Marketing an Education

There isn't a lot of difference between marketing a product and conducting an educational program. All the same marketing techniques are used in both situations.

I'm creating a nutrition education program right now and I am really enjoying myself because the creative, marketing side of me is engaged. I have to create a logo, a slogan, and put together a series of activities and lessons that will somehow make an impact on my audience. Just so we're all on the same page, let me brief you on how my program is developing.

It's called "From the Ground Up." It's a curriculum kit for teachers in Centre County. The kids that it's geared towards are between pre-k and 2nd grade levels. Since the Pennsylvania Dietary Guidelines emphasize fruits and vegetables I chose to focus on them as well (mostly because I was hoping I could get some funds). My mentor on this project and I agree that kids gravitate towards foods that they know things about, like where it comes from or how it's made. For example, when I was young and was still being babysat by my grandmother who lives on a farm, I absolutely loved asparagus because I loved the way it grew straight up from the ground- not even on a vine or anything. It was this kind of logic that lead us to create a program that focuses on things that come from the ground, vines, or trees, what happens to it when it goes through the manufacturing process and then finally, what it looks like on our plate. For example, pumpkin is a vegetable that is big and grows on a vine, but do we ever see a pumpkin sitting on our plate ready to be eaten? No, sometimes we see it in pie, or pudding, or in bread. With this program we are helping kids make the connection between how it is in it's rawest form and  then how we eat it.  Hopefully by generating interest in the origin of our food, they will gravitate towards fruits and veggies who's origins are from the ground!

So, onto marketing and education.

With marketing, you have to know who your target population is- what they value, how they live their life, what kind of decisions they make, where they life etc. etc. Then you can market your product or idea to them. If you were to blindly create an advertisement or a persuasive statement, it is unlikely that you will connect with them to the degree where they would invest in your product. For example, if the commercial where that old man who sits in front of a living room fireplace and turns to the camera and asks you, "Do you have type 2 die-uh-bee-tahs?" were to air on a channel like Nickelodeon, 8 year old kids probably don't even know what diabetes is. It wouldn't be offensive, but it definitely wouldn't be money well spent.

Here's an education example: if I were to blindly conduct my education program without any knowledge of my target population I could make some big no-no's. What if I didn't know that my target population is predominantly white? What if my target population was mostly black? The white human hand on my logo probably wouldn't be appropriate and some could construe it to be offensive. What's more likely is that my target population wouldn't be able to connect with my program in the first place and all my hard work could be ineffective just because I didn't take the time to research my audience.

Just like you "sell" a product, you have to "sell" education. What makes them give a crap about your program? What will this do for them? Just like in the business world, using the right language is key. Everything you sell or every program you conduct must be framed by language that benefits the consumer. You must always be answering the question "how will this make my consumer's life easier?"

In the nutrition world, program writers use optimistic words like "promote" and "strengthen" and "energize" and "nourish" to avoid getting that bad "food police" rep that they often do. Phrases to avoid include "cut this out" or "don't eat" or "only eat this." We say, nutrition isn't meant to limit diets, it's meant to expand them! We might be extremely excited about introducing kale into our diets (just kidding, don't eat kale it's like eating a leaf off a tree) but yet we are still staring at an audience of on-the-go Americans who eat fast-food once a day just because it's convenient.

It may be that every time you present your program or your product to a different audience you will have to adjust it every time. Tweaking your product or education program spiel is extremely important for connecting with your audience. As I begin to do my own nutrition education program, I am realizing that pre-k--2nd grade kids are more knowledgeable than we give them credit for. Of course they know that apples come from trees, of course they know that tomatoes come from plants. My goal is to be stimulating, not to bore them. I am, yes, marketing my program towards them, researching every little inkling of preference or values that a 5 year old may have. They love Dora! They love bright colors! They like learning! They have no attention span! All of this information is extremely important to me as it's a huge part of my product promotion.

Analyzing target populations is extremely important in both the business and education world. It's had to be too sensitive to the consumer's wants and needs. How can we possibly connect with our audience or make change within our audience if we aren't?

The Logos of Local Logos

In my community nutrition class, we are designing a nutrition education program that we would theoretically conduct in one hour. Part of the assignment is designing a logo. My teacher had mentioned that if we were drawing inept, we could use clip art.

After our discussion in class about the design of logos, the clip art idea seemed like an awful idea.

 It completely destroys any Ethos the company once had. The credibility absolutely goes down the drain. A local ad is easy distinguishable from a corporate one.

Take those local commercials for example. They are laughable. Most have an annoying jingle, a fast-talking, loud voice-over and pictures of their place of business. They're not funny, there is no narrative, and their complete lack of an ad campaign theme makes it sink to the bottom with the rest of the phony commercials.

When do you see corporate companies like the Gap, or McDonald's cutting to a video clip of where they are located? When is their shop even in the commercial at all? It's not. It's so prevalent amongst low-budget, local commercials when showing their place of business is probably the least impressive thing about them.

So to return to my original point. For my logo design, I am not going to use clip-art. I will not try to depict any human-like figure. I will not use a corny pun for a slogan. Instead I will use something with a unique design, use eye-catching yet not obnoxious color combinations and a short and sweet slogan. Easier said than done, I'm sure. But I think knowing what not to do is the first step.

What It Boils Down To

As we discussed yesterday in class, fact must be established before values and policies can be formed. Of course, this is an ideal situation and often not the case. There are many times where values are formed based off of untrue facts, or just off of a different understanding of the true facts. More frequently, it's a question of no one knowing the facts. Then we all form fuzzy opinions and fuzzy solutions to a problem that we don't actually know that much about.

I want to talk about the complexity of the Abortion issue in this context. Disclaimer: I am not, however, going to state my own opinion or engage in a discussion about the actual content of this issue. I know it's a touchy subject-so lets all work together to avoid vicious discourse.

There are a lot of issues where the argument doesn't just boil down to one sole concept. However, in the issue of abortion, it very much does. I think for the most part we all agree that taking a life is wrong (or at least I'm going to make that assumption for my argument's purpose) and whatever can be done to stop it should be done. So when we look at the two different sides of debate (which I believe are more complex that pro-abortion or anti-abortion) is it really that the "pro-choice" people are killers? Is it really that the "pro-life" people are the only ones defending life? Both sides are creating assertions against the other side based on their own belief of when life begins.

"Pro-choice" people believe life begins later than "Pro-life" people (for the most part). Can the pro-choice people say that the "pro-life" people aren't really pro-life at all if their own definition of life is so much later? Can "pro-life" people say that "pro-choice" people are okay with destroying life if their own definition of when life begins is so much earlier? It's a fine line.

So what about birth control or condoms? Or Plan B (the morning after pill)? Is the union of sperm and egg the moment that life begins? Is it the embryo? Very fine lines must be drawn in order for policy to be created.

How can we proceed? What do we do in cases of rape, or when the mothers' life is in danger? If life is established so late in the pregnancy, can mothers terminate their pregnancy if they're not happy with the gender? Our fuzzy values and our fuzzy policy making on the subject isn't making the answers very clear.

So the beginning of life is what it boils down to. How do we proceed?

Peripheral and Central Routes to Persuasion

Last semester, I took a communications class (comm 118) and it was eye opening and tons of fun. I highly suggest taking it for all these reasons and also because Mary Beth Oliver is one of the funniest professors I've ever had (sorry, Ben). Okay, that aside, let me illustrate the most fascinating cognitive explanation for how we interpret ad that I learned in this class.

So what do we know about this ad? "Uh, Beyonce? Oh yeah it's LOREAL too." The appeal to logos is almost non-existant...literally! The text only text that reasons with us is in white small text and only faintly readable if you squint really hard. This ad is a perfect example of something we would use peripheral route to evaluate this ad. We use very little effort to interpret this ad because we aren't evaluating any messages claims. LOREAL is hardly making a claim at all except to maybe infer that Beyonce's skin is flawless. We aren't making a decision about how great this product is, or if we are going to buy it. We are only mildly amused by the refreshing face of Beyonce. Ads utilizing a peripheral route of processing depend on classical conditioning to pair your amused reaction to the ad to your reaction to LOREAL when you see it in the store. This route is far less effective at selling something than the alternative route, the Central route.

The central route is essentially a high-involvement evaluation of messages or claims on an ad. Because it is high involvement, we are very sensitive to what is a good argument and a bad argument. So either ads using a load of logos are either extremely effective, or maybe they should've just stuck to the peripheral route. Here's an example:

All that text! All those messages! While this appeals to different time in history and doesn't really hit home with what we consider to be important (I didn't know that being married had any influence on whether you wear stockings or not, but hey), it still uses a strong logos appeal. By evaluating each of these messages, something much more time consuming than the slight smile at Beyonce's pretty face, we get a good idea if we want to buy this product. Using a central processing system will protect us most from deception and dissatisfaction.

But imagine if all we did was central processing. With spotting every single message, ad or claim we would be actively thinking about the effects it might have on us if we were to be susceptible to this message, ad or claim. It takes time to evaluate and it would probably cloud our brains with unimportant thoughts and feelings. This is why, despite the "cop out" processing system it may seem to be, peripheral processing is very important. It's our brain taking shortcuts so we can focus on the most important things in life.

And really, most peripheral persuasion ads are for things twenty dollars and under. No one is going to try and sell you a 20,000 car without using some kind of logos. So, why fight it? Why tear apart a peripheral persuasion ad? Save yourself the effort and prepare to be fascinated with your brain the next time you evaluate an ad.

Sketch..

How many of you were basically forced to fill out a survey in the beginning of whatever lecture hall class with questions like
"Are you competitive?"
"Are your goals in life oriented around success?"
"Do you want to make lots of money this summer?"
And then of course you have to write down your name and email and sooner or later some guys is calling you about some internship over the summer and you find yourself sitting at a table at the hub with other a couple other kids hearing about this AWESOME internship?

Okay, so maybe you haven't experienced all that, maybe you've only filled out the questionaire. In my case though, I went up to just about there. I didn't go any further.

Here's when you know it's sketch. They just throw some big numbers out at you like "this one guy made 15,000 dollars in one summer!" Or they just tell you what you'll get out of it at the end, "You're going to come out of our program with self discipline and tools for success!" In fact, they fill you up with all these numbers, principles and motivational messages about their program that you forget that you still don't know what the program is.

It took me a survey, a phone call, and half a meeting until I found out what I'd be doing. Pedaling from door to door.

They did such a good job selling this to me that I didn't even walk away because I thought it was sketchy, or that I didn't think it was a legitimate program. I walked away because motivational speakers with "how to be a winner" messages reminded me too much of the Dad from Little Miss Sunshine. I kinda came from the type of family that despite having a strong competitive streak still had the "in our house, everyone is a winner!" philosophy.

I called my Dad and told him what I had experienced. He looked it up on Wikipedia right away.
"Em, this is so sketchy. They make you buy all the materials wholesale and you're paid based on commission. They make it seem like you have little to no living expenses but that's far from the truth. So many universities have banned them from recruiting at their schools."

I had been duped. And the poor kid next to me who was all game for the "internship" had been too. I've been looking out for him on campus this week just so I can warn him! ROBBIE IF YOU'RE OUT THERE, GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN!

So how did they do this? Imagine if they had told me that I was going door to door to sell some educational materials before they had told me about all the principles the program is built on and the money I'd (maybe) be making. Imagine if they had called it pedaling instead of "professionally selling educational materials to families in their homes." Imagine if they gave me statistics for everyone in the internship program instead of the five or six success stories. I'd be out within the first 5 minutes. All the strategic word choice, formatting and even the person they chose was all orchestrated to suck me into an unethical program,

The point is-->here is the rhetoric we all thought was "bad" at the beginning of the year. This is the kind of trickery we fear, and why we accuse politicians of using rhetoric as if it's a bad thing. This is where rhetoric gets that sneaky connotation.

Go ahead and wiki Southwestern Company.

Bumpersticker Rhetoric

What are you saying  when you have a bumper sticker on your car? You're saying you have something that you believe in enough to share with all the other drivers on the road. You're constantly asking to be evaluated by them as well. I understand if you happen have a bumper sticker on your car maybe that's not what you think it means or what you intended it to mean. But I challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of the person who is driving behind you in their car and re-think the meaning of your bumper sticker. 

Let's say you see someone with a Penn State sticker (pretty typical around here). Your thought process might go like this "They must be an alumni, student, or staff member if they have a Penn State sticker on their car! They must really love Penn State as much as I do." Safe assumption right? You kinda start to like the car in front of you.

But what if it was an Ohio sticker...or a Michigan one? AND they forget to put on their blinker AND they kinda roll through a stop sign. "An Ohio fan totally would do that" you might say to yourself. You kinda start to hate the car in front of you. 

So what does yours say? Is it a more serious, political belief that you hold close to heart? Is it a funny one? Does it use lots of swear words? Does it insult a population within our community even in the slightest? 

Don't get me wrong, I have  nothing against bumper stickers. In fact, I have one myself. But when choosing your next bumper sticker consider how the person behind you will evaluate you and if that even matters to you.  Carefully select the  bumper sticker that you're okay with representing you and your beliefs. It can be tricky, but I think it's definitely worthwhile. 

Terry Tait: Office Linebacker

Okay. So we've all seen this and we've all laughed. But can you tell me which brand it's for?
So watch it now looking for any hint of Reebok. There's the symbols on his jersey, his necklace, and Reebok is embedded into the url at the end.

If I thought that the ad was actually trying to sell the brand I would say that the ad is not effective because the humor dominated it. But, I don't think that. I don't think they were trying to sell the brand directly through the ad.

They took advantage of the new age of technology. To see an ad, you don't have to wait for it to play in between programming segments on TV. You can plug it right into a search engine and watch as many times as you would like.

I remember when every one was showing each other this ad. My teachers were playing it in class, it was up on everyone's facebook stati, it was circulating via email threads.

They needed people to find them on the internet. They needed Reebok to pop up next to "office linebacker" in your google search results, hence the URL address at the end of the video. The message wasn't in the ad, the message is what you get later when you follow up on it. So, in this case, with this strategy, it's okay to use ridiculous amounts of humor. It has to be funny enough that you look for it again.  Reebok was definitely counting on this follow up for success.

A unique strategy. Props to Reebok.