PR campaign a move towards recognition

By Linda Thrane     10/9/08 7:00pm

Times have changed for higher education. As competition for students, faculty and funding increases, so does the need to promote what sets an institution apart from others offering similar services. In interviews about Rice with hundreds of faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members last year, a common refrain was: "We need to make more people better aware of how good we are."The backpage agreed. On Nov. 30, 2007, the backpage asked: "Who knew it would take a university 95 years to start a severely needed PR campaign?" That piece complained that Rice has "spent our history dedicated to the idea of remaining some sort of cheap secret" but was glad it was starting to get in the game.

A frequently heard lament is that Rice isn't very well known, especially compared with peer institutions like Harvard, Princeton and Stanford universities. How many times have you mentioned that you attend or work for Rice when you're visiting on the East or West Coasts, or even the Midwest, and you've gotten a blank look and response to the effect: "Oh, Rice, that's supposed to be a pretty good school... Isn't it somewhere in the South?" In fact, recent market research confirms that Rice is well-known and respected in Houston and greater Texas, but that familiarity fades sharply the further away you get. For most of its 96 years, Rice has indeed been a well-kept secret.

Enter the integrated communications campaign. Rice is aggressively promoting its experts and expertise with print, broadcast and electronic media. Its Web site is presenting fresh, compelling stories about the university on a daily basis to draw more visitors. Its print and electronic communications are better informing Rice stakeholders about what's going on so that they, too, can help tell the story.

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The additional piece is brand protection and promotion. Once represented by a jumble of logos, slogans, fonts, colors and styles, Rice is cleaning up its act and presenting its name, shield, mascot and other identity symbols in a consistent and quality fashion. You can find the identity guidelines on www.rice.edu. And Rice is giving people a sense of who we are through a theme - "Unconventional Wisdom" - the words and essence that emerged from all of those consultations last year.

Finally, the Who Knew campaign is helping generate interest and understanding of what we mean by unconventional wisdom by grabbing people's attention for a study or research that might be ignored otherwise.

The brand strategy is designed to differentiate Rice from other educational and research institutions by communicating what makes the university unique: the wisdom that emerges from its research and teaching, embodied in the Athenian owl mascot; and the distinctive, sometimes quirky, way Rice goes about its business. Together, those add up to Unconventional Wisdom.

All of these tools are helping to raise Rice's profile on the national and international stage. And the more people know about Rice, the more they will respect it. That in turn translates into the ability to recruit top students and faculty, to win more philanthropic resources, to connect more people with Rice and all the academic, scientific, cultural and recreational resources it offers. For students, strengthening and broadening the university's reputation will serve them well when they move on to their careers with the Rice seal on their degrees.

It's a competitive world out there. Nearly every university in the country is taking steps to raise its profile using all the communications tools available these days. The advantage for Rice is that we have a great story to tell and authentic branding to help it stick.

The Thresher gets it. In talking about the need to improve recognition of Rice, an editorial noted the need for more marketing: "For Rice to improve its standing as a global university, it has to attract students on a global scale. And those students have to hear about us first" ("Rice's national surveys should be expanded," April 11, 2008).

That's exactly what we're trying to do, and we're making progress. Rice was just ranked No. 4 in the country for the largest increase in media coverage over the past year. Now all we need is that ad campaign.

Linda Thrane is vice president for public affairs.

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