman class scored 30 or higher on their ACT (on a scale of 36). In \naddition, 30.8% of this year\u2019s freshman were in the top 10% of their \ngraduating high school class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe definitely want the best and brightest students here because they have better chances of being successful,\u201d Bonnin says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-celebrations-are-temporary\">Celebrations are Temporary<\/h2>\n\n\n\nUniversity marketers can celebrate, but they \ncan\u2019t forget the work ahead, Burge says. He and his team had a temporary\n celebration after learning this year\u2019s incoming class was the school\u2019s \nlargest ever, but he says no marketing professionals can rest on their \nprior successes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cLast year, I gathered everybody together and\n we celebrated the numbers,\u201d Burge says. \u201cI said, \u2018We should all feel \nreally good about what you did. Now let\u2019s go do it again.\u2019 That\u2019s the \nnature of enrollment. It has a very clear beginning and end.\u201d \u200b<\/p>\n","post_title":"Can Marketing Save Falling University Enrollment Rates?","post_excerpt":"Experts predict that university enrollment numbers will stagnate. Here\u2019s how marketers are coming to the rescue.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"can-marketing-save-falling-university-enrollment-rates","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:41:14","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:41:14","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=2503","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":3259,"post_author":"16","post_date":"2017-11-08 17:55:42","post_date_gmt":"2017-11-08 17:55:42","post_content":"\n<h3>Colleges raced to update dorms and add exciting amenities in the early 2000s, but what dazzled millennials is now out of touch with Gen Z<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\"The millennials are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo rang the rallying cry of everyone working in higher education in the early 2000s. This enormous generation would need degrees, not to mention a place to rest between classes, jobs and socializing. The schools responded, spending large sums of money on residential housing. Investment peaked in 2010 at $12.94 million spent on students\u2019 residences and recreation buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\nColleges weren\u2019t the only organizations getting in on the student boom. Private companies also jumped in where schools were unable to keep up with demand. Some companies partnered with schools for on-campus housing while others built nearby. The competition rose as buildings went up, chock-full of tanning beds, pools and air hockey tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis so-called \u201camenities arms race\u201d in higher education is well-documented, with some people championing its improvements to old, soulless dorms even as critics argue the luxuries overshadow the academics.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe necessity for more room certainly existed as the millennial generation entered college. Millennials are the most likely employees in American history to have a bachelor\u2019s degree or higher, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.pewresearch.org//fact-tank//2017//05//16//todays-young-workers-are-more-likely-than-ever-to-have-a-bachelors-degree///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">according to Pew Research Center<\/a> (40% of employed millennials have at least a four-year degree). This generation, however, is nearly done with college, and the next is already proving to be much different\u2014quite possibly to the detriment of luxury student housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3>The Student Housing Boom<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nBuilding new student housing, both on campus and off, wasn\u2019t just about keeping pace with increasing high school graduates. It was also about keeping up with the Joneses. According to Kelly Ruoff, partner and chief creative officer at Ologie, the average student goes on about seven college campus visits. These tours used to be the litmus test for schools to determine a student\u2019s intent to attend, but now they\u2019re used by students and families to weigh their options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be a school with a much better housing option, but you don\u2019t want to be the one who has the worst,\u201d Ruoff says. \u201cKnowing that it\u2019s competitive, [prospective students] are going on these tours and seeing a lot of the same thing. [Schools] need to have housing that holds up in the same way you see schools in an arms race with their athletic facilities, too. You\u2019ve got to keep pace with your competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=https://www.ama.org/"////datawrapper.dwcdn.net//PNBIr//2///" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" oallowfullscreen=\"\" msallowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"500\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\nSometimes upscale housing is just for show, she says. A prospective student may never live in the luxury dorm, work out at the high-end gym or attend a single game at the state-of-the-art stadium, but these amenities can attract them. Ruoff says these updated buildings and amenities can give the impression that the university is on trend and makes the overall package more appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDespite the effort to appeal to students and families with a little flash and pizazz on campus, there\u2019s no proof that the buildings are able to influence students. Kevin McClure, assistant professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, who studies campus housing, says there isn\u2019t good data to suggest housing is a determining factor in choosing a school, at least not compared to familial influence and location.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSome luxury accommodations were built out of necessity. There are states with policies that prevent colleges from using state money to build self-support structures, which would include residence or dining halls. In other cases, capital funds from the state may be restricted or shrinking. Thus, the only way for some schools to afford new or upgraded residence buildings is to partner with a private company. In turn, these companies may choose luxury models because their investors want to ensure they\u2019re getting a return on their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.nber.org//papers//w18745/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">A 2013 working paper published by The National Bureau of Economic Research<\/a> confirmed students are willing to pay for amenities. It also reported that colleges respond to this preference by increasing their spend on amenities. But McClure\u2019s research hasn\u2019t shown a direct correlation between amenities and student interest in a school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although these partnerships could save institutions money, it\u2019s impossible to market the properties as amenities-rich and fiscally responsible. According to McClure, there has been no great evidence of the savings realized by schools trickling down to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMost of what I\u2019ve seen suggests the opposite,\u201d McClure says. \u201cBecause of the structure of public-private partnerships ... students are signing leases and ... paying closer to what we might expect the market rate for an apartment to be. They can be more expensive than what students would pay for a traditional residence hall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThink of it this way: Improving a restaurant\u2019s aesthetic or adding more booths doesn\u2019t change the number of consumers looking for a meal, especially if the restaurant has to increase the price of a hamburger.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the effort to keep up and even outdo their competitors, schools may have overshot their goals. \u201c<a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.sightlines.com//insight//state-of-facilities-2016///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">2016 Benchmarks, Best Practices and Trends<\/a>,\u201d a report from higher-education construction consulting firm Sightlines, found campus enrollment flattened between 2013 and 2015, with evidence suggesting continued leveling\u2014or greater decline\u2014into the 2020s. Many campuses, the report found, are still operating on pre-2013 enrollment projections, building new construction and outpacing enrollment with vacancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIndiana University of Pennsylvania is one school that made a big bet on housing that failed to pay off. The school spent $270 million to replace all of its student housing on campus with apartment-style suites. As <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.theatlantic.com//education//archive//2017//08//why-universities-are-phasing-out-luxury-dorms//537492///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Atlantic reported<\/a>, its undergraduate enrollment has dropped 17% to roughly 10,000 students since 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>The New College Student<\/h3>\n\n\n\nThe first point to realize about today\u2019s incoming college class is quantitative: There are fewer students graduating high school. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projected a decade of stagnation from 2013 to 2023 that places the average graduating class size below where it was in 2013. This year\u2019s high school graduating class will drop 2.3%, or 81,000 students, ending a 15-year period of consistent increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere are fewer students to fill the luxury dorms, and those arriving at colleges may not even be interested in such spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe things [Gen Z] values are experiences, creativity, being connected to lots of different people, and they\u2019re frugal,\u201d Ruoff says. \u201cThese high-end luxury offerings don\u2019t allow for that. Five years ago, millennials may have wanted these items; Gen Z does not. As far as we can tell, that\u2019s only going to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nToday\u2019s college applicants document the things they do, not the things they have, she says. This flies directly in the face of an amenities-rich campus or housing environment. For example, college students are priding themselves on their before-and-after shots, taking sparse, white rooms and turning them into places that reflect their personalities. This self-expression is celebrated on social media (try an Instagram search for #dormdecor or #dormgoals) and websites such as <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.buzzfeed.com//kaylasuazo//dorm-rooms-that-are-too-damn-trendy?utm_term=.wqgYq6Py3#.hfwM3J0oB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">BuzzFeed<\/a> and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.apartmenttherapy.com//search?q=dorms\%22 target=\"_blank\">Apartment Therapy<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nGen Z is showing an affinity for old dorms with opportunity for personalization, Ruoff says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pride in creating these rooms that don\u2019t look anything like an old dorm room. It speaks to a lot of what we see happening even in popular TV shows and the housing market. It\u2019s a lot of makeovers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnother defining factor for Gen Z may be their frugality. The cost of college continues to climb, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////trends.collegeboard.org//college-pricing//figures-tables//average-published-undergraduate-charges-sector-2017-18/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">increasing 2.4% on average<\/a> for in-state students enrolled full-time at public four-year colleges and universities from the 2015-16 school year to the 2016-17 session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFor both the parent and the student, cost is always one of the first things they\u2019re looking for,\u201d Ruoff says. \u201cThe costs continue to go up, and these luxury apartments add to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nLuxury housing can also have a negative impact on student retention. In a paper for the Journal of Student Financial Aid, McClure and his colleagues report that some students feel there\u2019s a bait and switch happening at schools. They\u2019re lured in by sparkling new facilities, only to learn those facilities are financially out of reach. It can taint the student\u2019s relationship with the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThey are in the presence of these wonderful amenities and shops and restaurants, but once they\u2019re here, the money has a way of going really quickly,\u201d McClure says. \u201cThey must make some hard choices, and for some that means working more, which is not necessarily good for their academics. Sometimes it means they go into credit card debt. When you\u2019re 18 years old and you\u2019re doing a campus tour, it\u2019s wonderful that you have a brand-new residence hall and dining hall, but once you\u2019re there paying for it, it\u2019s a very different set of considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSome schools are responding to the need for cheaper options. This summer the Atlantic reported that Georgia State University, which built one of the country\u2019s most expensive student-housing projects, discovered that a student was 12% less likely to graduate for every $5,000 in unmet financial need. In response to this pricing concern, the school built a simple and smaller dorm. This cheaper, scaled-down option has filled up faster than other campus housing since the day it opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMcClure says the trend is also a reflection of the fact that luxury accommodations are less conducive than traditional housing to community and relationship building, a core tenant of the college experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe trend that we saw over the past decade, where developers try to one-up each other with better or more amenities, is coming to an end,\u201d says Benjamin Modleski, COO of education-markets real estate firm Core Spaces. \u201cBut I\u2019m not convinced it\u2019s because of decreased enrollments or the increased cost of education. We see now in our industry the new shift for developers to right-size amenities and to put a focus on design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Shifting How Campus Housing is Marketed<\/h3>\n\n\n\nIf creativity and frugality are the new college student passion points\u2014and if schools have seen success in offering stripped-down dorms\u2014it may be in a college\u2019s best interest to feature how students transformed these blank canvases.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe most obvious channel for promotion is social media, which some student housing departments are embracing as part of their outreach efforts. Not only are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter a great way to alert students to events and other pertinent notifications, it\u2019s also a way to highlight campus life to prospective students. For example, University Housing at the University of Georgia has a YouTube channel that features tours and contests of dorms that \u201cshowcase who you are.\u201d The housing department\u2019s Instagram page incorporates hashtags, such as #homeiswherethearchis, that students use as well. UGA\u2019s housing department also gave a few students the opportunity to serve as brand ambassadors by way of creating dorm vlogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/dVGnMZfJCsM\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cStudents are more likely to trust fellow students about campus living, versus communication from the university,\u201d Ruoff says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSocial campaigns are also an opportunity to retire traditional dorm and campus photos, especially if Gen Z students are more interested in experiences. Ruoff says schools need to focus on showing the social side of campus living, not just where students lay their heads at night. She says the schools that accurately portray where students spend their time are the ones connecting with their audience and being honest about the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201c[Schools] feel like they have to make sure to show the beautiful brick building with ivy on it, or the traditional archway and a very technical lab,\u201d Ruoff says. \u201cThey\u2019re not necessarily showing the makerspaces or the lounge spots or people just authentically relaxing in them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSchools have a competitive advantage in showing the proximity of campus housing to classes and their learning communities. McClure\u2019s research found the upper hand for all on-campus housing came via live-in learning programs, providing residence assistance and extracurricular programs, and course-corrected strategies are reflecting that. It might also be in a school\u2019s best interest to promote some of its other student life offerings, such as food. Ruoff says dining halls are becoming more of a selling point than dorms, with Gen Z spending the majority of their allowance on food and 58% willing to pay more for organic and natural products. She says admissions counselors hear students and families ask about food more often than housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cSelecting the right school is about \u2026 the feel,\u201d Ruoff says. \u201cDoes this feel like me? Does this feel like who I want to be in the future? Does this feel like the people I want to be around? A checklist of amenities isn\u2019t going to tell you that. They want flexibility and options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe sweet spot in student housing may be showcasing a variety of price points, amenities or academic and social opportunities. Rather than finding the Goldilocks mid-point, it may be about showing the variety (and creativity) of all three bears. <\/p>\n","post_title":"Luxury Student Housing\u2019s Heyday Has Passed","post_excerpt":"Colleges raced to update dorms and add exciting amenities in the early 2000s, but what dazzled millennials is now out of touch with Gen Z","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"luxury-student-housings-heyday-has-passed","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:41:54","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:41:54","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=3259","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":3257,"post_author":"16","post_date":"2017-11-01 23:08:44","post_date_gmt":"2017-11-01 23:08:44","post_content":"\n<h3>Presbyterian College used a texting platform to communicate with students and saw improved indicators for enrollment<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4>Goal<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nIn an era of undesirable communication trends (e.g., ghosting), universities and colleges are looking at different ways to reach prospective students\u2014and sometimes even garner a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound too dramatic, but there\u2019s a communication crisis in higher education,\u201d says Dave Marshall, president and product manager at <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.mongooseresearch.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mongoose<\/a>, an SMS management platform. \u201c[Schools] can\u2019t reach [students]: They don\u2019t answer phone calls, and they\u2019re not checking their e-mail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFor some context, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////blog.hubspot.com//sales//average-email-open-rate-benchmark/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a HubSpot sample<\/a> of more than 965,000 e-mails found the average e-mail open rate for the jobs and education category is 32%. <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////knowledgebase.constantcontact.com//articles//KnowledgeBase//5409-average-industry-rates/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figures from Constant Contact customers<\/a> are even more dismal: Data from more than 200 million e-mails show the open rate for higher education is 13.39%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n\u201cOur initial challenge was [finding] a way to communicate to these students,\u201d Marshall says. \u201cThen it became [figuring] out who is a quality applicant, or which applicants are serious and which aren\u2019t. That became the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Action<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nSuzanne Petrusch joined Presbyterian College as vice president for enrollment and marketing in spring 2016. The South Carolina school was already texting students, but messages were clunky and transactional. Petrusch had previously worked with Marshall, and she asked her new colleagues to consider the Mongoose platform. Impressed by the tool\u2019s usability, the school decided to put it into play. The concept of enhancing communication through text made sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThink about studies you may have seen on what students use, or even just anecdotal stories,\u201d Petrusch says. \u201cI\u2019ve heard friends or colleagues say, \u2018I used to just call out loud to my son or daughter to get them to come down for dinner,\u2019 but now my friends or colleagues will say, \u2018My son or daughter wasn\u2019t responding, so we text each other.\u2019 This is a way of communicating that is very much a comfort and familiarity to these students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nPetrusch says the first step toward adoption was to get the college\u2019s counselors comfortable with the Mongoose platform. The team then made sure this communication channel was open by recommending users opt in to receive texts and verifying the collected numbers were for mobile phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMongoose\u2019s application integrates with a school\u2019s student information system, which can include names, intended majors, interests and more. A school can choose custom fields from which to pull information, such as whether the institution has received the student\u2019s high school transcript, and use them to build a segment based on criteria, Marshall says. \u201cThat\u2019s how they decide who they\u2019re going to send the text to. That updated student information goes from the school\u2019s CRM into our platform every night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nPresbyterian College uses the platform to send students reminders and ask questions. For example, last fall was the first year for early FAFSA submissions, so Petrusch\u2019s team sent a text to remind those eligible. Counselors may also text prospective students about open-house programs at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe always are trying to get people to think about the next action step,\u201d Petrusch says. \u201cIn many cases, that does have to do with a visit to campus, so I would consider that transactional. But then we started to watch how many students were responding to these texts. Sometimes it was \u2018Thanks! I plan to be there,\u2019 or \u2018I can\u2019t wait to visit campus.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nSome students even responded with questions that were off topic, but still related to the school. At times, responses would come days later, sparking a conversational tone that Petrusch called a pleasant surprise. These questions don\u2019t disappear into the ether; counselors at Presbyterian College log into the system and answer the messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe school was also careful about the volume of messages it sent because understanding how younger people communicate also means understanding when you might be encroaching on their space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have to be very respectful,\u201d Petrusch says. \u201c[A phone is] almost an appendage: You carry your phone with you all the time, it\u2019s very personal. It\u2019s an opportunity to talk to students and engage with them in a medium that\u2019s comfortable for them, but that doesn\u2019t mean we should abuse that privilege. They said, \u2018Yes,\u2019 (to opting in) and that allows us to enter into a dialog with them. We wouldn\u2019t want to be hitting their inbox every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Result<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nUsing the Mongoose platform not only boosted communication between prospective students and the school, but it also gave Presbyterian College a better feel for student intent to attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMongoose and Presbyterian College found the more interested the student, the more likely they are to provide their mobile number: 74% of applicants opted into receiving texts, 81% of accepted students opted in and 92% of those who confirmed attending the school opted in. They also found 40% of confirmed students sent five or more texts to admissions counselors and 80% of confirmed students sent one or more texts to counselors. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe platform also increased the efficiency of the small Presbyterian College admissions staff. Rather than making phone calls to each potential student, the school could send text messages asking if the student or family had questions about, for example, financial awards, and then schedule a call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt allowed us to much more effectively use our time with those who were interested,\u201d Petrusch says. Scheduling was also beneficial to the student and family, who could ensure they were available at a particular time and had their questions prepared. \u201cYou weren\u2019t catching a parent or student off guard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nMarshall says calling young people today can come across as an invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThey have a very short list of people who are\u2014quote, unquote\u2014allowed to call them,\u201d Marshall says. \u201cWhen somebody else calls them that\u2019s not on that list, maybe a school, it can almost be considered rude. You\u2019re not ready to have a conversation; the medium is not right for that. But when you text them, they have the ability to read the text when they want. They can take as long as they want to respond and they can think about what they want to say. It\u2019s a much better medium to put them at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nOther communications with students and their families\u2014brochures, e-mails, campus visits\u2014aren\u2019t going away, nor are the stresses that come with choosing a school. A platform that communicates as a student does, however, adds value for all parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFor years and years, the sacred cow in higher education in terms of a predictive behavior was the campus visit,\u201d Marshall says. \u201cSchools would say that if they could get [students] to visit, they were very likely to enroll. The behavior of a text response is much more predictive than that. If they\u2019re taking the time to write back, not only does it show that they\u2019re interested, but it also might help them clear up misinformation or get their questions answered.\u201d<\/p>\n","post_title":"How One College Used Texting to Talk to Recruits","post_excerpt":"Presbyterian College used a texting platform to communicate with students and saw improved indicators for enrollment","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"how-one-college-used-texting-to-talk-to-recruits","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:41:56","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:41:56","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=3257","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":1740,"post_author":"88","post_date":"2017-11-01 22:48:37","post_date_gmt":"2017-11-01 22:48:37","post_content":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-being-a-college-media-outlet-means-facing-an-identity-crisis-when-readership-graduates-and-moves-on-digitization-of-the-media-landscape-compounds-the-challenge-what-s-a-student-rag-to-do-and-why-should-marketers-care\">Being a college media outlet means facing an identity crisis when readership graduates and moves on. Digitization of the media landscape compounds the challenge. What\u2019s a student rag to do, and why should marketers care?<\/h2>\n\n\n\nThis fall, 20 million students enrolled in America\u2019s universities, representing roughly 65% of the estimated 30.8 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn college they are thrust, like generations before them, into uniquely enclosed environments where, regardless of their educational path, they\u2019ll forge behavioral patterns that shape their consumption habits for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe evolving personae are largely the result of media diet. Though they carry to campus many content preferences first realized during high school, the next four years are a time of discovery, owing to the influence of new peers and a healthy dose of targeted marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt makes sense that marketers want to reach these young adults just as they are beginning to manage their own spending and develop allegiance to brands. One of the best ways to reach them, until recently, was by placing ads or holding events directly on campus, as well as showing up in the media outlets they consume. <\/p>\n\n\n\nCollege Media Then and Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCollege-directed media has long swirled inside the milieu that is university culture. At least eight present-day student newspapers jockey for the title of America\u2019s oldest campus outlet, the eldest of which claims a lineage dating back to 1799. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe most cutting-edge outlets not only exist without paper, but without websites. One startup, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.flocku.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FlockU<\/a>, has replaced its homepage with a meme reading, \u201cWebsites suck. Hit us on social.\u201d In between the ancient and modern bookends lies the advent of satirical publications, and it\u2019s here we see the creation of the college-student marketing model. These early outlets were student-run, single-campus affairs, but they eventually gave rise to professional intercollegiate publications. Beginning in the 1960s, Harvard\u2019s then-90-year-old hybrid humor publication\/social club, the Harvard Lampoon, embarked on an impressive run of nationwide success when it produced full-issue spoofs of popular print media of the day, including Mademoiselle, Esquire, Playboy, Time and Life. The Lampoon went national in 1969 when two staff writers decamped from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to set up shop in New York, backed by $350,000 in start-up capital ($2.3 million in today\u2019s dollar), following the success of their novella-length J.R.R. Tolkien satire, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////en.wikipedia.org//wiki//Bored_of_the_Rings/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bored of the Rings<\/a><\/em>. Five years later the National Lampoon was averaging a monthly circulation figure of 830,000 with one issue, October 1974\u2019s \u201cPubescence,\u201d moving more than a million copies. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe next generation of satirists took the baton from baby boomers and positioned it in the realm of straight-laced, biting media parody with the debut of <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.theonion.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Onion <\/a>in 1988. Now it\u2019s a digital property controlled by Univision. A look at an issue from the publication\u2019s first year exposes its funky low-fi college roots. One top story features a Nessie-type monster roaming a lake near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, where the publication was launched, above coupon space for local readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSince then, thousands of media startups sought to replicate the success of student publications. Most have failed, fizzling shortly after inception if they were lucky enough to catch any buzz at all. Even the two aforementioned giants of college humor have changed in astounding ways. The National Lampoon ceased operations in 1998 following years of decline. And in 2013, The Onion ended publication of its free print edition, which had once circulated half a million copies in 20 cities across North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\nClearly, technology is a prime driver of media evolution. The rapid digitization of print media has remade the industry many times over, and the death of college print publications mimics tectonic shifts occurring in the field at large. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBut is there something else going on? Could it be that the reason many erstwhile college media outfits fall out of fashion with student bodies is that the readers grow up? Professional life requires a radical departure from student life, and after a few years of corporate climbing, the campus experience is viewed through a lens of novelty and nostalgia. This raises uncomfortable questions for any student-centered publication fortunate enough to cultivate a loyal readership. Should it say goodbye to readers upon their graduation and recalibrate appeal in a bid to lure the next crop of freshmen? Or should college media companies grow with their readers and reconfigure for adults? Is it possible to appeal to both groups?<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Brand That Expands<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cOur target age range is roughly the same as it\u2019s always been: We\u2019re an 18- to 34-year-old brand,\u201d says <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.linkedin.com//in//josephfullman///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joseph Fullman <\/a>of The Onion, where he is vice president of marketing. \u201cThe upper bounds of who we\u2019re going after creeps up because we\u2019ve retained some people who started with us as young readers. On The Onion site, our strongest demographic is 25 to 34, if we\u2019re just talking about total penetration in audience size.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFullman understands well whom the site is targeting. He says college students remain part of the mix, but they\u2019re not the whole enchilada. This unsurprising admission nevertheless represents a departure from The Onion\u2019s traditional path-to-discovery marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the \u201990s and early 2000s, print copies of The Onion blanketed campuses across North America. The papers were a dorm room rite of passage. Now The Onion only exists online, no longer central to collegiate mise-en-sc\u00e8ne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cBeing on campus is difficult to justify,\u201d Fullman says. \u201cThe value of a reader who doesn\u2019t have some kind of financial relationship with us is not high enough to have a physical touch point. For our physical event strategy, we are focused on a slightly older audience, let\u2019s say 21 and older, because a lot of our event strategy ties in with alcohol partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFullman says The Onion segments its audience similarly to the divide among undergrads at four-year schools. At 33, his own history interacting with The Onion might be totally different from readers a scant five years younger than him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIf you\u2019re looking [at the 18- to 44-year-old demographic], you now have three distinct generational splits,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got your Gen X, who act very different than older millennials, then younger millennials that act differently than older millennials. It\u2019s become a spectrum across all these audiences. We try to think about all these different groups of people and our financial opportunities not as separate strategies necessarily, but distinct objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nFullman says the most visible cleavage among The Onion\u2019s readers is not between undergrads and professionals. Rather, it\u2019s between people who are still reading content on site and those whose attention is captured by social media. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole generation of people we never reached in print who are coming of age and learning what The Onion is based on their experiences exclusively with our Instagram or Facebook presence,\u201d Fullman says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow Students Consume Media<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDespite the long history of student publications, college students\u2019 overall news consumption has been on the decline. A <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.oncampusadvertising.com//wp-content//uploads//2016//11//College-Student-Media-Consumption-Survey-Spring-2016.pdf/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2016 study conducted by OnCampus Advertising <\/a>at 25 large universities shows how far media consumption has shifted in a generation. Sixty percent of respondents reported spending between two and 10 hours per week on social media, and another 17.1% said they use social networks even more than that. Compare those findings to more than three-quarters of respondents who said they watch fewer than two hours of live television per week and 88.5% who report listening to fewer than two hours of broadcast radio per week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.jou.ufl.edu//2015//12//15//class-of-2015-study-reveals-shifts-in-college-students-media-behavior-and-perspectives///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A longitudinal study evaluating media habits of the graduating class of 2015 <\/a>conducted by <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.jou.ufl.edu//staff//sylvia-chan-olmsted///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dr. Sylvia Chan-Olmsted <\/a>in partnership with Nielsen provides further insights. Tracking the participants over four years using surveys, interviews and reality show-style video diaries, Chan-Olmsted noticed that college students tended to be ahead of the curve in their media habits, if not outright driving trends in media consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWhen they talked about what\u2019s in and what\u2019s not cool, we typically saw that [reflected] six to eight months later in trade reports,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nA big difference between these students and their predecessors is the way they consume news. The participants reported consuming news on demand or when it turned up as the solution to a query. \u201cFor this generation, [media is] more like part of their daily lives in solving a problem,\u201d Chan-Olmsted says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nChan-Olmsted\u2019s research appears to be borne out in application, attested to by long-time college marketing experts such as <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.linkedin.com//in//borgerding///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tom Borgerding<\/a>, CEO and president of <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.campusmediagroup.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Campus Media<\/a>, which specializes in targeting college-aged adults for marketing campaigns. Borgerding is hyper-aware of the changes in the college media landscape over the previous generation. There are two main ways that college students are engaging these days, he says: digital and face-to-face interactions. The new reality presents significantly more opportunities to target students than when Borgerding attended college in the mid-\u201990s. He says advances to backend martech are an important driver of enhanced college demographic tracking. Ultimately, improved data-gathering and analysis are just as important as improvements to the user interface. But what\u2019s better for the marketer isn\u2019t necessarily better for the college media outlet, and the improvements helped usher in the collapse of a generation worth of college-specific sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cNow you can target subsets of content based on traffic patterns, registration information and IP addresses,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can go to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and subset who\u2019s coming from a college campus.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe programmatic share of total display ad revenue will continue to grow until direct is a relatively minor factor,\u201d Fullman says. \u201cThe long-term trend is towards premium programmatic. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s confined to the college audience. You see a lot more direct advertising in regulated industries like alcohol or event-oriented [industries].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis shift has necessitated the evolution of publishing platforms, but also the nature of media companies\u2019 relationships with marketers. That was partially the impetus behind Onion Labs (the company\u2019s in-house ad agency). \u201cWe saw the need to grow that branded content business because while the market is likely to shift to programmatic overall for display, the opportunity to work with brands or agencies directly on content is only going to get bigger over time,\u201d Fullman says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Supremacy of Social<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s easy to forget that there was a time when the world\u2019s largest social media company, Facebook, traded on its exclusivity. For the first three years of its existence, if you wanted to set up a Facebook profile, you needed a university e-mail address.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPerhaps Facebook had the right idea by expanding to everyone. A few years after it opened the platform to the world, another group of entrepreneurs tried to reclaim the college-only social network space and failed. Josh Weinstein, fresh out of Princeton, launched CollegeOnly in 2010, financed by $1 million in capital from investors including Peter Theil, the doyen of Silicon Valley who bet on Facebook early. CollegeOnly was primarily a social network, but the fledgling company\u2019s portfolio also included a video chat site, RandomDorm, and a college dating site, GoodCrush. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter a glitzy public relations rollout, the company had 25,000 signups. It folded within three months. Although it appears that the door has closed on a just-for-college social network, college students aren\u2019t showing up across all platforms in equal numbers. If they were, marketers would still host panels on how to reach Gen Z through MySpace. Instead, students are establishing a presence across several social media sites, but using each selectively to cater to specific motivations.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTake Facebook: There has been a well-documented loss of appeal among teens and young adults, who view the site as something akin to the white pages. \u201cIt\u2019s not cool to be on Facebook,\u201d Chan-Olmstead says, but adds she saw many study groups and social clubs still find utility in it as a free and accessible place to congregate digitally during her study of college student media habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\nInstead, Chan-Olmsted says, Snapchat and Instagram are becoming the preferred venues for young adults to indulge in unguarded communication. Snapchat\u2019s topline value proposition of temporary messages and videos is coveted by a cohort of young adults with one eye on their long-term career prospects while they enjoy the freedom of being away from home for the first time. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe company seems to know this, too. Snap Inc. announced in September it was partnering with student newspapers around the country to create campus editions in the app. The stories appear in users\u2019 feeds when they are on or near campus and can be found using the search bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\nA top story on the Snapchat account of the UW-Madison Badger Herald, for example, showed a large headline, \u201cAmazon HQ Comes to Madison?,\u201d across a sliding photograph of the Wisconsin Capitol building. Swiping up brought up a Badger Herald story on the city\u2019s push to secure the facility. Tapping the screen\u2019s right side flipped to separate stories about UW athletics, dining hall hacks, Madison\u2019s best hangover recovery brunch and a video announcement from the \u201cPod Save America\u201d team hyping its upcoming show in the Madison area. Snap plans to monetize these college editions by inserting video ads in between stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Onion is also getting ready to establish a major presence using Snapchat. Whereas the site\u2019s properties have huge reach on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, penetrating Snapchat has proven elusive. Fullman says the company\u2019s not ready to divulge details, but he does concede Snapchat has been an enigma for the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a learning experience over the past year working closely with the Snapchat team to figure out how to create a product that is both The Onion and also fits with the voice of Snapchat,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a place that is especially challenging because we are, in some ways, a satire of The New York Times or The Washington Post news style, and [that] style is thrown out the window as news organizations get into the world of Snapchat and Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nA New Model Student Army<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe flipside to social media becoming the gathering place for college-aged adults is that they can like and share relevant content within their network of peers, which, if it\u2019s consistent enough, might provide enough revenue to support a college-focused media company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.linkedin.com//in//jack-rivlin-654ab261///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jack Rivlin <\/a>runs one such company, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////thetab.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Tab <\/a>\u2014short for \u201ctabloid\u201d\u2014which he and two classmates founded in 2009. Focused on student life and controversies happening at their school, the University of Cambridge, The Tab\u2019s punchy and provocative reporting quickly caught the attention of the U.K. press, which referenced the campus outlet many times during its first year of operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThree years later, the trio finished their studies, but they weren\u2019t ready to leave The Tab behind. Instead, they set up editions on 12 other British universities and courted investors to further expand their operations. At the start of the 2017-18 academic year, The Tab operates on 80 total campuses in the U.S. and the U.K., and in early September, Rivlin announced a $6 million round of funding, led by Rupert Murdoch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe took The Tab to other universities because we felt student newspapers were poorly serving their audience,\u201d Rivlin says. \u201cThis is particularly true in the U.K. They would be covering Middle Eastern politics or Premier League Soccer\u2014topics that the journalists really wanted to write about, but the audience didn\u2019t necessarily want to read. As we spread across the U.K and later U.S., we saw there was real demand for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nRivlin, 28, claims The Tab\u2019s monthly audience averages 51 million young people, sought by dozens of advertisers. Following the lead of The Onion and others, The Tab works closely with sponsors to create branded content that runs on the site and social channels. Brand stories feature real students acting out life with the sponsored product. About 15 of these branded stories run each month, and in the past, The Tab has guaranteed 25,000 pageviews per story, the majority of which Rivlin says are organic. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBranded content accounts for approximately two-thirds of the site\u2019s revenue, with the last third coming from display advertising. Forty million visitors watched Tab videos through social in August 2017, and 10 million visit the site directly. ComScore stats shared by Rivlin show that The Tab is the second-biggest publisher for the 18- to 24-year-old audience in the U.K. behind BuzzFeed, and U.S. data reveal that 53% of The Tab\u2019s stateside audience are between the ages of 18 and 24, compared to 22% for BuzzFeed and 12% for all digital media on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe found a lot of these big millennial media companies, like BuzzFeed, Vice or Vox, don\u2019t actually have a high concentration of audience in that demographic. For most of them, the majority of their audience is over 30,\u201d Rivlin says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nUnlike direct competitors aggressively targeting college-aged youth, such as Her Campus and The Odyssey (which gifted the world the infamous \u201c<a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.theodysseyonline.com//dad-bod/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dad Bod\u200b<\/a>\u201d essay in 2015), The Tab invests heavily in hard-nosed, original reporting to break news rather than curate blog posts or lifestyle essays. Audiences get the first-reported lowdown on campus happenings often before the news trickles out to the student newspaper and well in advance of nationally curated college sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Tab\u2019s student-reporters prowl their campuses, working solely for experience\u2014an experiment offering cash to authors of viral stories was discontinued after Rivlin decided it wasn\u2019t incentivizing the best journalistic outcomes\u2014while The Tab\u2019s national homepages employ a paid staff with an average age of 23. The youth of the writers and their readers has allowed the site to break stories hidden from the mainstream media. \u201cI don\u2019t think that any other media company can really build a connection with people under 25 unless they are willing to hand over a lot of the editorial to people that age,\u201d says Rivlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRivlin doesn\u2019t intend for The Tab to operate a chapter on every campus in America, but he forecasts expanding to as many as 150 U.S. universities. One thing he doesn\u2019t see, however, is maturing the site\u2019s content with its readers as they age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThere are two ways a media company can go: You can either be generational in the way Vice has been\u2014 \u2026 that audience is generally in their early 30s\u2014or you could be a media brand that is tied to a period in people\u2019s lives, and be prepared to let them go at the end of that. We\u2019re in that latter category,\u201d Rivlin says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt might be heresy to abandon readers after they\u2019ve converted, but brands often have to pick who they will serve first and best. Rivlin has no problem saying goodbye to readers no longer young enough to relate to the college experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re happy that once people exit their 20s, we\u2019re not going to be their media brand of choice,\u201d he says. \u201cMaybe I will change my mind in the future because it\u2019s always tempting to keep going, especially as it raises questions about my ability to run the company when I\u2019m much older.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nUntil that day, Rivlin and his youthful cotemporaries jockey for position in the college media landscape, hoping to swoop in beneath aging millennial brands and catch fire as the voice of Gen Z. <\/p>\n","post_title":"College Media's Peter Pan Syndrome","post_excerpt":"Being a college media outlet means facing an identity crisis when readership graduates and moves on. Digitization of the media landscape compounds the challenge. What\u2019s a student rag to do, and why should marketers care?","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"college-medias-peter-pan-syndrome","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:41:57","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:41:57","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=1740","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":4220,"post_author":"15","post_date":"2016-11-17 17:50:55","post_date_gmt":"2016-11-17 17:50:55","post_content":"\n<h2>There\u2019s a one-in-three chance at success for foreign marketers who want to chase the American Dream.<\/h2>\n\n\n\nWorry set in for Polina Haryacha. She had two marketing degrees from Ukraine\u2014a bachelor\u2019s and a master\u2019s\u2014a marketing certificate from UCLA and a marketing job in America that she loved, but lawyers told her there was a 50-50 chance she\u2019d be forced to leave the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI got really sad because I liked the job, and I wanted to stay here,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHaryacha\u2019s coin-flip odds to stay stateside came because of the <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.uscis.gov//eir//visa-guide//h-1b-specialty-occupation//understanding-h-1b-requirements/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">H-1B, a non-immigrant visa that allows foreigners to work in the U.S. for three years<\/a>. Her attorney, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////brooklaw.com///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fiona Brook<\/a>, received an expansive request for evidence from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that asked why Haryacha\u2019s role as a marketing product manager should be considered a \u201cspecialty occupation\u201d that requires \u201ctechnical or theoretical expertise,\u201d all H-1B requirements. Haryacha\u2019s heart sunk; \u201cIt was really bad,\u201d she says, figuring the request meant her chance of staying had dropped. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s not easy to be an international marketer attempting to secure a U.S. visa, which is \u201cwon\u201d via a lottery. Each January, Brook starts working with clients to file their applications, a time-consuming process that can cost between $4,000 and $5,000. By April, they\u2019re filed; applicants\u2019 fates are not determined until June or July. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t know where you stand,\u201d Brook says. \u201cYou don\u2019t know if you need to give up your apartment, your car, your friends, your accounts. If you didn\u2019t make the quota, you have to make alternative plans, either to change your visa or \u2026 a lot of clients will just study further, just extend their student visa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the end, Haryacha was lucky. She was one of 85,000 who won the H-1B lottery (65,000 of whom were bachelor\u2019s degree holders or those with equal work experience, and 20,000 of whom had a master\u2019s degree or doctorate) and works as a senior product marketing manager at My.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, with the number of H-1B applications on the rise, odds for future marketers to win may be shrinking. In 2014, 172,500 applications were submitted to USCIS; in 2015, it was 233,000, and in 2016, 236,000 applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAll told, there\u2019s a one-in-three chance at success for foreign marketers who want to chase the American Dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Win Some, Lose Some<\/h2>\n\n\n\nTJ Lim was lucky, too; he won his visa while working as a senior analyst of marketing analytics at Fidelity Investments. Lim arrived from the Philippines after being accepted to Yale University, then earned his master\u2019s in marketing analytics at Bentley University before going to the <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.wharton.upenn.edu///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wharton School of Business<\/a> for his MBA. <\/p>\n\n\n\nLim\u2019s Wharton classmate Shin-Yi Lim (no relation) wasn\u2019t as fortunate. She came to the U.S. from Malaysia and received a bachelor\u2019s degree in biological chemistry from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Wharton, where she specialized in marketing and operations management. After accepting a job from Microsoft in 2013, Shin-Yi Lim applied for the 2014 H-1B lottery. After months of nervously waiting for good news, she was not selected in the lottery. <\/p>\n\n\n\nShin-Yi sighed when asked about the process, betraying her frustration and uncertainty felt during the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFor a country that\u2019s run on merits, it\u2019s hard to process and comprehend that it all comes down to a lottery, a blind lottery, and it doesn\u2019t matter how many years you\u2019ve been here,\u201d she says. \u201cI spent seven years of my adult life in the U.S. \u2026 I waited all the way up to the end of May before my lawyer said, \u2018Yep, almost definitely you aren\u2019t getting the visa.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nShe shifted to \u201cPlan B,\u201d moving to Canada to work at Microsoft\u2019s Vancouver office, but found the country\u2019s visa process would take too long. On to \u201cPlan C\u201d: Microsoft\u2019s Singapore office, where she stayed for 15 months before winning a spot in the following year\u2019s H-1B lottery and moving to Seattle. She considers herself lucky to have a job, especially at a large U.S. company, but remains frustrated by the lottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>The Importance of H-1B in Modern Marketing<\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe H-1B is America\u2019s \u201csecret weapon,\u201d said <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.youtube.com//watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM\%22>theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku at a 2011 SAP event<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWithout the H-1B, the scientific establishment of this country would collapse. Forget about Google, forget about Silicon Valley, there would be no Silicon Valley without the H-1B. And you know what the H-1B is? It\u2019s the genius visa,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States is a magnet sucking up all the brains of the world, but now the brains are going back. They\u2019re going back to China. They\u2019re going back to India and people are saying, \u2018Oh my god, there\u2019s a Silicon Valley in India now! There\u2019s a Silicon Valley in China now.\u2019 DUH! Where did it come from? It came from the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nMarketing\u2019s scientific and technological growth has been undeniable in recent years. As tech grows, data scientists and techies are drawn to the industry by its lucrative uses of Big Data and its desire for innovation. <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////venturebeat.com//2015//08//21//new-research-companies-plan-to-massively-increase-spend-on-marketing-analytics///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Venture Beat report<\/a> found the average company will increase its marketing analytics budget by 73% in the next three years, an expansion that is closer to 100% for big B-to-C companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\nGlobalization has also become a focus in marketing as international companies evangelize their brands across the world. <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.forbes.com//sites//stuartanderson//2013//07//15//international-students-are-70-of-ee-grad-students-in-u-s//#7dfb177c4da5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, wrote on Forbes.com<\/a> that when companies visit college campuses to meet with graduate and doctoral students, they often find that more than half the study body is foreign-born. While there are no marketing-specific statistics, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com//best-graduate-schools//top-business-schools//marketing-rankings/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">top MBA programs for marketers boast high international numbers<\/a>. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, ranked as the No. 1 marketing graduate program by U.S. News and World Report<\/em>, says more than 30% of its students are from outside of the country. Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, ranked No. 2 by the same report, boasts an alumni network across 153 countries and six continents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWould it make sense for U.S. companies to ignore such a large pool of talent if they want to compete globally?\u201d Anderson wrote. \u201cIt is a reasonable question, and most companies would say it would not make sense to ignore this talent pool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nMarketers know the follies of randomly carried-out or poorly planned campaigns. Pick an arbitrary campaign slogan, color scheme and target audience? Be prepared for terrible ROI. However, in the ultimate irony, the visa that allows students across measurable fields to work stateside is predicated on a randomized lottery. Degrees, work and knowledge only matter to a point; after applying for H-1B, randomness reigns supreme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>The Process for Marketers to Win an H-1B Visa<\/h2>\n\n\n\nFiling for an H-1B visa is difficult for well-qualified STEM professionals, and it\u2019s no different for marketers. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHaryacha\u2019s application process was so frustrating that she <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.linkedin.com//pulse//20140909001000-135476895-how-to-overcome-h-1b-visa-challenges-for-marketing-employee/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote a lengthy LinkedIn article<\/a> after she won the lottery to give other international marketers hope and advice on improving their chances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMake sure your immigration lawyer has substantial experience with filing H-1B applications for marketing positions,\u201d she wrote as a general tip. \u201cIt\u2019s even better if he or she has a track record of success stories involving RFEs [requests for evidence] for complex marketing cases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.ama.org//PublishingImages//h1b-pullquote.jpg/" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBrook, her attorney, has that desired track record, as she\u2019s represented a multitude of marketers in H-1B cases. Brook \u201cknows the pain\u201d of the immigrant worker, as she came to the U.S. from South Africa years ago on an H-1B visa. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHistorically, marketers have a tough time obtaining an H-1B, Brook says. They often receive thick booklets requesting evidence for why marketing or public relations positions are \u201cprofessional.\u201d Brook says USCIS requests would ask, \u201cWhy do you need a degree?\u201d or \u201cCan\u2019t someone who is really sharp and has years of experience do the same job duties?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI haven\u2019t seen that lately because the industry has evolved so much,\u201d Brook says. \u201cDigital and social media has made it very specialized. Immigration now sees that you really do need people in these kinds of professional positions\u200b.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nH-1B visas require candidates to have a bachelor\u2019s degree, or foreign equivalent degree, or equivalent work experience. This ends up being a \u201ccomplicated formula,\u201d Brook says, which makes the process especially tricky for marketers, who don\u2019t necessarily need a specific marketing degree to get a specialized job in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter graduation, with a year of visa-free optional practical training between, young hopefuls file for the H-1B visa. Sometimes, they\u2019re accepted. Two-thirds of the time, they\u2019re rejected straightaway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201c[I] go back to [clients] and say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, it wasn\u2019t accepted. It was a random lottery.\u2019 Then they have to scramble,\u201d she says. \u201cDo they leave? Do they study more? Do they look at other options? I\u2019ve had people change to tourist visas, I\u2019ve had people get married. You really have to scramble to get yourself in status. People don\u2019t want to break the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nA lottery win means people are cleared for work for three years with a three-year extension available without having to re-enter another year\u2019s lottery. Green card applications for permanent residency can be filed during the six years of the H-1B. If these applications are filed before the fifth year, Brook says the H-1B can continue to extend beyond six years. However, this can be a double-edged sword, as she\u2019s had clients on H-1B visas waiting for a green card for more than a decade due to backlogs from their home country, most commonly China or India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating,\u201d Brook says. \u201cThey\u2019re stuck in jobs. Obviously the expense and ability to travel and so many things are impacted. But it is a bridge and it will allow you to extend your H-1B if you filed it in time while you wait for your green card.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nMarcelo Barros, international career expert and author of <a href=https://www.ama.org/"https:////www.amazon.com//International-Advantage-Get-Noticed-Hired//dp//0692463151/" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The International Advantage: Get Noticed. Get Hired!<\/a><\/em>, says he\u2019s seen more marketers win H-1Bs in recent years as companies focus on globalizing. This has led to a greater need for marketers who know the international market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cMarketing is all about analytics these days,\u201d he says. \u201cAnalytics is statically driven; it\u2019s math-based. A lot of international students will play very well in that space. They\u2019re very strong in that. \u2026 I do feel the trends in marketing\u2014analytics, globalization\u2014completely favor international students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow can international marketers take advantage? Typically, it starts when candidates find a job that aligns with their interests, he says, usually with a company that is expanding into new markets and knows an international marketer may have expertise that\u2019s \u201cworth sponsoring.\u201d These jobs have become easier to find with the increase of corporations and worldwide marketing initiatives, Barros says. <\/p>\n\n\n\nEven so, the rising ease in attaining marketing jobs gives an advantage to students only if they \u201cfully exploit those opportunities,\u201d Barros says. Some do, some do not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe students who don\u2019t succeed are often not maximizing the opportunities that are there for them,\u201d he says. \u201cEither because they\u2019re not aware of [them], or they\u2019re not being coached in the most effective way possible. Or they\u2019re just simply unprepared to capitalize on what\u2019s available. \u2026 This means a lot of networking and identification of high-growth companies that have a need or want for international expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Preparing for Life After University <\/h2>\n\n\n\nMany international workers start their training in U.S. universities. NAFSA: Association for International Educators found there were <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.nafsa.org//Policy_and_Advocacy//Policy_Resources//Policy_Trends_and_Data//NAFSA_International_Student_Economic_Value_Tool///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">974,926 international students stateside during the 2014-2015 school year<\/a>, up from 886,052 in 2013-2014. To put that in perspective, there is a total of 20.5 million students attending universities in fall 2016, per the National Center for Educational Statistics. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAngela Lee, chair of Kellogg\u2019s marketing department, has a simple philosophy for preparing students for life after school: \u201cWe teach them, that\u2019s how we prepare them.\u201d This preparation needs to be based in reality, as international students must know about the uphill battle they face to stay in the U.S., Lee says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSome companies simply don\u2019t want to take the risk of hiring a visa worker. If an American and a foreign marketer are in the running for a job, it will likely go to the American, Lee says. No company will admit this due to the possibility of discrimination, but cheaper transition costs matter; it\u2019s a \u201chuge investment\u201d for companies to hire, train and apply for H-1B visas for foreign employees, she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cNow, of course, if someone is clearly better and is an established team member of the company, then companies would be willing to go out of their way to help this candidate apply for the work permit or residency,\u201d she says, adding that different companies have their own hiring practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTJ Lim, who now works as director of client strategy at UBS, says Wharton was honest about what he\u2019d be up against in the U.S. job market. The school gave him access to search engines to seek jobs that sponsor international students but warned him that there was a chance he could still lose the lottery, even if he did find a job. <\/p>\n\n\n\nShin-Yi Lim, now working as a campaign business manager at Microsoft, painted a different picture of Wharton\u2019s preparation, saying it took a lot of online searching and speaking with other international students to try and \u201cpiece the puzzle together.\u201d Brook says she\u2019s sure \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of chatter on campus,\u201d as students she encounters learn the most about H-1B through word-of-mouth and designated student officers. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAs for interviewing, networking and other career services, Lee says Northwestern\u2019s International Office has resources that professors simply don\u2019t. Barros agrees; most professors consider career help to be outside of their scope. Career offices are a better resource, but it is a rarity to see companies post job listings for international employees on a university website, he says, let alone forming a relationship with universities for this purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, Kellogg does this by bringing recruiters to campus who are interested in and open to hiring international students in the U.S., according to Lee. Some may be a poor match, but it\u2019s a vital tool in the uphill battle for legal status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Economy and Controversy<\/h2>\n\n\n\nOne big worry\u2014and many say the visa\u2019s Achilles\u2019 heel\u2014is how many companies try to game the H-1B system. For example, some companies apply for multiple H-1B visas for the same employee under different subsidiary names, Brook says, which is not allowed under the visa\u2019s rules. Those who are found out are disqualified, but many are successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe New York Times reported that in 2014, <a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.nytimes.com//interactive//2015//11//06//us//outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html?_r=0\%22 target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more than a third of visas went to outsourcing firms<\/a> that provide temporary workers for companies like Toys \u2018R\u2019 Us and Disney. These firms included Tata Consultancy Service, an IT consulting firm based in India, which won 5,650 visas (6.6% of total H-1Bs) in 2014, and Infosys, also an IT consulting firm based in India, which won 3,454 visas (4% of total H-1Bs). Both firms, which saw their shares of H-1B workers rise nearly 100% from 2005 to 2012, ranked toward the bottom in terms of wage distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=https://www.ama.org/"http:////www.epi.org//people//ross-eisenbrey///" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute \u200b<\/a>(EPI), says the H-1B is not serving the country as it was intended and is in need of reform. Somewhere between 40% and 50% of the visas are given to \u201coffshore\u201d work at a cheaper rate, he says, as companies bring H-1B winners to the U.S., train them and send them back to their home country, mainly India and China. Companies may save in excess of $20 per hour, but he says they hurt the economy and legitimize the program\u2019s negative reputation of stealing jobs from American workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been gradually building over time; it\u2019s been going on more than the past 10 years,\u201d he says. \u201cWe first started writing about this problem back in 2006 and it was already a large problem back then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nInstead of continuing in this way, Eisenbrey says immigrant workers should have a sensible path toward permanent residency, the shady tactics of outsourcing companies should be quelled and companies should not be allowed to hire at substantially less than the prevailing wage for the area, industry and position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIf you\u2019re a company looking for a software developer, and the prevailing wage in the area is $120,000 and you advertise for the job at $70,000, your chances of getting somebody not very good are very good,\u201d he says. \u201cYou could make the case that \u2018I tried to find someone and I couldn\u2019t find them,\u2019 then you bring someone in from overseas at $70,000. You\u2019re undercutting the labor market, you\u2019re denying people who put in a lot of education and have a lot of experience, and this is not a small matter. The chances of discriminating against older employees, women and racial minorities goes way up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nEisenbrey says if H-1B was working as intended\u2014to fill a gap in the economy that cannot be found stateside\u2014it would complement U.S. workers. This, in turn, would increase productivity and bolster the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cBut if it\u2019s really just bringing in somebody who is cheaper, then it\u2019s not helping the economy,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s depressing wages and increasing unemployment here, and it really doesn\u2019t have a benefit to anybody but the company that is getting the higher profit by virtue of using the cheaper worker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Should Randomness Stand?<\/h2>\n\n\n\nOne commonality among most who discuss the H-1B process is a disdain for the lottery\u2019s randomness: if a certain number pops up, citizenship is granted for the next three years. If it doesn\u2019t, better luck next time. Brook believes this system works to keep some of the brightest, U.S.-educated minds out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBrook suggests dropping the \u201crandom quota\u201d as an improvement. \u201cThey need to make it all [based] off merit or increase the cap, and maybe they can increase the fee so they could make sure people are serious about applying and not having multiple applications. There\u2019s a lot that can be done, but [it needs to] start with it not being a random number.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nShin-Yi Lim, who initially suffered bad lottery luck, agrees the luck-of-the-draw approach casts too wide a net and misses many talented individuals. The system does not weigh whether a worker has any familiarity with the U.S., she says, so visas are granted to many without stateside experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThat happened to me, too; I was in Singapore when they put me in the lottery,\u201d she says. \u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s the idea that the number [accepted] has not been revised and reviewed in more than a decade. It\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nTJ Lim suggests a system based on supply and demand. Is there greater need for data scientists or marketers one year? Grant that group more H-1B visas. A need for biologists in another year? Allow them more visas. This, he says, would ensure both the quantity and quality of the immigrants entering the U.S. The world is different now, he says, more measured; changing times call for a changed system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cRight now, the reason why things are so oversubscribed is there are certain companies that apply like crazy the minute the process is open,\u201d he says. \u201cA, it\u2019s not fair and B, it\u2019s gaming the system, but it\u2019s also very inefficient for the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\nNot all hope is lost for international marketers looking for work. Haryacha\u2019s story isn\u2019t an exception, Barros says: \u201cThere are a lot of stories like that. It depends on the student\u2019s ability to capitalize on what\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHowever, Brook says the randomness must be addressed and \u201cbrought into line with modern times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThey really need to start again with it because they\u2019re keeping out really top people,\u201d Brook says.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSIDEBAR: H-1B\u2019s History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe H-1B visa program began as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT). Congress initially set the number of available visas to 65,000, but that number expanded to 195,000 in 2001, according to VisaNow, before shrinking back down to 65,000 in 2004 by order of former President George W. Bush\u2019s administration. Many people believed H-1B took jobs away from U.S. workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBush also signed the L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004 into law, which is a salary standard set by industry expectations to quell those intent on hiring foreign workers at a lower rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAn additional 20,000 visas are available for those who graduated with a doctorate or master\u2019s degree from a U.S. university. Most end up going to STEM fields\u2014science, technology, engineering and mathematics.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSIDEBAR: Lottery Lawsuits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere have been at least two lawsuits filed against USCIS in the past year in an effort to better understand H-1B\u2019s lottery. <\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the most recent case, filed in 2016, Tenrec, Inc. v. USCIS, Parrilli and Renison\u2019s EntryLaw.com website says: \u201cThe purpose of the class action lawsuit is to allow those with rejected H-1B petitions the opportunity to re-submit petitions and receive a place in line ahead of those who file for the first time at a later date. This remedy would provide \u2018priority\u2019 for next fiscal year\u2019s H-1B numbers to those who had filed for an H-1B this year, or in previous years, and were not selected in the random lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnother lawsuit, filed by American Immigration Council and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. in 2016, seeks more information about how the electronic selection process of the H-1B lottery process works and if all the lottery numbers are properly allocated.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSIDEBAR: Alternative Options to the H-1B for International Marketers <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere are alternative visas (or options) for international marketers looking to stay stateside, Brook says. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tNon-immigrant NAFTA Professional, or TN, visa for citizens of Mexico and Canada <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tH1B1 visa for citizens of Singapore and Chili <\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tE3 visa for Australian citizens<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tSpecialty occupation H-1B visa for those with exceptional work experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tCertain positions are exempt from the quota, such as work at nonprofit organizations, research education facilities and university work<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tJ-1 visa, or Exchange Visitor non-immigrant visa, can work for those accepted into work- or study-based exchange visitor programs. This visa, however, is much less permanent than the others; J-1 visa-holders would have to return to their home country for two years before finding a bridge to permanent residency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2022\tO-1 Visa for \u201cindividuals with extraordinary ability or achievement,\u201d which Brook says is for those who are distinguished in their field via presentations, awards, articles or innovation in research. This is a three-year visa for people with a U.S. job and who \u201calready have a good career and have made their mark.\u201d<\/p>\n","post_title":"Winning the Lottery: How Immigrant Marketers Become American Marketers","post_excerpt":"There\u2019s a one-in-three chance at success for foreign marketers who want to chase the American Dream.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"winning-the-lottery-how-immigrant-marketers-become-american-marketers","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-01-22 14:52:11","post_modified_gmt":"2024-01-22 20:52:11","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.ama.org\/?post_type=ama_marketing_news&p=4220","menu_order":0,"post_type":"ama_marketing_news","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}]" />

Higher Education Marketing

Higher education marketing refers to the marketing efforts that go into promoting furthered education at the collegiate level. It’s critical for universities and colleges to stay current and in the know regarding the latest marketing strategies to effectively gain the attention of prospective students. Here you will find a collection of marketing news articles and research insights regarding higher education marketing.

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