Do you remember when the printer became available to almost every workstation on your school’s campus? Do you remember when the next generation of printers became color-enabled? Anyone could print their own postcards, flyers, note cards or banners. You could upload any image of the school’s logo or create your own version that you liked better with Print Shop. Everyone had the power to shape the school’s brand and messaging, then go to Kinkos and print colored copies to pass out larger volumes. Fortunately for the director of communication, these well-intentioned employees would at least be limited in the number due to budget limitations. If the communications office couldn’t get to a person’s project, that individual was glad to help out with his/her new toys and produce something that looked pretty good in his/her assessment.
Overnight, everyone thought they were trained communications people. Meanwhile, the people in the communications offices were pulling their hair out trying to rein in all the branding images that were being distributed to represent the school. What about all the pictures that weren’t of the best quality or the choice of images that weren’t representative of the school? How about the variation of school colors? It was out of control.
The leadership didn’t see this coming and many didn’t know they should care. In addition, websites for schools were coming into play, which added another publication to the responsibility of the communications office. For many schools, it took a while for the resources to catch up, and a few schools still lagged behind this transformation despite the availability of great tools. Most schools had trouble maintaining effective control over its branding then, and without completely solving those issues, the World Wide Web brought more problems.
The problem of branding created by a rogue printer pales in comparison to the impact that the internet has had on the workload of the communications and marketing office. The efforts needed to manage brand images and messages have increased infinitely. Instead of a flyer or postcard, the average consumer can now make their own website to represent the school’s brand in some shape or form.
There are sites of all sorts for every sport or arts group. Each lower school class has or should have a site. How about the school’s website and the content management systems that allow departments to help keep the information up-to-date? Anyone want a blog? There are third party sites that give schools an opportunity to add content, but if you don’t, they add it for you. I can’t even count the number of electronic publications that have been created with this technology in the hands of the average consumer. How about social media?
How have we reacted? We are moving slowly as usual. It seems as though most schools have added a web person or outsourced this person. This is what was necessary ten years ago. The internet has a whole world of communications that now requires a team of people. Most school will be caught between a rock and a hard place. They won’t be able to afford exactly what they need without stretching resources, but by not doing so, they will lose control that is needed to maintain the strength of their brand.
Schools will need to begin thinking about this more systematically. Savvy schools will, or have already, made this a part of their strategic plan. This technology has already saved school’s money, particularly by cutting down print, yet increasing its outreach ability. However, schools didn’t plan on reallocating those savings to hire individuals (part-time or fulltime) to manage the brand consistency and control issues.
It’s time to take a new look. This means providing new resources for the communications and marketing offices to become more effective, re-tooling them with knowledge on how to best utilize resources. If they don’t, these offices will lose tremendous control in their school’s brand positioning.