Branding

The idea was simple: Let online donors make multiple gifts with a single checkout. Not long after Randy Brown joined the Michigan State University advancement team as webmaster in 1999, he got assigned this task, which was anything but simple to execute.

“That was sort of his night job,” says Bob Thomas, assistant vice president for advancement marketing and communications. “It was kind of a running joke. We’d talk about it at annual planning meetings.” One year, someone even presented a mini shopping cart at the meeting to Brown as a tangible reminder.

Not many colleges have a four-star general at the helm, but students at Birmingham-Southern College (Ala.) are such big fans of their president, former Marine Corps Commandant Charles C. Krulak, that the campus bookstore wanted to come up with a t-shirt reflecting how they feel. When the store received a copy of a USMC poster featuring Krulak (known on campus as "the General") with his arm around a young recruit, they decided to use the image and make it their own.

Marketing and branding expert Tom Dougherty says that colleges and universities can and should adopt the promotional strategies of the top consumer brands. An often-quoted source on business and brands, he has been featured recently by The New York Times and CNN, discussing topics ranging from television to Apple to airlines. In his 25-year career, Dougherty has helped companies like Lexus, Tide, and IKEA capture market share from competitors by changing their focus from product to people.

In December, Tulane University (La.) announced it had misreported some admissions data for its Freeman School of Business to be used in US News & World Report’s college rankings.