Talking Stick - January/February 2015 - 39

marketers.
Marketing staff should regularly
attend the full-staff meetings,
social programs, advisory boards,
educational programs, town hall
meetings, and other events to
experience all that the department
covers and learn more about the
issues facing students. Regularly
scheduled one-on-one meetings
with staff - including the resident
assistants - provide insights into the
broader responsibilities they hold.
Marketing staff should be familiar
with the student handbook so they
can be prepared to respond to events
on social media. They also need to be
part of all planning around student
housing milestones such as the
assignments process, the sending of
acceptance letters, move-in weekend,
and the like. Being involved in all
these processes will even help to
attune them to the language of
campus housing and ensure that
words like "rent" or "dorm" do not slip
into their work.

O

ne of the primary
tasks of the marketing
department is to
build and maintain
the organization's brand. But why
is a brand important? In the book
Marketing Metrics, the authors describe
the value of a brand as the amount an
individual "would be willing to pay for
merchandise that carries the brand's
name, over and above the price she'd

pay for identical unbranded goods."
In campus housing this means
differentiating the department's brand
identity from that of other schools
or off-campus housing properties.
Without a strong brand, consumers
make the distinction totally on price
without regard to the programs,
services, and neighborhoods in
campus housing that support student
success.
In virtually all cases, brand
development begins with the
college or university's campus
communication and marketing
team. Branding may manifest itself
via logos, fonts, taglines, and colors
(some institutions have even been
known to trademark a particular shade
of a color). The housing marketing
team then applies the overall brand
identity to its print and online
materials. Housing departments may
be tempted to invent their own brand;
however, most departments typically
don't have significant resources -
financial and personnel - to actually
build a brand. In addition, as an
extension of the institution's brand,
the housing department already draws
from all the packaging, advertising,
messaging, and tradition that has
gone into it through the decades.
The creative design process also
is expedited when the brand identity
is clear. Without those standards
the creative process would include
making multiple and repeated
decisions about colors, fonts, images,
and messages, with each of these

decisions begetting other decisions.
"When we didn't have a brand identity
we had to handle each design project
on a case-by-case basis," says Dana
Lyons, manager of creative services at
the University of Colorado Boulder.
"The client's vision only focuses on
one event or instance without regard
to the overall brand identity. Now that
we have an established brand identity
it reduces the time to produce the
material needed for the client. I liken
it to playing in a sandbox. You know
you're playing in a sandbox, but it's
how you play in the sandbox. There's
still creativity, but now it matches the
overall brand message we need to
deliver."
Policing the brand means that the
marketing department must be aware
of all the ways it is being used across
the housing department and be ready
to make adjustments if it has strayed
from the established guidelines.
Mallory Sidarous, the housing
marketing specialist at Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville, has
found herself in that position on
multiple occasions. "My experience
has been that visual identity is one
of the toughest marketing efforts
to enforce at the department level.
It takes a lot of education and
accountability to keep the visual brand
identity consistent, especially since
we do give staff the ability to use the
logo on hall-level advertising and
programming," she says. "We have a
policy that I approve final use of the
logo, but I have spent time and energy

"MY ExPERIENCE HAS BEEN THAT VISUAl IDENTITY IS ONE OF THE
TOUgHEST MARKETINg EFFORTS TO ENFORCE AT THE DEPARTMENT
lEVEl. IT TAKES A lOT OF EDUCATION AND ACCOUNTABIlITY TO KEEP
THE VISUAl BRAND IDENTITY CONSISTENT, ESPECIAllY SINCE WE DO gIVE
STAFF THE ABIlITY TO USE THE lOgO ON HAll-lEVEl ADVERTISINg AND
PROgRAMMINg."

JANUARY + FEBRUARY 2015

39
Talking Stick - January/February 2015

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