School hiring freezes. Division budget cuts. Declining public trust. Throughout america, higher education is navigating one in all its most difficult durations in many years.
But, quietly, one thing else is occurring: Extra universities are including chief marketing officers, or CMOs, to their prime administration groups.
From flagship universities to small regional schools, public universities are more and more hiring high-level advertising executives to supervise branding, enrollment campaigns, and public communications.
Why is that this occurring now? And is it paying off?
As a marketing professor who researches management constructions, I just lately co-authored one of many first main research on CMOs in greater schooling, together with my colleagues Aisha Ghimire and Cong Feng. Within the paper, which is underneath evaluation on the European Journal of Marketing, we examined hundreds of knowledge factors from 167 public universities from 2010 to 2021. Our objective was to see whether or not having a chief advertising officer really affected efficiency.
Attracting extra college students, if no more donations
We discovered that having a chief advertising officer is linked to a big enhance in enrollment. On common, pupil enrollment rose by 1.6% extra at faculties that had chief advertising officers than at people who didn’t.
That won’t sound like a lot, however in a competitive environment the place many faculties are struggling to maintain their numbers, even small positive factors can imply hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in tuition income. On this context, CMOs seem to assist universities higher perceive potential college students, fine-tune recruitment messages, and coordinate outreach throughout a number of channels—from social media to focused promoting.
Nevertheless, with regards to endowment growth—the opposite massive monetary lever for universities—we discovered no total constructive impact. In actual fact, in some circumstances, having a CMO was linked to worse efficiency. For instance, universities whose chief advertising officers held MBAs noticed their endowments develop extra slowly, and even shrink, over time. The identical was true of universities that introduced in CMOs from outdoors the establishment.
This doesn’t imply these executives had been unhealthy at their jobs. As an alternative, it means that conventional company advertising expertise doesn’t at all times translate neatly into the relationship-building that fuels giving in greater schooling.
Messaging issues extra in a turbulent market
If greater schooling had been coasting alongside, the rise of CMOs would possibly seem to be a luxurious. However the timing tells a special story.
Since 2010, U.S. schools and universities have confronted declining enrollment, significantly amongst undergraduates. Public universities alone saw enrollment drop 4% in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these tendencies—enrollment has never fully recovered—and lots of states have slashed public funding for greater schooling. Including to the strain, consultants count on to see fewer exchange students learning at U.S. universities within the close to future.
On this atmosphere, the power to elucidate the worth of upper schooling—and a selected establishment—has by no means been extra vital. Schools and universities rent CMOs to do precisely that: outline and talk the mission, model, and distinctive advantages of the college to the general public.
Public universities, in contrast to elite personal establishments comparable to Harvard or Princeton, can’t rely solely on status to draw candidates and donors. They compete not solely with one another but in addition with personal schools, for-profit establishments, and on-line applications. For them, advertising is a matter of survival.
Inside the brand new greater ed advertising playbook
When most individuals consider college advertising, they think about shiny brochures or billboards throughout school soccer season. Whereas these nonetheless exist, a lot of the work is now highly targeted and data-driven.
A CMO would possibly oversee digital advert campaigns aimed toward particular college students, or lead market analysis to establish what potential college students need from a level. They might additionally deal with crisis communications, alumni messaging, and inner storytelling to spice up morale and cohesion.
At some universities, advertising groups function nearly like inner businesses, serving a number of schools, analysis facilities, and outreach applications. This degree of coordination may be particularly worthwhile in giant, decentralized establishments the place departments traditionally created their very own messaging in isolation.
The rise of CMOs in greater schooling is just not with out controversy. Critics argue that rising government groups—whereas college and different instructors face cuts—signals misplaced priorities. Some college fear that advertising language can oversimplify complicated educational missions or shift a faculty’s focus towards income era on the expense of scholarship.
The street forward: Matching leaders to missions
Our analysis underscores that CMOs are handiest in particular domains, comparable to enrollment development. They aren’t a one-size-fits-all answer for each problem a college faces. And sure hiring selections—comparable to prioritizing company expertise over deep institutional information—we imagine, could have unintended penalties for fundraising.
This implies universities must be clear about why they’re hiring chief advertising officers and the way they’ll combine them into management. With out alignment between the CMO’s experience and the establishment’s strategic objectives, the position dangers turning into symbolic slightly than significant.
The pattern towards hiring CMOs is prone to proceed, particularly amongst public universities competing for a shrinking pool of scholars and constrained state and federal funding. However our findings recommend that merely including a advertising government is just not sufficient. Success is dependent upon matching the suitable chief to the establishment’s wants and supporting them with assets, cross-campus cooperation, and a transparent mandate.
For some faculties, that will imply in search of CMOs with deep expertise in greater schooling development slightly than company branding. For others, it could contain constructing stronger bridges between advertising and enrollment administration, educational affairs, and fundraising efforts.
The rise of CMOs isn’t a silver bullet for greater schooling’s enrollment and funding challenges. But it surely’s an indication that universities are rethinking how they current themselves to the world. And in in the present day’s aggressive, skeptical atmosphere, that is perhaps probably the most vital strategic conversations they will have.
Prachi Gala is an affiliate professor of promoting at Kennesaw State University.
This text is republished from The Conversation underneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.
