Part II: Should a University Have to Pay the University to Market the University?

Overview

In the first part of this article, we examined the changing dynamics between universities and their athletic departments. We looked at how more and more, an institution’s identity is increasingly intertwined with its sports activity. We examined the pressure on colleges across the country to compete in the athletic space—both on the field and financially.

Today, universities are facing intense pressures to create more and more revenue to be able to simply keep pace with the offerings—and successes—of other schools. An analysis of the top revenue generating collegiate programs showed just how much athletic departments are coming to rely on non-ticket earnings. It is clear that there is not just pressure today on institutions to use sports as a way to better market and brand the university, but to increase the marketing presence of these programs through endorsements and licensing efforts.

In sum, the competition is fierce across the board among schools of all sizes—public and private alike—both on and off the field, and not just athletically, but from a marketing perspective as well. Those schools that can best market their athletic programs—and in particular, build branding revenue from their teams, their names, and their logos—will have a leg up in this hypercompetitive environment, both in and outside of the actual arena.

We’ve seen universities engage in new and innovative activities as they seek to increase their non-ticket revenues across their athletic endeavors. Of course, the two principal money-making sports—at least for larger institutions—are football and basketball. And as such, much of the money to be earned is through seeking tie-ins with companies that seek to identify with “winning” and prominent universities. Thus, there are countless opportunities for universities to have companies pay to be the "official" banks, car dealers, health care providers, pizza—really anything—for either a specific team or for their entire program! As mentioned in the first part of this article, the author’s institution—Southeastern Louisiana University—even has an official “burrito!”

Coach Saban's Always Present Bottle of Coca-Cola at His Press Conferences

Today, as witnessed by the success of the University of Alabama—both on the football field under Nick Saban and in the fundraising that has jumped since they were restored to football prominence with recent national titles —brands want to be associated with Alabama. This can be best seen in the omnipresent bottle of Coca-Cola that is always on the lectern when Coach Saban holds a press conference. In today’s world, that does not happen by accident! That Coke bottle is placed there as part of a broad tie-in between Coca-Cola and the University of Alabama and its athletic department.

And so, in this second part of the article, we will be examining the story of the University of Illinois, where the university's Gies College of Business made the decision to market itself much in the same way Coca-Cola made the decision to be in the frame every time the camera captures Coach Nick Saban holding court at press conference at the University of Alabama. In short, it is all about attention—and it just might work!

Product Placement 101

Product placement has become a huge, huge business today. In an age of distraction, when many consumers—some would say most—routinely skip through commercials on TV and marketers find it increasingly difficult to reach their target buyers through traditional forms of advertising expenditures, product placement—or more accurately embedded marketing (since you can market brands of products and services equally as effectively today) has become a primary way for companies to reach out to potential consumers.

Today, we routinely see shots in movies, television shows, and even the news where the items in the picture by no means got there by accident. In short, they were placed there in exchange for money! And when you turn on a TV show or cue-up a movie on Netflix, that drink, that computer, that car that you see is no accident. These embedded marketing sponsorship deals are a necessary reality of marketing in the present day.

Embedded Marketing in the Sports World

The world of sports is fast becoming one of the—if not the—primary avenue for companies and their advertising arms/agencies to engage in embedded marketing. Soccer—or football as it is known in the rest of the world beyond our borders—has long been a hotbed for such marketing, with teams reaping huge fees for team sponsorships—or simply outright just paying to have your company's logo be a patch on their player's uniforms. Of course, the hands-down, all-time master of such promotional marketing is NASCAR, where both its drivers and its vehicles are literally moving, speeding billboards for companies paying to sponsor them!

Now, the interview/press conference has become a focal point for embedded marketing to occur. Marketers know that when a coach or a star player comments on the game that just happened—or the game coming up, there is going to be intense interest and media coverage. And again, soccer (or football) again takes the lead. If you watched this year's World Cup action, before a player or coach was interviewed—even on the field immediately after the game—FIFA representatives made certain to have the plexiglass "wall of official sponsors" appear behind the person speaking with the reporter. Think Ronaldo might get just a few views, shares, and likes? Or how about José Mourinho and Manchester United?

Now the world of football—the American variety—is not far behind. However, we perhaps have a lower tolerance for "branding" to in our views of coaches and players. Recall the Nick Saban example presented earlier. Did you happen to catch what company paid to appear behind the famous coach and his almost as famous bottle of Coke? That was a little outfit called AT&T!

Not to be outdone of course is the National Football League. NFL coaches and players routinely appear at press conferences to field questions from reporters while standing in front of screens bearing not just their team name and logo, but that of companies who have surely payed a pretty penny to be in that media coverage that will be seen by tens of thousands of potential customers locally—and perhaps millions if the video goes national.

Advertisers like Gillette, Zudy, and, of course, Gatorade (sponsoring the bottle on his lectern), can only hope that New England Patriots coach Bill Belicheck might actually say something interesting enough (some would say simply "interesting") to make a clip go viral—and that does happen with coaches—and really improve the return on investment for their marketing dollars! If you guessed that Cadillac was not upset when then-New York Jets head coach Herm Edwards famously called-out a reporter and said, "Hello! You play to win the game!" well, you were right!

The Case of the University of Illinois and the Gies College of Business

And so it should come as really no surprise that the athletic department at the University of Illinois saw an opportunity to use embedded marketing as a way to increase the revenue for the football program. They had a corporate sponsor, Dynegy, for their press conference venue before this year. However, this energy provider was acquired in April 2018 by Irving, Texas-based Vistra Energy (See: Vistra Energy Completes Merger with Dynegy), and so the athletic department had to find a new organization to sponsor its sports press conferences.

As it turned out, that new sponsor was within walking distance. In fact, it was not just on the campus there in Champaign, as the new sponsor was the University of Illinois' Gies College of Business! Now, the business school at Illinois was in the midst of a rebranding, thanks to a $150 million dollar gift that was so significant that the College of Business was renamed for the family. The 9 figure donation came from financier Larry Gies, an alumnus of the college of business, who is the founder, president and CEO of Chicago-based Madison Industries. The business school was to be named for the Gies family, as the donation came on behalf of both Larry Gies and his wife, Beth, also a University of Illinois graduate. While not coming without controversy (See: What's in a Name?), the Gies' donation was described as nothing less than a "monumental gift" by the college that would enable it to better serve its students and fulfill its mission for years to come (See: College of Business Receives $150 Million Naming Gift).

Since 2015, the business school at the University of Illinois has been led by Dean Jeffrey Brown. Now Dean Brown has a rather unique background for a b-school dean, as before he became an economist, he had been a brand manager at Procter and Gamble! Now P&G is perhaps the world's leading consumer products company, and as such, Brown knew just a bit about marketing and branding. And so, since he became the leader of the college, Dean Brown put an emphasis on better communicating who the College of Business was and what they did. In fact, Brown was ready to put resources behind these efforts, as he doubled the size of the business school's communication staff and began wider marketing of the college in everything from traditional media (such as print and billboards) to emerging media (including digital boards and social media) (See: UI business school gets behind Lovie).

However, Dean Brown's decision to spend $25,000 to become the official sponsor of the University of Illinois's press conferences is inarguably his most consequential marketing decision to date. Higher education in Illinois has faced an especially troublesome fiscal situation in recent years, so every expenditure needs to be very well thought out (See: Illinois' higher education leaders at odds over proposed budget). The rebranding of the college—with a new name and a new identity—was a marketing opportunity that really only comes around once for most schools. This is, of unless, of course, the person the school is named after suffers a fall from grace. And this has happened, as with West Texas A&M University, where the former T. Boone Pickens College of Business was renamed in 2017 as the Paul and Virginia Engler College of Business in light of the checkered "history" of the original billionaire for which it was named (See: Ag legend Paul Engler makes WT history with biggest gift). For Illinois however, taking on the Gies name gave the college a chance to enhance not just the school and its reputation, but to bolster its branding—and ultimately, its ability to compete for students and for donations (which translates into money!).

Dean Brown observed that:

“It’s long been a criticism that the university doesn’t tell its story well. We allow ourselves to be out-marketed and out-competed by our peers. (Now), we’re putting some money behind it to go out and tell our story.”

---------- Dean Jeffrey Brown

And so now, anytime Coach Lovie Smith or any of his players or assistant coaches is seen in the press room, the name and logo of the Gies College of Business is in the picture. And the impact goes beyond football—as the same background appears for all sports-related press conferences held by the University of Illinois.

Analysis

What does all of this mean? Well, the case of the Gies College of Business actually having to pay the University of Illinois athletic department to promote a program at its own university is a sign of just how big—and truly powerful—college sports have become. It is also a stark reminder of a paradox. A great chasm still exists today between the institution as a whole and the athletic arm of the university. For as much as universities rely on their athletics to build their brands in the "ESPN World" than we live in and rely on sports success to help build name recognition—and ultimately—bring paying customers (i.e. students) to the institution, the "student-athlete" is not just the missing link, but the all-too-often totally forgotten one.

Today however, the fates of the college and its athletics are today bonded more than ever, as success on the field—and in both traditional and more importantly social media, translates to the bottom-line for the entire university. And never doubt, despite being a non-profit, universities—like all nonprofits, have to generate enough revenue—either through real revenue generating activities or through donations made by its stakeholders—in order to survive over the long-term.

American higher education is in nothing less than a hypercompetitive market today. This is because the whole environment in which universities operate is fast-changing. Today's landscape is indeed not just highly competitive for colleges and universities, it is almost unfavorable. This is due to several factors, including: the demographics of a declining birthrate, the economics of the high cost of college across the board, and last, but certainly last, but not least, technology. This is because advancements across the tech landscape not only makes universities increasingly compete more with one another for attention—and ultimately, for students and dollars, but the pace of technological change calls into question the very value of a college degree in the minds of many. Mix all of this together and you have a very tricky strategic minefield for all institutions to navigate today. However, you also have a competitive environment that calls for the all-too-often cliched "out of the box thinking" on the part of college leaders.

As such, I, as a faculty ID card-carrying member of the "higher education industrial complex," know two things. First, university administrators generally are—by their nature and their training—not risk takers! While fresh, novel thinking is needed as a way to better position your university in the marketplace, that's not generally how they think—and how they have made decisions in the past to get them into the positions they are in today. Secondly, many university stakeholders—including us front-line faculty—may indeed lament where we are today in terms of the state of colleges and universities and the focus—many would say the overemphasis —that institutions, in general, place on athletics. However, the intertwining of the sports identity with the overall identity of the university is a ship that has indeed sailed. This simply is the reality of today.

And so, in the end, I must applaud the innovative thinking that Dean Jeffrey Brown and the leadership of the Gies College of Business employed here to get its name "out there." Should they have had to pay at all to promote their university's program through sponsoring the university's press conference venue? Maybe the prize spot in the background of their coaches and players should have been offered for free to the business school? Certainly, as one would hope, the Gies College might have at least have received a significant discount on their sponsorship? Now, iffffffff the college should have to actually pay to gain exposure for its programs in this way is a significant question—and as a faculty member, I am certain that this is a hot topic of debate in the offices, hallways, and Starbucks in Champaign, Illinois.

The details here however are less important than the results—and what it says about the need for better “marketing” and “branding” colleges and their programs today. This is because as a strategic management consultant and professor, I can say with almost dead-on certainty that the "product placement" of the Gies school name on that background in all those sports stories, social media clips, and even GIFs and memes will reach tens of thousands of prospective future Fighting Illini and university alumni. Moreover, millions of sports viewers around the world will see the Gies College of Business name and logo over Lovie Smith's shoulders at one time or another this football season. And yes, when Illinois players are being interviewed there and the coaches of other sports hold their press conferences there, the same message will go out to viewers both nearby and far from Champaign, Illinois. Like all marketing campaigns today, metrics will be available to the college and its leaders to assess the success of the campaign, and that assessment of expenditures to worth should dictate whether the Gies College should continue its athletic sponsorship or not.

However, at the end of the day, Dean Brown is to be applauded for taking an affirmativestep that is in sync with the times. Remember from Part 1 of this article that we focused on how Gary Vaynerchuk talked about the fact that at present—and for the foreseeable future—"the currency of business is attention." In that vein, the Dean’s strategic investment of $25,000 into the nexus of sports and university marketing may - may - help grow his program in both numbers and recognition. But one thing is for certain, by taking a unique and bold action, this higher education leader has likely better positioned Illinois' Gies College of Business in the media-based game that all of us have to compete in today. To put a twist on Dean Brown's comments on the strategy, this move is at least an attempt to better tell the college's story and to enable the University of Illinois business programs to better market and better compete with its peers.

Indeed, we may well see other universities and their programs seek to follow the Illinois model, which—on paper, on the Web, and on SportsCenter—appears to be a new way to better reach out to existing and potential university stakeholders and to better market the educational opportunities afforded by their particular offerings. Time will tell, but in this instance, I think for once, the administrator did good!

On a final note, we may actually be at the cusp of not just seeing a university spend dollars to promote its own programs through its sports programs, but athletic departments actively seek out ways to create revenue by drawing from the marketing budgets of other universities. Can you say cross-promotion? We may see universities actually see other universities’ sports programs as vehicles to promote their own degree offerings. While one can’t imagine one school that has its own MBA program having their coaches’ press conference background sponsored by a rival school’s—or even dare we say an online college’s—MBA program, one could easily see a university that does not house a medical and/or law school accepting—and eager to accept—the marketing dollars of a nearby school—even one in another state! It truly is a new day—and a brave new world—in both college marketing and collegiate athletics!

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