When Andrés Orozco’s family made the move from California to Utah at age 10, he and his brother went from their comfortable, mostly-Mexican elementary school to being the only Mexicans around.
But education and storytelling were constants that kept Andrés and his brother grounded.
“It’s something that my brother and I have done for 20 years: making films, commercials, short documentaries. We have a passion for storytelling,” he says.
Andrés says learning to tell stories professionally gave him mobility out of the working class. He studied communication and screenwriting in school and ultimately became a professor at Pepperdine University, where he taught screen arts for 20 years.
Recently, he decided to pursue storytelling full-time. His company, Novelas Educativas, seeks to sell higher education to diverse communities by telling authentic stories.
According to Andrés, selling an education in 2021 is more than advertising the benefits of a degree. We need to tell authentic stories. Andrés shared his secrets on how Novelas Educativas has created award-winning content for diverse audiences and made an impact on communities on Episode 18 of the Higher Education Coffee & Conversation podcast.
The World of Higher Education is Changing – Fast
What students want and expect from a college education is not what it was ten years ago, but the pandemic is not the only factor. Before setting out to tell a story, it’s crucial to understand two big differences.
- A prestigious education is no longer the top priority.
The popular stories mainstream media used to tell about college – think fraternity and sorority movies like Animal House – no longer resonate with students.
Today, it’s less about “the college experience” as we used to know it.
Students are looking for the best ways to access an education that is high-quality and affordable — a degree they can acquire while working a job on the side.
“So when I graduate, I already have a job, and these degrees are to increase my pay, not necessarily bring me inside the building,” Andrés explains.
- The pandemic has raised the bar for higher education.
Remote education and work have opened up worlds of new opportunities for those who may be working multiple jobs or taking care of family members while pursuing an education.
“People were able to multitask in a way that they’ve never been able to multitask before,” Andrés says. “We were able to go to a meeting at work, get off a meeting, do some homework, take a class in the evening online and between that pick up our kids from Grandma and Grandpa.”
As we get used to a “new normal” (which honestly is the “old normal” for some), universities and colleges (especially community colleges that are state-subsidized and designed to be more accessible) can’t leave those options behind.
Adapting to the new landscape doesn’t just mean adjusting existing curricula to remote-friendly formats. It also means restructuring and reassessing outdated curricula and the committees that may slow significant advancements.
That could mean scrapping committees that slow down the process of change, and reassessing the need for numerous introductory classes in favor of, say, an internship or experience in the field.
Schools that don’t catch up quickly have the potential of falling to big tech companies.
“It’s not that far away where Apple or Google is going to say, Let’s just buy this online university, and let’s make this completely streamlined all across the nation,” says Andrés.
Selling an Education in a New Landscape
Big structural changes also mean big changes in the way we market to students.
“Because they know what they want, it’s harder to tell a story that [the students] know is authentic,” he says.
An effective way to do that? Hang a light on it.
That means publicly identifying a problem and being transparent about efforts to fix it. Authenticity can go a long way.
“Once you hang a light on something, and you say, this is what it is, people are not trying to figure it out in their head,” he says. Sincerity allows students to believe the messaging.
Honesty and transparency about big changes are just as important to marketers working to tell stories on behalf of a college or university, “so we can somehow work that into the storytelling,” Andrés says.
Crafting Authentic Stories for Diverse Communities
In 2021, it’s not easy to achieve true authenticity. But pursuing it – and hanging a light on your efforts – will go a long way.
When there’s no transparency, or when a school doesn’t understand who their prospective students are, the lack of authenticity can be obvious.
“We have a generation of great storytellers. I’ll be watching a movie with my daughter, she’s 12,” Andrés says. “And she knows all the beats within storytelling.”
As a company specifically catering to the Latinx community, Novelas Educativas has a lot of ground to cover. The Latinx community is incredibly diverse and differs geographically and linguistically, even within a single city.
“You have to understand the demographics around you and what language you’re going to speak. [You] can’t just speak Spanish. It has to be the Spanish that is spoken in that community,” he says.
There are three main points Andrés keeps in mind when creating a story or campaign:
- Spotlight a parent
Parents in the Latinx community play an immense role in their children’s lives.
But when it comes to higher education, they might not know the ins and outs of every program their child is applying to.
That’s why Andres makes sure to include at least one parent in every marketing campaign, and cater to them by presenting tools they can use to become partners with their children.
One short film Novelas Educativas produced, Amor Escolar, followed a mother who was upset that her daughter wasn’t helping around the house. Once her daughter explained she was at the bottom of the academic pyramid and had been spending all her free time studying so she could get to the top, “the mom just stands up and says, have you eaten anything?” Andres says.
“And it was that one gesture of the mother saying, let me make you some food. I can’t help you study this calculus, but I can at least make you a sandwich,” he adds.
The story positions the mother as a partner in her child’s education — an important message for anyone, but especially within the Latinx community.
- Use universal themes
Even when you know your audience well, there’s no simple formula for marketing toward a specific group or demographic. Everyone brings their own experience to the table.
Here is where channeling universal themes comes in: the circumstances and details of a story might change based on a group or culture, but the message stays the same.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from, you want to make your parents proud. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, you want to feel accomplished. You want to make yourself happy,” Andres says.
“I think these are these universal themes that, if we just focus on those, and the character happens to be Latino … that’s important.”
- Expect criticism
There’s a lot that can be done when it comes to crafting authentic and culturally relevant stories to a specific audience.
But understanding that a marketing campaign might not be completely accurate to everyone in that audience is part of the territory.
Andrés says we should expect criticism when telling stories for diverse communities. That’s why universal themes are so important.
“No matter what you do, when you’re reaching out to Latinos, you’re always going to have a group that says, well, we don’t say that word that way. And you’re always going to have people that nitpick,” Andres says.
You’re never going to satisfy everyone, and critics may be missing the point, Andrés says, which is getting Latinx people, particularly Latino men, into higher education. They’re disappearing. But sending the message that no one learns alone is a good first step.
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This article is based on an episode of Higher Education Coffee & Conversation, a podcast featuring higher education experts to discuss trends in marketing, communications, advancement and student success. Subscribe via Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts so that you don’t miss future episodes!
