#105 - How Pratt Institute is Helping Change the Narrative on Creative Education
Featuring Jolene Travis from Pratt Institute
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SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Jolene Travis, Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing at Pratt Institute. In this episode, Jolene shares how Pratt built a comprehensive campaign to combat negative headlines about creative arts education and shift public perception.
Jolene discusses the "Power of a Creative Education" framework that emerged from a single question from her president: "What are we going to do about these headlines?" She walks through the internal process of building messaging that all stakeholders could see themselves in, the importance of listening to faculty pushback, and how strategic media relations generated nine top-tier placements including The New York Times, NBC Nightly News, and WNYC—all amplifying a counter-narrative that painting and drawing programs have waiting lists while critics claim art school is dead.
Key Takeaways:
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is critical for higher ed—95% of AI citations come from earned media, not your website.
A creative education teaches critical questioning and problem-solving, not just technical skills—it prepares graduates to pivot across industries.
Internal alignment on messaging is non-negotiable—if faculty and staff don't see themselves in your framework, it won't work externally.
Success in creative fields isn't always a Google salary—art residencies, grants, and having a "bar gig that supports your creative work" are valid markers of success.
The most compelling messages often come from proximity to leadership—Jolene captured "there's a waiting list for painting and drawing" from staffing her president at an event.
A single data point (applications up in fine arts) became the foundation for 9 major media placements when paired with proper media prep and relationship building.
Partner with peer institutions rather than compete—a chorus is stronger than a single voice when shifting narratives.
NBC produced a full campus segment without ever visiting campus because Pratt had organized B-roll in their digital asset management system.
Zoom waiting room videos are an overlooked touchpoint—Pratt's 30-second video plays in 60,000 meetings in the last 6 months, creating brand impressions before conversations even start.
Start your campaign by listening, not by pushing out your message—understand what the other side is saying first.
Holiday breaks are ideal times to think through big strategic challenges.
Connect With Jolene:
Resources Mentioned:
Pratt Institute website
Bynder (Digital Asset Management system)
Muck Rack GEO report
The New York Times: "Pratt School of Art applications up" coverage
WNYC/Gothamist: Trend piece on NYC art school applications
NBC Nightly News segment on AI and creativity
Blog post on Zoom waiting room videos: https://unveild.tv/blog
Connect With John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
Website: https://unveild.tv
Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
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(Done with AI so only about 95% accurate)
00;00;00;17 - 00;00;19;29
John Azoni
Folks, What do you do when the headlines keep saying that your industry is dying? But, you know, that's not the whole story and that's what Pratt Institute was dealing with when their president threw out a question during a one on one. What are we going to do about these headlines, these negative headlines facing our higher ed industry, especially the creative arts education?
00;00;20;09 - 00;00;43;29
John Azoni
So the articles that are questioning whether college is worth it, the pundits, you know, saying skip college, go to a trade school, and then the think pieces, you know, about replacing creative work. Will Pratt Being a creative institution was right in the middle of all that negative press. And that's the question that my guest, Jolene Travis, had on her mind and set out to address with storytelling.
00;00;43;29 - 00;01;18;22
John Azoni
So Jolene is the assistant vice president for communications and marketing at Pratt Institute. She's going to walk us through this campaign that generated nine major media placements, including The New York Times, NBC Nightly News, WNYC, all telling a different story about creative education. And we see how her efforts and the efforts of her colleagues at other creative institutions really started to make a dent in changing this narrative about a creative education and stay until the end, because we're going to get real tactical talk about two things I'm excited about because I love tactical stuff.
00;01;18;22 - 00;01;44;07
John Azoni
One, how a B roll library allowed Jolene's team to capitalize on this opportunity that she'll talk about to be featured by NBC. And number two, Zoom waiting room videos, how Jolene worked to get by in across campus to host a beautiful brand video in their zoom waiting room that has played in the nearly 60,000 Zoom meetings that have been conducted since July of 2025 when they launched this.
00;01;44;22 - 00;01;51;17
John Azoni
All right. Here's my conversation with Jolene Travis. All right, Jolene, welcome to the show.
00;01;52;04 - 00;01;54;12
Jolene Travis
I'm excited to be here, John. Big fan.
00;01;55;03 - 00;02;12;21
John Azoni
So super glad to have you on. You and I have been talking for a little bit about Zoom waiting room videos. We'll get to that a little later. That's not what this episode is primarily about, but that's how I came to know about you. And so I'm excited to touch on that. But let's start off with what's something that you've been like really nerding out about lately, really into.
00;02;13;08 - 00;02;40;14
Jolene Travis
I would have to say, geo generative engine optimization. And for those who aren't familiar with that, go make sure that your content shows up in AI powered answers and you'll see that little blurb at the top at Google search. And so people are reading that description and possibly am most likely not going to your website. So it's really important that we learn how to shape it.
00;02;41;01 - 00;03;08;14
Jolene Travis
And something that I learned along the way was this report released by muckraker Nathan Ellsberg. I follow him on LinkedIn and I learned that 95% of citations come from earned media and their searches. So for PR people who are constantly trying to validate and show value, that's a way we can help shape public perception is through earned media and getting good stories placed.
00;03;08;26 - 00;03;33;06
Jolene Travis
So that's something that I'm super interested in and especially as we're trying to measure impact of a campaign that will talk about the power of creative education. It's been really interesting because we started out, as most comms plans do, with their KPIs, but those KPIs were from, you know, I about a year ago. So much has changed in the year go and now it's HBO, it's everywhere.
00;03;33;07 - 00;03;34;05
Jolene Travis
So we have to keep up.
00;03;34;24 - 00;03;51;00
John Azoni
Yeah, I'm real big on that lately too. And once in a while I'll like test my chatbot to see what it knows about me or like, what knows about, like, my company. And I'm always kind of like, Oh, I didn't get that one. I feel like that was an easy one. I should create some content around that, you know?
00;03;51;00 - 00;04;08;25
John Azoni
So it's always and it's always changing too, because it's just the way the sources that they're pulling from is always changing. So it's kind of a moving target. But I feel like so much of the advice about like SEO Geo, all of that stuff always comes back to just create good content and put it where people can see it.
00;04;09;06 - 00;04;33;04
John Azoni
And it seems to be that all these algorithms are still constant orienting around good authoritative content, you know, that's relevant to the search results. So I find comfort in that where it's just like, okay, on some level, if we're just creating good content and we're trying to be helpful, that might take care of 70% of it with the.
00;04;33;08 - 00;04;58;00
Jolene Travis
Think that's true. I think that's true. And it's also putting yourself in the mindset of your user, right? And like, what are the questions that we're going to ask and looking for higher education. Oh, what is the cost? What is the ROI on this particular degree? And just thinking about it from that perspective and it's kind of like a reverse situation where we're kind of looking at the queries and then the answers in the content that we need to provide.
00;04;58;00 - 00;04;59;06
Jolene Travis
It all works together.
00;05;00;09 - 00;05;18;26
John Azoni
So tell us about Pratt Institute. So Pratt has five schools, art, architecture, design, liberal arts and sciences and information. I think a lot of people, you know, even in higher ed, they they hear Pratt and they think art school I know that's not the case. You guys have a broader sort of definition of what a creative education looks like.
00;05;19;10 - 00;05;23;17
John Azoni
Why does that definition matter, That separation that Pratt isn't just an art school?
00;05;24;08 - 00;05;50;27
Jolene Travis
Yeah, yeah, that's really important to think about because, you know, when I get back, if I can just do a go back in the Wayback Machine, you know, Pratt was founded in 1887 with this bold vision where the founder wanted to prepare all students with creative and technical knowledge and abilities so that they could pivot in a rapidly changing world.
00;05;50;27 - 00;06;23;15
Jolene Travis
And that, mind you, this was timed with the Industrial Revolution. And think about what we're going through now with AI and even before that, the Internet. We've always been having to, you know, keep pace with all of these changes and think creatively around developing solutions. And so fast forward today, you know, practice in Brooklyn as well as in Manhattan on 14th Street for those, you know, we're familiar with New York or close to Eagan Square and we're educating probably around 5000 students across 50 programs.
00;06;24;04 - 00;06;58;13
Jolene Travis
So when people say that, you know, all Pratt's an art school, well, then you've left off the other five schools. We have writers, we have, you know, user experience, architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, fashion design, So broad 50 program. So just by saying art, you've already limited what who we are and what our brand is. And I realize that even more so internally, you know, after a couple of years and into my tenure at Pratt, I started asking people, you know, what is Pratt?
00;06;58;13 - 00;07;23;02
Jolene Travis
And I just heard constantly different explanations. But art school one, art design school where art design and architecture school, everybody from across institutions. So what I found to be really helpful was to create an institutional boiler plate. And while that seems really basic, we really didn't have one where everybody saw themselves in it because it's not going to work, right?
00;07;23;02 - 00;07;56;04
Jolene Travis
If there are people that don't relate to or see their see themselves in it. So a big part of how I operate in my team is that we always work across campus and we bring in the content experts, right? The academic side, everyone really needs to support this boiler plate and make sure that it represents us. And so that was a really big coup and trying to create this identity of what Pratt is and that we educate creative professionals.
00;07;56;11 - 00;07;59;01
Jolene Travis
And by saying that you cast a wide net.
00;07;59;17 - 00;08;06;23
John Azoni
And so what is a creative education? Prepare someone to do in the world that's more than a traditional academic path would do.
00;08;07;10 - 00;08;35;04
Jolene Travis
From the onset. A creative education teaches you that it's not about having the answer. It's about asking critical questions. And when you're doing that, we're taking it from a place of questioning and exploring. That's the moment where you are turning a problem upside down, turning it on its head, inside out, and really doing that deep dive. And I think that's really unique.
00;08;35;04 - 00;09;06;06
Jolene Travis
And you see examples of that at research One universities, people are doing dedicated research and there are typically not always, but typically staying in their discipline. We're on a creative campus. It's very fluid with a multidisciplinary transdisciplinary, it's very fluid. And we have an example of an innovation called Aquis study, and it is essentially a seaweed based hydrogel that can be customized to different plants.
00;09;06;18 - 00;09;33;26
Jolene Travis
And it captures excess water so that it can be released during drought. Imagine what that can do for the agricultural business. And the reason why this is particularly significant is because this happened when a chemist, Democrat and that designer came together, worked together and created this this innovation and farming essentially. So that I think is something that is a unique representation of a creative education.
00;09;34;12 - 00;10;01;04
Jolene Travis
And lastly, I would say, and this is probably like the biggest one, the ability to pivot, you know, there are many who come in studying architecture who may transition that skillset, that creative approach and problem solving to fashion, or you may have an MFA in jewelry and you use that to transition to furniture making. It's really it just opens up a lot of doors and flexibility.
00;10;01;04 - 00;10;09;27
Jolene Travis
And I think that is really what's going to be the future of higher ed is being preparing graduates to pivot and to adapt.
00;10;10;12 - 00;10;38;10
John Azoni
Yeah, I went to college for creative Studies in Detroit and I was a traditional fine arts major, abstract painter, portrait painter, that whole thing. But CSS is like the main thing that CSS does is industrial design. And so obviously you know, we have the big three automakers here. So a lot of automotive design. So many of my friends were always just up late in their apartments, like drawing like Scott, learning how to sketch a car like perfectly.
00;10;38;10 - 00;11;00;02
John Azoni
And it was always cool to watch because like my picture of art school growing up was like, you go to the school and you go like explorer things and you make things and you make things with your hands. And now that is what a lot of what happens. But there was so much design focus that I learned through my friends at art school, and we have product designers that came out of that school that are designing for Nike.
00;11;00;02 - 00;11;30;02
John Azoni
And sometimes I'll see these shoes pop up and it's like designed by so-and-so. I'm like, I know that guy. Like, you know, it's just like it's really interesting. The span of a creative education is pretty vast. I remember ten or 15 years ago we had one student that I went to school with and she developed a a jacket for people who are experiencing homelessness and the jacket converts into a sleeping bag at night and then can convert back to a jacket.
00;11;30;02 - 00;11;47;17
John Azoni
And she went like viral with this thing. And it was just a great example of like art school, not just making things to show in museums, but like solving real world problems. Yeah, I totally agree with you and I love that you guys are pushing that narrative beyond just what a traditional view of an art school is.
00;11;48;05 - 00;12;06;19
Jolene Travis
Yeah, yeah, that's right. But I agree with you. I think even just like the automobile itself, how many designers are needed? The interiors? A lot of press designers are at GM in the 1950s, women opening up the doors for women to enter into the auto industry through that door. It's really it's very exciting.
00;12;07;07 - 00;12;28;03
John Azoni
Yeah. So set the scene for us, because I know that, you know, I. I have very fond memories of my creative education, and I'm sure you're very procreative education, but not everybody is, you know, or, you know, not everyone sees the ROI in it. And so set the scene for us, like what's been the conversation around the value of a creative arts degree?
00;12;28;17 - 00;12;36;29
John Azoni
You know, you started to eventually build a campaign to address that. But going back, what were people actually saying? Where is that narrative coming from?
00;12;37;16 - 00;13;06;26
Jolene Travis
Yeah, it's, I think, higher ed writ large, this kind of push in the sense of, you know, from politicians to pundits to media coverage. And, you know, we've just seen a lot of questioning the value of a college degree, portraying it as exorbitant and investment and questionable outcomes. Terms like elite and out of touch, we're seeing a lot of you know, it's just it's been out there in the ether for a while now go to trade school A is going to replace us.
00;13;07;19 - 00;13;27;23
John Azoni
Yeah and that's and I see articles on LinkedIn to that that come up about, you know, the value of a liberal arts education, declining creative arts education. So it can be discouraging And then you know your your president you know asks what you know what are we going to do about all these negative headlines? So you came back with this power of a creative education framework.
00;13;27;23 - 00;13;30;06
John Azoni
So tell me about that. Where did it come from? How did it develop?
00;13;30;23 - 00;13;59;08
Jolene Travis
Yeah, you know, this really crystallized for me the headwinds that Higher Ed is facing during my one on one with our president, Francis BURNETT. And she likes to throw out these rhetorical questions. And this one really stuck with me when she said, what are we going to do about these headlines? And that was December 20, 24. And, you know, we were just heading out for the holiday break and really impacted me, really thought about it for a lot over the break.
00;13;59;19 - 00;14;24;26
Jolene Travis
She's like, could we change public perception? We really, you know, make an impact and provide an alternative narrative. I wasn't sure we could do it, but I definitely hit the ground running in January and brought together my senior team and we talked it through what we needed to do and we deep dive and we worked across our marketing team.
00;14;25;11 - 00;14;47;16
Jolene Travis
And, you know, part of this is not pushing out what our message is. It's learning what the other side is. I don't know with the other side, but the other perspectives are saying it's really important because that's going to inform your storytelling and messaging. And it is just critical that you have a clear strategy and you use that as your guiding star.
00;14;47;28 - 00;15;10;07
Jolene Travis
And that's what we did. We got to work. We started building this framework. We started thinking about how we can bring in others because as a place where creative education takes place, the administration, we all work from a place of collaboration. So we're bringing in other voices, other perspectives from the alumni team to admissions to all the deans and schools.
00;15;10;07 - 00;15;34;07
Jolene Travis
The Center for Professional and Career Development, bringing them all into this framework that we were building, because throughout the messaging, we all have to be telling the same story and it needs to come across from press outreach to public programing. How can this messaging be used to inform video and website and photography? We all have to be on board.
00;15;34;23 - 00;15;56;03
John Azoni
Yeah. So you built this framework. You had data 92% of graduates working in their field or a related one. They were working at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art, Google, you know, these names that people recognize. And then you went to the School of Art thinking, this is going to be an easy sell when you were trying to round everyone up around this framework.
00;15;56;03 - 00;15;57;19
John Azoni
So what happened in those conversations?
00;15;58;07 - 00;16;39;25
Jolene Travis
Yeah, you know, a lot of people that we were talking with, they were very much on board with the power of a creative education as we went. We know we didn't just, you know, shoot the that the framework over and ask for feedback. You know, we met with everyone. We talked, we really listened. And when we went in front of, for example, the school of Art and all the chairs when talking about the ROI, and we pointed to that page where the stat of the 92% was visible on the graduate outcomes and one of the chairs rightly pushed back on it and said, But we don't see ourselves in that.
00;16;40;04 - 00;17;06;22
Jolene Travis
And we see ourselves, you know, where an art residence or grant can be the equivalent of a first year salary and entry or salary or one another chance that we go back in my day having a good bargain that allowed you to do your creative work. That was continued success. So then it was really this question of who is defining success?
00;17;07;07 - 00;17;29;02
Jolene Travis
Is it a salary exam? Mark Success, That figure, that number? Is it the parents perspective that they define success society. So it really became a wider conversation that informed our storytelling and we're making additional web content that would use in our arsenal reflecting these different benchmarks of success.
00;17;29;28 - 00;17;56;09
John Azoni
That's really interesting because, yeah, I think we glamorize places like Google and, you know, museums or wherever else as the marker, you know, like people left creative education and went and started designing for GM, you know, or Chrysler or whatever. And that's all like super great. But yeah, when you're looking at a I guess you would call it like a fine artist, someone that's like in their studio, like making, making things just wants to do that.
00;17;56;20 - 00;18;20;27
John Azoni
You know, it's interesting to think about a bar gig or a residency or something being like, Yeah, you made it like you did the thing, you know, you landed somewhere and you're continuing to do to do your work. So it's not always like this 1 to 1 translation of like, is your salary now tied to some big brand, but more like, are you doing what you set out to do and have you been enabled to to do that?
00;18;21;08 - 00;18;47;08
Jolene Travis
Yeah, you're so right. I mean, even in my conversations with students, when you're, you're sharing, you know, such like, yeah, you could go into debt. All of these articles that you've been reading about, you know, in the Wall Street Journal, as my team was doing this deep dive and learning about what was being say, you know, about going back to trade school or even inside higher Ed did a piece about the growing public disgust with the ethos of private in elite universities.
00;18;47;08 - 00;19;07;14
Jolene Travis
I mean, there was so much there to why are they here and they're here. I read like they were explaining, because you only get one shot at this thing called life. Mm hmm. And let's make it worth it. Like, let's just follow our passion. So I think that's that's really something special. And, you know, who's to say what's success and what's not.
00;19;07;14 - 00;19;10;22
Jolene Travis
I think it's just done. We should all kind of take a look in the mirror.
00;19;11;22 - 00;19;32;09
John Azoni
Yeah. So you had the School of Art struggled to see themselves in that, and then you kind of had to go back to the drawing board, maybe a little bit to to kind of redefine that framework. So what was that like? And had you pushed out that original framework that a big group of your internal population struggled to see themselves in, what what could have happened?
00;19;32;27 - 00;19;58;15
Jolene Travis
Yeah, well, you know, that again, is when we meet with the academic side or, you know, when we're having more meeting with stakeholders, we walk in knowing that we don't have all the answers. And that's very important that they are the content experts, like we're the mom. Markham experts, right? We we know our trade there, but we need to really listen to the academic side.
00;19;58;15 - 00;20;22;13
Jolene Travis
And so we worked on some different we have different messaging, no different tiers. But the most compelling message really came from having, you know, that I have close proximity to the president. I hear the important, you know, the language that she uses, how she uses the context. And the message that I heard wasn't even a message at the time.
00;20;22;13 - 00;20;44;28
Jolene Travis
She was just in conversation resulted in nine, nine top tier placements. And I'll give you a little bit of that back story. I was staffing her at an event with the Center for an Urban Feature, which is a think tank very influential in New York City. They they influence a lot of policy like she was talking with the executive director, Jonathan Bowles.
00;20;44;28 - 00;21;26;21
Jolene Travis
And of course she was asking like how are things in New York City's higher ed landscape and President Francis BURNETT, without skipping a beat, acknowledge that. Yeah you know there's higher ed is under scrutiny you know and some you know these are challenging landscape for a lot of make now you know it's just like a lot of lot going on but without missing a beat she was able to pivot and talk about But you know for all the the hardships with with applications right now prep school of Art is actually up there is a waiting list for painting and drawing, drawing and painting and drawing reading List it in May 20, 25.
00;21;26;21 - 00;21;50;26
Jolene Travis
So with that, I was like, Oh, that, that's golden. What can I do with that nugget? So I went back and I just did all my fact checking. You know, I went to academic research, got the data, went to admissions, coordinated on the messaging, and then The New York Times, they were doing a piece on the state of New York City and creatives in light of affordability.
00;21;51;08 - 00;22;24;28
Jolene Travis
And so with this, I went to this media request to our chair of Fine Arts, Jane Zell, who is so media savvy, so wonderful to work with. And we did, as we always do with all media opportunities. We we media prep, we hit the ground running and we tested the messaging. We tested how this would possibly land and she said that, you know, for all of the hand-wringing that's going on in New York City, the art community is thriving because we share resources.
00;22;24;28 - 00;22;57;24
Jolene Travis
We're there for one another. And in the fine arts program at Pratt, quote, applications are up. The New York Times included that in their messaging in the piece. So then I knew we had something. So then I pitched it to our local NPR station WNYC, the Gothamist, and worked with the fabulous Hannah Frishberg. She is such a thorough, comprehensive reporter, and she was able to confirm what I suspected, too, that, you know, perhaps Gen Zers are feeling this way.
00;22;58;00 - 00;23;28;22
Jolene Travis
Probably the local schools are feeling it as well. And there are school of art programs and that was the case. There was a trend that Parsons Thank you will commit. Cooper Union I work with Kim f i t Beth and Kristin, SBA, Joyce, all of us. We have formed this really great community together because it's really important that, you know, a single voice is as loud as a chorus and we amplify each other.
00;23;28;22 - 00;23;53;28
Jolene Travis
And it's just been really great to see that this this piece on WNYC was a springboard for more media coverage. And from there, New York magazine, the art newspaper, another feature in The New York Times. It was really goes on and on. But the personal highlight for me was NBC, because that was a moment where the messaging really stuck.
00;23;53;28 - 00;24;14;14
Jolene Travis
You know, they were doing a piece. They they came to us a rather Gothamist piece because, you know, media drives more media. And they came in and they said, you know, how are press? How are they using air as a creative tool? And in the they did a feature, a segment dedicated solely on proud, which is so rare.
00;24;14;24 - 00;24;39;01
Jolene Travis
And Gary Schwartz opened on the on the NBC Nightly News and I'll quote him so you could hear the messaging yourself. He used, quote, What happens to human creativity in the age of A.I.? Well, art school enrollment goes up. I didn't see that one coming. But as it turns out, the future of art might be less about resisting.
00;24;39;06 - 00;24;50;01
Jolene Travis
I am more about reimagining how the digital and physical merge in this real world and cope. Was it that was proof solid?
00;24;51;12 - 00;25;14;06
John Azoni
Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, you would think, okay, young people are seeing the writing on the wall and they're going to assume that, you know, A.I. is going to take over, so why bother? You can type in, you know, you can type in make me a painting like Jackson Pollock or something like this into mid journey, and you have this beautiful, you know, and you could tell it anything you want.
00;25;14;18 - 00;25;46;23
John Azoni
And it's interesting that that applications are up in those drawing and painting. And I heard and I don't know who's who I heard this from, but like something about how as I increases, the demand for the human experience also increases. So like more human connection, more in-person, more more analog experiences are higher value. So just like when, you know, email became a thing, now all of a sudden this snail mail, if you get a handwritten letter in the mail, it's it's higher value.
00;25;47;03 - 00;25;52;18
John Azoni
So that's interesting. I don't know. I don't know if there's any correlation, but but I would I love to see that happening.
00;25;53;04 - 00;26;10;10
Jolene Travis
Yeah. I think Gen Z and their little tired of the digital right. Tired of the phone I mean you know ALS is a big trend right now is knitting and embroidery all of these hand and making that's people at the end of the day you know AI is not going to creatives. Creatives are still going to want to create.
00;26;10;10 - 00;26;33;00
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah. Because I was shopping for Valentine's Day for my daughters at five below. I don't know if you have five below in New York. It's like a glorified dollar store. They have a lot of cheap kiddy things there, but like there's have this whole art section. They had these like embroidery kits that you could buy and so you could like embroider like a suit, like a picture of like sushi or something, something like that.
00;26;33;09 - 00;26;57;11
John Azoni
And I just thought that was super cool. It's like you have drawing and painting and stuff, but I have seen this trend popping up of like embroidery. My ten year old's really into watching this YouTuber that makes rugs. So tough thing. I know nothing about it, but she's like checking all the time on this one's local studio here in Detroit that used to have a tough in class that like put it on hiatus for a little while and she's like checking all the time.
00;26;57;11 - 00;27;19;29
John Azoni
When is this coming back? I want to take this class, learn how to make rugs. So it's interesting. It's interesting that that's coming around them. So talk about, you know, this idea that like everyone has to be in like internally, you know, on the messaging in order for this to work externally, like talk a little bit about that and what it took to kind of get everyone on the same page.
00;27;20;19 - 00;27;49;01
Jolene Travis
Because every good communications and marketing plan begins with listening, right? Doing that listening tour. And I just it's it's critical that you hear from all those different voices that help see themselves in the messaging so that when they're doing media placements, when they're writing their welcome back letters, when they're at conferences, that they're all supporting this one power of a creative education.
00;27;49;08 - 00;28;20;27
Jolene Travis
We have messaging that is helped, influenced by their voices that we we then send to everyone so that when they're communicate that they have a crib sheet, they don't have to use it. But if you can, this is great and this is part of our tracking, part of how we can use social listening to see how the narrative is changing and how we can use the messaging that faculty helped us draft to make sure that we're thinking about it from a recruitment angle or for a potential donor angle.
00;28;21;03 - 00;28;44;29
Jolene Travis
And, you know, I don't know, it'll take time, but we are starting to see that. John, This is this is starting to change. And as proof just this year and let me remind you, we're just on February 25th, just this year, there are two articles that have come out, one in January about in the Atlantic. The college backlash is a mirage.
00;28;45;20 - 00;29;16;26
Jolene Travis
Americans are more pessimistic than ever about the value of a degree, but enrollment keeps going up. So we're seeing that this is changing and even the inside higher ed they have because like two days ago they had the the national Campaign to Change America's Mind about higher ed. There's this project now that is seeking to improve public opinion about the benefits that higher ed brings to the lives of Americans, of all Americans.
00;29;16;26 - 00;29;37;16
Jolene Travis
So, I mean, this is this is starting to turn and it's really exciting. And I think we've been we've been doing this for about a year now. And with nine press placements in generating this buzz, we're starting to move the needle, not just us. Uniquely. I think I want to make sure you're not, you know, but collectively that we we can help shape the narrative.
00;29;38;00 - 00;29;56;16
John Azoni
Yeah, and I like that you include other you know earlier you were including other schools in that like, you know, you're all kind of like changing this narrative together. It's not so much this competition. It's not just about Pratt. It's really about I mean, you all have a vested interest in uplifting a creative the narrative about a creative education.
00;29;56;16 - 00;29;59;10
John Azoni
It sounds like you guys are doing a great job at collaborating with that.
00;29;59;26 - 00;30;26;03
Jolene Travis
And I really think that's so important. That's something I you know, in my career I started out and fashion PR working with European designers, designers concerned themselves as artists, and there was just, you know, I've been in the for profit in the nonprofit and their marketing and PR agencies, but working in higher ed, this is my second gig in Higher ed before I was at Cooper Union.
00;30;26;03 - 00;30;53;26
Jolene Travis
It's a really great collegial community that we can reach out and you can just call your peers, your counterparts, and ask them questions because typically if you're facing something in your Markham shop, somebody else is having the same experience. And I go outside of the the creative schools. You know, I have, you know, James at NYU and, you know, Ellen at Columbia University because we're all needing each other and we can all work together to lift lift each other up.
00;30;54;12 - 00;31;19;16
John Azoni
Absolutely. So I want to get tactical here. I want to talk about your your viral library, because with this NBC piece, you had this national crew. They wanted to produce a segment about your campus. They apparently never set foot on campus, but you were able to rise to this occasion because of this B roll library that you guys had and the you know, the way that it was organized into a digital asset management system.
00;31;19;16 - 00;31;21;05
John Azoni
And so so tell me about that.
00;31;21;22 - 00;31;56;18
Jolene Travis
So NBC called. No, they had seen all of the buzz that was happening and they wanted to do as I was talking a little while ago about how I was using as a we were using it as a tool for our creative work and we had to move quickly when this call came in. Right. And luckily, as I mentioned, we all came together in our communications and marketing team to think through the power of a crib, education, how we could use the messaging to inform photography, videography.
00;31;56;24 - 00;32;24;02
Jolene Travis
The website said, You know, how do we show ROI in a video? How do we show campus culture and our values in a video? And so that we were really great for the video team and they had lots of great images and footage of campus and our team. We've been working with Binder and they have really it was just been a great resource so that all teams have access.
00;32;24;02 - 00;32;59;26
Jolene Travis
So when the call came in, we were able to media, prep, faculty and students and provide footage and have this complete segment showing our beautiful campus, our students in the classroom and studios working. And then of course, the interviews were conducted through Zoom and it was such a win. It was it's a gorgeous segment. It's really it's a thrill to see it all came together, but it came together because from the onset we were working with each other in communications and marketing.
00;32;59;26 - 00;33;09;25
Jolene Travis
Everybody had the framework. Everybody waited. It shaped it, they questioned it, they pushed back on. This was a document that had all of us working in it together.
00;33;10;15 - 00;33;34;06
John Azoni
That's great. And that, I think, is so key. I think there's two things that I really try to impress on schools when it comes to video creation is number one, be be always collecting stories because the time to find stories is not when you need them. That's number one. And number two is like getting all the those assets organized and accessible by everybody.
00;33;34;06 - 00;33;55;12
John Azoni
And I was just doing video strategy workshop with a university just yesterday, and that was one of the things that they were struggling with, is this like content, as they say, was just dying, is just kind of like dying in these these silos. You know, the social media team will create something good, but that just lives on that one person's desktop, you know, that video or whatever.
00;33;55;19 - 00;34;19;04
John Azoni
And they didn't have any sort of central way for everyone else to access it. So so therefore, their different platforms were a little bit fragmented. Instagram was doing great, YouTube was falling behind it, just like there just wasn't that their shared assets. And then I get an email this morning in my newsletter I send out, like when someone signs up for my newsletter and they get a survey that's just like, If you could snap your fingers, what problem?
00;34;19;04 - 00;34;50;14
John Azoni
What's your biggest problem you would solve the one that came in this morning was from someone that said, For all of our legacy content and be your all to be consolidated and added to a searchable database. And it just seems like that that is a big problem. And there's not enough talk about dams, digital asset management systems. But when you do invest in that and you kind of like focus on organization and you can jump on these opportunities, especially from a comms and a PR perspective because as you did, you know, you want to make it easy for these people to talk about you.
00;34;50;26 - 00;35;08;19
John Azoni
You know, don't want to have to you know, if they have to like search stock sites, you know, for the B-roll to tell your story. That's hard. That's very tedious work, you know, But like, you know, giving them like, here's all of our stuff. Here you go. Boom, use it. So good for you guys for for being prepared in that way.
00;35;09;02 - 00;35;11;27
Jolene Travis
Yeah. It's really it's it's really important.
00;35;11;27 - 00;35;32;10
John Azoni
So I want to switch gears and talk about Zoom meetings. This is one of the other tactical things. I originally reached out to you because I was like, I want to talk about these zoom waiting room videos. I want to make a podcast episode about this. And you're like, All right, let's do it. So we got on our pre call and we were actually like, Now this episode actually needs to be about, you know, combating this narrative of a creative arts education.
00;35;32;12 - 00;35;54;12
John Azoni
We could talk about Zoom waiting Room videos, but this will just be one question, you know, in a broader conversation. So, you know, you guys have Zoom meetings all over campus and you guys implemented a video that will play as people are in the waiting room waiting to be let in. And so tell me that and talk about what opportunities that that creates for for Pratt now that that's implemented.
00;35;54;28 - 00;36;22;12
Jolene Travis
It's so interesting I I was doing a lot of reading and just kind of getting understanding a lay of the land and thinking about it through the admissions lens. And I learned that in some universities up to 70% of prospective students and parents don't go on campus because it's they don't do the tours there. They're just applying. And I just kind of thought, well, that's that's really interesting.
00;36;22;21 - 00;36;50;21
Jolene Travis
And then I went a little bit further and I talked to h.R. And majority of hiring interviews are first conducted over zoom. Okay, we've really got something here. We have the zoom waiting room. And how could we use this as an opportunity to show perhaps culture our values, the roi, right? Getting back to our however creative education's messaging.
00;36;51;03 - 00;37;14;13
Jolene Travis
And that's when we started working very closely with the film video team to prepare this footage that became our zoom waiting room. And it was a way to convey our brand and what we stand for. You know, people are coming to us. How do we bring campus to them? And so we stopped thinking of it as the online waiting room and started thinking of it as a brand room.
00;37;14;18 - 00;37;38;11
Jolene Travis
And I think it's a great opportunity for so many people to use. And when we as always, I start by going across campus and thinking about who we need to get the buy in for us to start socializing the Zoom rating room, because I don't maybe, you know, I'm not sure everyone would be on board, but sure enough, I talked to the admissions app that this would be helpful for the admissions counselors.
00;37;38;19 - 00;38;01;17
Jolene Travis
Would it be helpful for alumni to create nostalgia showing up campus and events? And and I started working that way. And my last conversation, I think, was with the technology department. I said, what do you guys you know, what do you think about this? And they said, Yeah, that's really easy to do to upload it to the Pratt Zoom institutional account, Let's do it.
00;38;01;17 - 00;38;25;12
Jolene Travis
So I had the buy in. It was it was socialized. And so we informed our community there by a letter that this is taking place and that there's an opt out option if you choose not to, you know, want to use the video may not be appropriate for everyone, but it certainly is a great tool for those external meetings for prospective donors.
00;38;25;12 - 00;38;49;25
Jolene Travis
I was thinking that might be helpful. But then I paused and I said, Well, the fundraisers will probably never be late to a meeting and leave the prospective donor waiting in the waiting room. But it was really but it really became this really effective tool and something that I'm very proud of because the footage from the Zoom Room then of course was used for the NBC opportunity.
00;38;49;25 - 00;38;52;17
Jolene Travis
That was all. Of course, it talked about in the dam.
00;38;53;06 - 00;39;14;19
John Azoni
That's awesome. So when someone shows up to a Zoom meeting with someone from Pratt, you know, they're led into this waiting room. They see this video and I think yours is like 30 seconds or something like that. And so there is some because you and I had sort of experimented with this in parallel with each other because I had a Zoom waiting room video for a long time as well.
00;39;14;28 - 00;39;33;27
John Azoni
And the one thing you get to figure out or, you know, listeners would need to figure out to implement this is like, how long do you want to keep someone waiting? Because, you know, the video starts right when they enter the waiting room, it starts automatically. So if it's a 32nd video and you want them to see the whole thing, you got to you got to wait 30 seconds.
00;39;33;27 - 00;39;56;22
John Azoni
So mine was like a minute. Like you had to have the sound on to like, hear the whole messaging and stuff like that. And I never had anyone, you know. So I was like a minute late to every meeting. I never had anyone say anything. And in fact, the only time anyone said anything was super positive, they were just like, I mean, I would get into these meetings with people and they'd have this amazed look on their face and be like, I've never seen that before.
00;39;57;01 - 00;40;26;09
John Azoni
Like, I didn't know you could do that, you know? And it's just like the brain's wired to respond to novelty, you know? And if you create, I think like people see something that they don't expect, you create a sort of imprint, I think, on their on their psyche of like, oh, wow, that was just this cool thing, you know, I saw from Pratt Institute because I, I still remember the first time I saw it was with I was in a meeting with the student bridge, their higher ed sort of third party, higher ed vendor.
00;40;26;19 - 00;40;50;04
John Azoni
I still remember the name of that brand and like where I saw it and what it looked like. It just like it's just stuck with me because I'm like, I'd never seen that before. That's really cool. I should try that. So yeah, I think it's a it's a really interesting distribution opportunity when. You think about the scale of meetings that that institutions have, and it's a really unknown touchpoint.
00;40;50;09 - 00;41;06;15
John Azoni
You know, when you think about we always think about how do we get people to sign up for a meeting, How can video be used to get people to sign up? But it's also like, well, when they are there, how are we using, you know, video to further engage them?
00;41;07;05 - 00;41;38;02
Jolene Travis
Yeah, you know, to your point, it's an icebreaker. People know and are familiar with your company or your university or organization. Before you've even started the meeting. You've already set the tone. What a great opportunity that is. And you know, since we launched this, which is July 2025, we've had nearly 60,000 Zoom meetings using that. And that's not bad for about 2500 active users.
00;41;38;02 - 00;41;59;08
Jolene Travis
So it's something that I really recommend and it's kind of looking at that your content library and media placement, you know, like how can you all in communications and marketing work together? And this is a way because it is so much visibility, right? When you're thinking about for media exposure to zoom waiting rooms, it's really it's exciting.
00;42;00;02 - 00;42;22;25
John Azoni
Yeah. So for listeners listening to this, I did a blog post about Zoom waiting or videos on our website, unveiled that TV, actually, if you want to see Jolene's videos, there's also an example from Saint Mary's College. They have a couple stories that they play in their zoom waiting room and go check that out and also see how to set it up, like how to access the back end of Zoom to to it up.
00;42;22;25 - 00;42;45;03
John Azoni
So if you go to our Unveil Dot TV and go to our blog, you can pursue that. But to wrap up here, Jolene for for Markham, you know director maybe there's a small team. What's the version of this work that that they can actually do? How would you boil this down to someone that's working with limited resources? There's one thing they they should steal from the playbook.
00;42;45;03 - 00;42;45;23
John Azoni
What would that be?
00;42;46;12 - 00;42;47;09
Jolene Travis
I give more than one.
00;42;47;20 - 00;42;49;05
John Azoni
Yeah, many of you. I'll be.
00;42;49;05 - 00;43;13;18
Jolene Travis
Quick. I'd say three things. I'll say quickly. The first is have your communications with a PR lens close to the president. That's where you're really going to get your inspiration, your language. I've worked with four presidents now, and it was always been like the biggest way in which I've kicked off my storytelling. It's really important to have that proximity.
00;43;13;29 - 00;43;38;17
Jolene Travis
The second part is just having a clear, sticky message, right? You need to have something that's going to resonate, something that's surprising a unexpected that is really important. And that just as we walked through this, looking at how higher Ed was represent and the zeitgeist, there was a lot of questioning about higher ed and trust, higher and affordability.
00;43;39;00 - 00;44;22;08
Jolene Travis
But what we're looking at is higher ed messaging as the storytellers, we really need to effectively tell a higher ed story across all platforms. And that starts with the messaging. And the last is partner, partner, partner. Talk to as many people get different ideas. You don't want everybody thinking the same thing. You need to really sharpen your storytelling skills by listening to different voices and also not just, yes, of course, the academic side really partnering with them, but also your personal professional network, making sure that you are partnering with other institutions of higher ed.
00;44;22;08 - 00;44;29;16
Jolene Travis
As I said before, the single voice is great, but of course is even stronger. So those are being that would be my playbook.
00;44;29;26 - 00;44;35;27
John Azoni
Awesome. Well, this has been super great. Jolene, where can people connect with you? And if they have questions or want to chat with you.
00;44;36;07 - 00;44;40;02
Jolene Travis
Wonderful. Please reach out to me. I'm on Jolene Travis on LinkedIn.
00;44;40;17 - 00;44;52;28
John Azoni
All right. You heard it here first. Jolene, super appreciate you coming on. Thanks for sharing all your wisdom. Congrats on the run of storytelling, you know, press and stuff that you've been able to capture and look forward to follow in Bret's work.
00;44;53;10 - 00;44;56;26
Jolene Travis
Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me, John. It's always a pleasure to hear you.
