[00:00:00] Cheryl Broom: Welcome to Higher Ed Conversations. I'm Cheryl Broom. Today is a little different because I have some exciting news. My new book, Marketing Is Mission Work: How Colleges Can Build Trust, Remove Barriers, and Better Serve Students is officially out. And I have to tell you, it feels a little surreal to finally say that.
[00:00:22] Cheryl Broom: I wrote this book after more than 20 years of working in and with colleges, and after seeing the same thing happen again and again. When enrollment is down, when a program is struggling, or when students aren't responding, we often say, "We need more marketing." And sometimes we do. But marketing can only make the promise visible.
[00:00:45] Cheryl Broom: The entire institution has to make that promise true. Because students don't experience our colleges through our org charts. They experience us through a website, an email, a phone call, a form, a conversation, a handoff. And every one of those moments is telling them something about whether we are organized, whether we care, and whether they can trust us.
[00:01:11] Cheryl Broom: That's really what marketing is mission work is about. I'm, I, it's about looking beyond the campaign and asking what happens after the student says, "I'm interested." The book is filled with stories from my own career, lessons from colleges across the country, conversations from this podcast, and field notes that you can actually take back to your team and use.
[00:01:34] Cheryl Broom: So today, instead of telling you more about the book, I thought I would read you the very first chapter. And appropriately enough, it begins with four words I have heard way too many times in my career, Òdon't tell marketing.Ó Chapter one: Don't Tell Marketing. Don't tell marketing. That's what a staff member at my son's school said while unveiling the giveaways for senior night.
[00:02:03] Cheryl Broom: The giveaways were designed in a color that was not part of the official brand palette. She thought her choice of color looked better and a few people chuckled nervously. I didn't. I could feel the backstory in that one sentence. The past squirmishes with the brand police, the eye rolls over brand guidelines, and the quiet belief that following the rules is optional when someone has a better idea.
[00:02:33] Cheryl Broom: I understand the instinct. Brand guidelines can feel restrictive when they are presented only as a list of things people aren't allowed to do. Don't use that color. Don't stretch the logo. Don't make your own flyer. Don't use six fonts. Don't invent a new logo for the committee retreat. No wonder people look for ways around them, but good brand guidelines are not designed to shut people down.
[00:02:58] Cheryl Broom: They are designed to help an institution show up with clarity and consistency, especially for students and families who are trying to decide whether to trust us. One off-brand color may seem small by itself, maybe it is. The problem is what happens when every department, program, club, committee and initiative makes its own small exception.
[00:03:20] Cheryl Broom: Over time, the institution comes across as scattered. Students may not describe that as a brand problem. They may not notice the exact color, font, or logo placement, but they can notice when one email looks like nothing like the next, when a flyer feels disconnected from the website, or when a program's materials seem to belong to a different college entirely.
[00:03:44] Cheryl Broom: In higher education, that kind of confusion has a cost. Students already have enough to sort through, finances, belonging, next steps, support, and whether college is even possible for them. Every communication should make the institution feel clearer and easier to trust. That is why consistency matters. The rogue logo problem.
[00:04:09] Cheryl Broom: I have heard some version of Òdon't tell marketingÓ on many college campuses. Sometimes it's about a color. Sometimes it's about a flyer. Sometimes it's about a department that hired its own designer because marketing was too slow. And sometimes it's about the most tempting little act of brand rebellion, making a new logo.
[00:04:34] Cheryl Broom: I get the appeal. Logos feel like identity. They are visual, shiny, and deeply personal. A department wants to feel important. A program wants to stand out. A committee wants to show that its work matters. A student club wants something that feels like their own. Those are not bad instincts. People want ownership, pride, and belonging.
[00:04:57] Cheryl Broom: Those are good things. The problem begins when every corner of the institution decides ownership requires a separate visual identity. A college can end up with dozens of disconnected marks, one for the department, one for the initiative, one for the task force, one for the event, one for the grant, one for the center, and one for the program that was renamed three years ago, but somehow still has a banner in the hallway.
[00:05:22] Cheryl Broom: At that point, the institution has not created a stronger brand, it has created visual competition with itself. Strong brands are cohesive. The logo is the flag under which the institution gathers. It should create shared recognition, not another layer of confusion. When a department asks for its own logo, the real question underneath is usually not about design.
[00:05:50] Cheryl Broom: It is about visibility. People want their work to be seen, respected, and understood. That's a fair need and marketing should take it seriously. But a separate logo is rarely the best way to solve it. Sometimes the stronger solution is a campaign identity, clearer messaging, better storytelling, a flexible visual system, or templates that give the department personality while keeping the institutional brand intact.
[00:06:21] Cheryl Broom: People do not usually go rogue because they hate marketing. They go rogue because they want to move quickly, feel ownership or solve a problem. The job of marketing is not simply to say no, it is to help people find a better path, one that meets the need without weakening the whole. 
[00:06:40] Cheryl Broom: We know your team is stretched thin. AI was supposed to help, but because it doesn't know your college, it's actually wasting your time, not saving it. That's why we created Amy. Powered by GradComm's deep expertise and custom trained on your college's brand, Amy helps your team think deeper, create faster, and stay on brand so you can stay focused on what matters most, helping students succeed.
[00:07:07] Cheryl Broom: Stop wasting time with AI that doesn't get you. Come meet Amy at gradcomm.com/amy.
[00:07:15] Cheryl Broom: The student designer suggestion.
[00:07:18] Cheryl Broom: The most memorable version of Don't Tell Marketing came during a logo redesign at a college where I worked. Before making a final decision, our redesign committee shared the top three logo options with the campus. The reaction was brutal. Faculty hated them. Staff were unimpressed. People had opinions about everything, the shape, the color, the symbolism, the font, the feeling, the history, the future and the emotional weight of a mark that had represented the institution for years.
[00:07:51] Cheryl Broom: Then the protests started spreading across campus. Why don't we just have students design it? On the surface, that sounded lovely. Students are talented. Many are brilliant designers, artists, writers, photographers, and creative thinkers. A student absolutely could have created something beautiful, but beauty was not the only requirement.
[00:08:17] Cheryl Broom: A college logo should be grounded in research, aligned with strategy, adaptable across many uses, and resilient enough to withstand complex feedback from people with strong feelings about identity, history and change. 
[00:08:32] Cheryl Broom: That kind of work requires experience, not just talent. Students are in college to build that experience. They should not be asked to carry the political and emotional weight of a major institutional identity project. When those comments reached our inboxes, my boss immediately understood the deeper problem.
[00:08:54] Cheryl Broom: She went to the college president and asked, "Do you really want students to go through this?" She was not talking about the design work. She was talking about the aftermath, the combative meetings, the email rants, the public critique, the personal comments, and the way people can turn a logo into a referendum or identity, nostalgia, politics or institutional history.
[00:09:20] Cheryl Broom: Branding is emotional, visual branding especially. A logo holds meaning, memory, pride, and sometimes grief. Changing it can make people feel like something they love is being erased, even when the strategic need is clear.
[00:09:37] Cheryl Broom: A thoughtful process gives people room to be heard without turning every opinion into a design directive. It also gives leaders a clear way to protect the strategy and support the people doing the work. Without that structure, even strong creative work can get crushed under the weight of personal preference, campus politics, and everyone's feelings about what the logo should mean.
[00:10:04] Cheryl Broom: Why this matters. Brand conversations can sound small from the outside, a color, a logo, a flyer, a font, but inside the institution, those choices often carry bigger signals. They reveal whether the college is aligned, whether departments trust one another, and whether marketing is seen as a strategic partner or a final approval hurdle.
[00:10:29] Cheryl Broom: They also shape how students and families experience the institution before anyone ever speaks to them. That is the part people often miss. Brand choices may look decorative from the outside, but together they create a system of recognition and trust. Every time a college communicates, it's either reinforcing that system or weakening it.
[00:10:55] Cheryl Broom: The flyer, the email, the social post, the campus sign, the event program, the rogue logo, each one teaches people something about whether the institution is organized, consistent, and credible. This does not mean every piece of communication needs to look identical. Strong brands have flexibility. They can adapt to different audiences, cultures, programs, and moments, but that flexibility works best inside a shared system.
[00:11:25] Cheryl Broom: Creativity needs structure. Without it, creativity becomes noise. The institutions that do this well bring marketing in early while there is still time to shape the work instead of simply approving it. They make marketing a trusted partner in the process. They invite the team in before the logo is created, before the flyer is printed, before the event materials are ordered, and before the department falls in love with a design that will not work.
[00:11:59] Cheryl Broom: That early trust changes everything. It also gives marketing the chance to ask better questions about audience, purpose, message, and connection to the larger institutional promise. Those questions shift the conversation from control to strategy. They also help departments feel seen.
[00:12:20] Cheryl Broom: When people understand that marketing is not trying to diminish their work, but rather to strengthen and elevate it, the relationship changes. The real opportunity is not catching people when they make mistakes, it is building enough trust for them to call marketing before the mistake is made. Field note.
[00:12:43] Cheryl Broom: The next time someone wants a new logo, a new color, or a one-off design that does not fit the brand, pause before leading with no or starting with the rules. Start with the reason. Keep three questions handy. One, what are you trying to help people understand, feel, or do? This moves the conversation from design preference to communication purpose.
[00:13:09] Cheryl Broom: Two, what feels missing from the current brand system? This helps undercov - once again. This helps uncover whether the real need is visibility, pride, distinction, ownership, or something else. Three. How can we make this feel special without making it feel separate? This keeps the solution connected to the institution instead of creating another disconnected piece. These questions keep the conversation focused on purpose instead of preference.
[00:13:43] Cheryl Broom: They help people feel seen while guiding the work toward a solution that strengthens the institution. And that's chapter one of Marketing Is Mission Work. I wanted to start there because yes, it's about branding, but it's also about something much bigger. It's about trust. It's about whether our institutions feel connected and student-centered, and it's about recognizing that marketing is not the department you call at the end to make something look good.
[00:14:12] Cheryl Broom: Marketing has a role in helping colleges think more clearly about audience, purpose, experience, and the promises we make to students. And that idea runs throughout the entire book. We talk about websites, enrollment, communications, AI, student stories, reporting, strategy, and all the little moments where students can either keep moving forward or get stuck.
[00:14:37] Cheryl Broom: My hope is that this book starts conversations on your campus. 
Thanks for listening to Higher Ed Conversations. I'll see you next time.