Good branding - a reflection of the student's experience

Sometimes, we can think of brand-building as being fundamentally a marketing exercise - clear, consistent messaging, strong visual identity, etc. In fact, the essense of a strong brand is the culture we create and the experience of our students. Strong branding initiatives are simply communicating that which is essentially true.

“Historically, brands have been thought to have been the result of the mass marketplace communication investments and approaches. That is, the brands were created through massive amounts of media advertising through clever and creative messages, icons and packages. Today, we are beginning to understand that brands are instead based on customer experiences. It is the value the brand provides the customer over time, not the short-term creative that builds customer loyalty. Thus, managing brands is really about managing customers and that is what Integrated Marketing Communications is all about.” (Iacobucci & Calder, 2003, p. xix).

So, as we work to build the LCC brand, let's make sure we are engaging our students as much as possible. When they see an LCC billboard on the highway or an on-line ad on their favorite web site, we want them to be nodding their heads in agreement, not snickering at us, as they think "yeah, right; who do they think they're kidding".