You've seen it on freeway billboards, lightpole banners
and the sides of buses. You've heard it on radio and maybe
even seen it on TV.
But just under one year into Eastern Michigan's "Education
First" branding campaign, who's really getting the message?
 |
BRANDING EFFECTIVENESS: Graduate students
in Elizabeth Edwards' "Marketing 670" class
spent
the winter semester conducting a pilot
study of
the effectiveness of EMU's "Education
First" branding
campaign. The slogan stuck with
employees (95.6
percent) and with students
(77.8 percent) and alumni
(35.6 percent) to a
lesser degree. |
According to a survey by a class of EMU marketing graduate
students, the university's slogan has planted itself firmly
in the minds of those with the closest day-to-day ties
to EMU. Overall, 77.2 percent of the people surveyed were
aware of EMU's slogan, but it clicked with employees in
particular (95.6 percent) and students to a lesser degree
(77.8 percent). Among alumni in the survey, 35.6 percent
of alumni recognized the slogan.
"The results show people are aware of the slogan
and that they think the slogan is ownable, memorable and
flexible," said marketing professor Elizabeth Edwards,
whose "Marketing 670" class spent the winter semester devising
and carrying out a pilot study on the campaign's effectiveness. "We
have never had an integrated marketing campaign (at EMU)
before. Ever. I was thrilled to find out we had one and
was very happy to work on a study to evaluate it."
The e-mail survey went to 5,000 students, 5,000 alumni
and all of EMU's employees (about 2,500). Survey questions
revolved around awareness of the campaign, ability to recall
the "Education First" slogan, perceptions of
EMU and perceptions of the branding campaign.
Respondents included 685 employees, 414 students and 297
alumni. On a series of questions about the slogan itself,
they generally agreed "Education First" is ownable, descriptive
of EMU, memorable, flexible and, to a lesser extent, unique.
And though perceptions of EMU itself were positive overall
(73 percent agreed to having a positive overall feeling
about EMU), students were less likely to agree that EMU
is a safe place (39.6 percent) or a top-notch school (44.1
percent).
Edwards said timing may have influenced the survey's response
rate and results. The survey went out at the end of March,
about a week before a former student was convicted of a
campus murder that drew national attention.
Other campus groups also were doing surveys at the time,
and Edwards got a few e-mails from students asking, "How
many more surveys am I going to have to fill out?"
As a pilot, the study was meant to not only gather information
about the branding campaign, but also identify ways the
study itself could be improved, Edwards said.
A question to help identify alumni who live outside the
region, for example, would make it clearer how many were
even exposed to the campaign, which is regional. Questions
that identify students who also are employees or employees
who also are alumni would eliminate problems created by
overlapping groups. The next round, likely to be conducted
by early November — and well before exams — ought
to be used as a baseline, Edwards said.
Still, the pilot study validates some of the university's
marketing choices and will influence future tweaks to the
campaign, said Theodore G. Coutilish, associate vice president
for EMU's Office of Marketing and Communications.
The survey showed 69.3 percent of respondents saw EMU's
billboard ads, with radio (43.5 percent) and Web site (36.8
percent) getting the next most attention. Just 13.5 percent
had seen TV ads.
"It showed us a lot of the people we surveyed are
on the road and a lot of people are looking at billboards," Coutilish
said. "The things in that study will help us to validate
and adjust our media mix...The students did an excellent
job, and it'll be very helpful as we move forward with
the marketing campaign."
The 10 students who carried out the study got all the
benefits of working for a real business client — minus
the pay.
They learned how to deal with late-changing client needs,
deadlines and data delays. They developed a survey, identified
a test population, got human subjects approval through
the university, conducted the survey, collected and interpreted
the results, and presented them to the client in late April.
"This is probably the most ambitious thing I've ever
had a class undertake in my 16 years at Eastern," Edwards
said. "I guess you could consider it a service-learning
kind of experience for the class, although it wasn't part
of the service-learning program...I'm very proud of the efforts
the students made. Some of them truly were stars and really
impressed me."
