#16 - behind the scenes of purdue’s remarkable storytelling strategy w/ senior creative director, emily richwine
In this episode we’re talking to Emily Richwine, Senior Creative Director at Purdue University. Emily is one of the people responsible for Purdue’s brand success. She leads a team of super talented storytellers, which we talk about.. We talk about their recognition by Fast Company and what is in the dna of a brand like that, and we also talk about their recent viral ad campaign called “Whatever You Can Imagine”.
Links:
-Pricing for Video Storytelling Subscription: pricing.unveild.tv
-Download "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
-Whatever You Can Imagine commercial
-See open positions on Emily's team at Purdue: https://careers.purdue.edu/
Transcript:
00:00:00:18 - 00:00:24:20
Speaker 1
When your brand is recognized alongside major mainstream brands as a brand that matters by Fast Company major magazine. We're talking brands like Nike, McDonalds, Dawn, the Soap, Lowes, HubSpot, big mainstream brands. I feel like that's pretty cool, but if your brand is a college and happens to be the only college on the list two years in a row, I feel like that's even cooler.
00:00:24:21 - 00:00:47:22
Speaker 1
And if anyone has ever said in a meeting that marketing isn't rocket science, I'm here to tell you that maybe it kind of sort of is rocket science. If you consider the fact that Purdue was just a couple weeks ago named number 16 on a list of 50 of the world's most innovative companies right ahead of NASA. So slightly more innovative than the people that took us to the friggin moon.
00:00:48:13 - 00:00:58:04
Speaker 1
So in this episode, we're talking to Emily Richwine senior creative director and honorary marketing and storytelling rocket scientist at Purdue University. Stay tuned.
00:01:02:13 - 00:01:23:09
Speaker 1
Hey, welcome to the Higher Ed Storytelling University Podcast podcast dedicated to helping higher ed marketers tell better stories, create better content and roll more students. My name is John Azoni. I'm the founder at Unveild. We're video production company working specifically with college marketing teams on automating their video storytelling content through a subscription approach. You can learn more at unveild.tv.
00:01:23:10 - 00:01:42:04
Speaker 1
That's U-N-V-E-I-L-D. If you're listening to the podcast for the first time, we'd love for you to subscribe. And if you've been listening for a while now and haven't left a review, I'd love for you to do that. My guest today is Emily Richwine. Emily is the senior creative director at Purdue University and is one of the people responsible for Purdue's brand success.
00:01:42:08 - 00:02:03:21
Speaker 1
She leads a team of super talented storytellers, which we'll talk about. We'll talk about their recognition. My Fast Company, which I mentioned, and what is in the DNA of a brand like that. And finally, we talk about their recent viral ad campaign called Whatever You Can Imagine will take you behind the scenes of how that was made and the effect that it had on people.
00:02:03:21 - 00:02:06:17
Speaker 1
So let's do it. Emily Richwine, thanks for being here.
00:02:07:08 - 00:02:09:03
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me. So excited to talk to you.
00:02:10:02 - 00:02:13:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. So tell me tell me who you are and what you do.
00:02:14:05 - 00:02:24:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I'm the senior creative director at Purdue University. I lead our content storytelling team. So for us, that means copywriters, content writers and our video producing team.
00:02:25:10 - 00:02:31:04
Speaker 1
Cool. How did you get into that? Tell me about your background in in, you know, create directing and your career background.
00:02:31:11 - 00:02:58:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. So I grew up always loving stories. I grew up watching Adventures of Superman with my dad and wanted to be Lois Lane, wanted to be a journalist. So went to Purdue, my dad went to Purdue, sister went to Purdue. Long family tradition of going to Purdue and got a kind of a broad background in communications. Got my start at the Purdue Exponent, our student newspaper and then at the journal Courier which is the daily newspaper in what in Lafayette.
00:02:58:21 - 00:03:27:14
Speaker 2
So just across the river about a year after into my career, decided to follow kind of my dreams and kind of a boy to California. The boy became my husband. So that's a really good decision. We moved to Los Angeles together and I worked at one daily paper really quick, like for a brief time and then landed at Minority Business Entrepreneur, which is a national magazine for minority entrepreneurs, and then Fortune 500 companies and government agencies that want to do business with them.
00:03:27:23 - 00:03:45:08
Speaker 2
So I always tell people I was like kind of an in a mini MBA. I got to travel around the world and shadow and spend time with business owners all over the country. So had my daughter, Oh gosh, she's 16, so 15 years ago decide to move back to the Midwest.
00:03:45:14 - 00:03:46:08
Speaker 1
She driving yet?
00:03:47:04 - 00:03:49:15
Speaker 2
She gets her license next week.
00:03:49:23 - 00:03:50:19
Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh.
00:03:50:20 - 00:03:56:14
Speaker 2
It's terrifying. Great driver. But it's so like letting her leave. It's a little scary.
00:03:56:23 - 00:04:00:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, you're not the chauffeur anymore, so I guess that's good.
00:04:01:04 - 00:04:05:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Probably much easier for her to learn to drive here in Indiana and Los Angeles.
00:04:06:02 - 00:04:07:13
Speaker 1
Right? Oh, for sure. Yeah.
00:04:07:17 - 00:04:31:22
Speaker 2
Now, looking back, I was so lucky and landed at a little gem of a boutique agency, Britton Marketing in Fort Wayne. And they had a lot of national clients rooted in kind of design color retail. So I worked for a bunch of big brands, Sherwin-Williams clothes, Pyrex or Tums and fashion brands like Peter Miller and Vera Bradley did that for a while.
00:04:31:22 - 00:05:02:14
Speaker 2
Kind of worked my way up from social media specialist to writer to creative director, and then wanted to go in-house somewhere. So I went to Matilda's clothing, which is a clothing company for children and moms. Was there a short time as brand manager? So kind of got to learn a lot about strategy, really miss the creative side. So I went back into that IVR Bradley, which is also based in Indiana, Great Indiana, found a company and led Creative there for a few years before coming to Pretty cool.
00:05:03:02 - 00:05:06:14
Speaker 1
What does Vera Bradley make? But I mean, I know it's like fashion stuff but.
00:05:06:18 - 00:05:13:02
Speaker 2
It's yeah, it's handbags and travel bag So like the colorful like cotton.
00:05:13:06 - 00:05:13:18
Speaker 1
Wool kind of.
00:05:13:23 - 00:05:16:18
Speaker 2
Girl bags. You totally see them at the airport everywhere.
00:05:17:00 - 00:05:24:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, we have some in our house. I knew it was like beer or something, but I didn't want to say that. I didn't want I didn't want to risk it being like Vera Wang. And then I look stupid.
00:05:25:07 - 00:05:27:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. The other hero.
00:05:27:21 - 00:05:31:22
Speaker 1
Went. So it was your dad proud that you work at Purdue now?
00:05:32:08 - 00:05:40:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, He's super excited. I got phone AME last year and one of the spots that we worked on played on like the Jumbotron. It was. It was a moment. It was really good.
00:05:40:20 - 00:05:46:18
Speaker 1
That's awesome. So what do you feel like you got? What? What made you make the jump to Purdue?
00:05:47:08 - 00:06:09:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I was thinking about this the last couple days because I knew you were going to ask this question. And I think it was kind of like one of those COVID life changing things. So I was working in fashion selling handbags during a pandemic where people weren't going anywhere. So it was a hard sell and it just felt a little left and not as important, right?
00:06:09:17 - 00:06:32:16
Speaker 2
Like people are at home, they don't need a handbag. And I really wanted to do something that was a little more important to people that really made more of a difference in their life. And it was just one of those like serendipitous LinkedIn moments where I saw the job posted. I sent a really quick note to Ethan Brayton, who's our VP of marketing, and we connected and we talked and I was just really excited about what Purdue was doing.
00:06:32:21 - 00:06:34:18
Speaker 1
He's a big fan of yours. I noticed.
00:06:35:10 - 00:06:39:14
Speaker 2
Of him. He brings a lot of your target.
00:06:39:22 - 00:06:55:14
Speaker 1
I follow his posts. He's he's he's got good energy on LinkedIn. Yeah. Cool. So you came to Purdue. What do you feel like you brought I mean you got had a pretty broad range of you know ma com experience and branding experience. What do you feel like you you brought to the team?
00:06:55:20 - 00:07:14:00
Speaker 2
They were already telling amazing stories I think a little bit before COVID they kind of shifted as a brand to really be the university's key storytellers and focus on, you know, what were those key stories they wanted the world to know. But being a journalist, that's always been where my the common thread in my career, I've had lots of different opportunities.
00:07:14:18 - 00:07:31:06
Speaker 2
But I think the thing I've always done is look for those stories. So that's what I did when I got to Purdue. Look for those stories and then really creatively, how did we want to approach them? It didn't always have to be a written story posted to our content hub, which are great. We love those, but what else could it be?
00:07:31:08 - 00:07:42:22
Speaker 2
Could it be an image carousel? Could it be a video? Could it be a series of videos? Could it be a sort social thing? So I think just exploring the best way to tell the stories is kind of where we've been focusing in the last year and a half since I've been there.
00:07:43:15 - 00:07:46:02
Speaker 1
Tell me about some of the like the first projects that you worked on.
00:07:46:16 - 00:08:08:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the very first big project I worked on was when did something around our connection with the Indy 500. We've been part of the Indy 500 for over 100 years, so we really delve into kind of what that emotional aspect of that means to the people, not just boiler makers, that people would go to the race. Our band performs every year.
00:08:08:13 - 00:08:34:09
Speaker 2
We've got tons of engineers in the pits building the cars. So we came up with a storytelling strategy to tell all those different stories. We talked to some of the teams that were engineering the cars. We did a podcast with one of them. We did a big video series on our own little mini race, the Grand Prix, and then we did a big spot to play during the end of 500 and that was one of our my first big spots and we used a lot of really cool heritage footage.
00:08:35:01 - 00:08:52:13
Speaker 2
We partnered with Emerson Indy and they just opened up the archives for us and found so nice. Yeah, we had the really cool Amelia Earhart as the grand marshal who's one of our grabs or no one of our professors. So yeah, that was a great way to get my feet wet. And then after that, we kind of dove into what's the next story.
00:08:53:15 - 00:09:12:02
Speaker 2
Our brand is really rooted in this idea of everyday persistence, kind of what defines us as boilermakers. So our first series, we looked at what is persistence sound like? Like we had shared a lot of personal stories. How are we going to tell that in a new way? So we developed this whole video series around the sounds of persistence.
00:09:12:13 - 00:09:38:07
Speaker 2
So we launched it with our first home game. It was one of our national pieces, and we did with Aidan O'Connell, who has a great Boilermaker story. He was our quarterback this year. He got when he was in high school, got no offers to play on any college team, so he was a walk on, sat on the bench for quite a while and then came back, got an opportunity to play, worked really hard, and then ended up leading our season last year.
00:09:38:23 - 00:09:59:09
Speaker 2
So that was a great way to dive into that. And then we kept following it up. We had Raven Coleman, who a volleyball player, her dad, Roosevelt, was a player back in my day, Super Bowl champ, and that was kind of her story about paving her own way. And then we did Mason Gillis, one of our basketball stars who had similar story to Aiden's.
00:09:59:18 - 00:10:19:01
Speaker 2
He was injured and didn't play for 984 days, made his way back and definitely leading us and then we got students about. We went to academic stories, too. Like our persistence is definitely seen every day on the quarter by millions, but wanted to pull out those stories that are happening maybe behind the scenes, but are just as amazing.
00:10:19:01 - 00:10:34:09
Speaker 2
So we focus on some of our pretty space students who built a liquid rocket, which is just something students still do, something. Space X is playing with. So that was really fun. That was probably my favorite project to date, just working with our students side by side.
00:10:35:09 - 00:10:58:14
Speaker 1
Cool. It seems like you guys tell actual literal stories and I feel like in higher ed and kind of just in, in, in marketing and branding in general, the word storytelling is really popular. And what it what it means to a lot of people is just storytelling, I feel like is a trigger word for people who kind of look at marketing differently in a more like heartfelt or emotional way.
00:10:58:22 - 00:11:20:17
Speaker 1
And so a lot of times when they say they're a storyteller or they telling their school story, there might actually be very little actual storytelling going on. But, you know, they're focusing on something deeper. That's, you know, that's that's that they're trying to get at in their marketing rather than just, you know, features and benefits and just spewing information at people.
00:11:20:17 - 00:11:39:22
Speaker 1
But I really do appreciate, you know, marketing teams that actually have a real grasp on what an actual story is and where that fits into your to your marketing. So I guess it's a really broad question, is that do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Like what is storytelling like? How do you look at storytelling?
00:11:40:05 - 00:12:00:00
Speaker 2
Oh, absolutely. I, I think you hit it head on. We have a goal in our department. One of our big three goals is to enchant audiences. And I think when Ethan came out with his word into our audiences, there were some chuckles. We're such a serious school, right? We're engineers at Boilermakers and chant, That sounds like a Disney word or something.
00:12:00:05 - 00:12:02:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, but we've really embraced it.
00:12:02:04 - 00:12:03:02
Speaker 1
Taylor Swift Lyric.
00:12:03:03 - 00:12:29:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, we totally embrace this idea of finding the stories and telling them in the right way that is going to get people right. And it's not always here. Sometimes a lot of times it is. Sometimes it's like a hell yeah, yeah. Boilermakers boiler up moment, which is also just as great. So I think it is finding that finding the heart of the story, which is something that goes back to like those journalism days, like what's the lead of the story, right?
00:12:29:07 - 00:12:36:05
Speaker 2
Like, what are those first graphs, what that first 5 seconds look like on YouTube? Just finding that hook that's going to grab people.
00:12:36:16 - 00:12:51:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so you guys have a lot of, you know, star players and stuff like that. Do you do much? I don't know, like lay people first start doing like normal students at school. So like, where do you find those stories?
00:12:52:07 - 00:13:10:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, So we we just started another series. We talk a lot about small steps and giant leaps at Purdue Giant leaps, harkening back to Neil Armstrong, one of our graduates. First person on the moon, right? We love our Cradle astronauts. So we wanted to do a series that talked a little bit about the first part of that premise about small steps.
00:13:10:11 - 00:13:40:01
Speaker 2
So we did go out and we have been going out and finding students that are getting to do really cool things but have those giant dreams. So we've done students from space, we've done students in drone flying for national security. I'm doing one right now. I just met a student last week who is from Africa, and she's in our food science program and her School of AG, and she wants to study how to make food more shelf stable because that's something that she's seen as a real problem in her country and her giant.
00:13:40:01 - 00:14:00:03
Speaker 2
I asked her what our joint leap was and she said, it's it's to feed the world. And I just like I got goose bumps, right? Like, I was like, that's the line. That's going to be the the answer in the in the spot. So, yeah, we love to tell those real student stories. They're just as powerful because they're all rooted in that idea of that giant leap.
00:14:00:18 - 00:14:10:15
Speaker 1
And talk about like, what's the mediums that you guys go to? Like when you're in a meeting about the we're going to tell the story. Are you thinking about it in terms of text or are you thinking about it in terms of video?
00:14:11:03 - 00:14:31:09
Speaker 2
It's like, wow, that's a really good question. And something that we've worked on, especially since I've started, is this idea of discovery. So oftentimes, you know, you get that project brief, that creative brief, and it has like these are that deliverables arborists don't usually anymore. We've gotten to a point where, no, this is the story, this is it we want to target.
00:14:31:22 - 00:14:54:03
Speaker 2
This is the message that we want to hit. But creative team, you guys go, you investigate, you meet some of these people, you come back and tell us what you think the story is, which is amazing to have that creative part of the process. So a lot of times our writers or producers will go and talk to some of these people and be like, Yeah, we have to show this on video or This is going to be a great written story.
00:14:54:03 - 00:15:00:23
Speaker 2
There's all these archives we could show so we really have that freedom. So we're coming to the table with not all the answers.
00:15:01:07 - 00:15:12:09
Speaker 1
I love it. So tell me about speaking of that. Tell me about your team. Like, who else is on your team? And, you know, tell me about leading a creative team. What's that like for you?
00:15:12:15 - 00:15:33:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I am so lucky I get to lead two teams. One is our content writing team. They are super versatile. They're a team of six. We're looking to hire two more writers. So if anyone out there one so like at Purdue Careers, those two writing jobs out there, but they get to write everything. So that's another thing that's a little different I think at Purdue is they own the storytelling.
00:15:33:23 - 00:15:56:16
Speaker 2
So if they're writing a written piece, they're also writing the social media copy, They're also writing any paid media. There's a video component. They're helping storyboard it. They are the one sitting across from the person doing the interview most times. So I think that really creates that cohesive storytelling. The other side of my team is a talented team of video producers who also kind of do it all.
00:15:56:22 - 00:16:16:11
Speaker 2
They are in the process. We're super collaborative when we're in that, like storytelling planning process, and then they're super technical too, right? So they're going to kind of like listen and create that look and that feel that we want. And then they're masters of editing and music and sound and all of those things.
00:16:17:08 - 00:16:55:00
Speaker 1
That's awesome. And I think, you know, smaller schools might, might say, okay, well it's Purdue. They've got all these resources, a huge team like what other you know what small you know liberal arts school is going to have like content writers and multiple video producers and stuff. But I think what that what I'm hearing, like at the core of who you guys are, is even if you're just a one person social media team or something like that, it sounds like the drive to tell impactful stories and then the understanding that you have of the Purdue brand and like those words, like the giant leap in the small steps and like those those sort of like
00:16:55:00 - 00:17:16:13
Speaker 1
messaging pillars are really ingrained in what you do and you go find stories that are like that. And that's something that anybody can do with any amount of resources. And it doesn't you don't have to have a video production team or content writers. You can find those stories and shoot them on an iPhone or something like that. Yeah, or write about them in a blog post or something.
00:17:16:15 - 00:17:36:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. I think you need that North Star, right? You need that one thing that you measure everything against. When I was at Mattel today in our brand, DNA was keeping little girls little. That's kind of where I learned this. And everything we measure it against it, how the girls were shot, what they were wearing, how twirly we made the dresses like even in design.
00:17:36:00 - 00:17:48:08
Speaker 2
It all went back to that. And we do that at Purdue. How do we play off this idea of persistently pursuing the next giant leap, like showing that grit and then showing the small steps that it takes to get to those giant leaps?
00:17:49:04 - 00:17:52:22
Speaker 1
How long is the giant leap thing been in bed in play at Purdue?
00:17:53:04 - 00:18:14:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a great question. So that was part of a rebrand that was done right before COVID. I'm talking like months before. So when we talked earlier, you know, they did this big rebrand but quickly had to pivot like most universities to more of a Protect Purdue messaging. So what's really exciting now is we're in this place where we can really start to live and breathe our brand even more.
00:18:15:00 - 00:18:33:23
Speaker 1
Mm hmm. That's awesome. And then so you guys have been recognized by Fast Company for the second year in a row in the the the Brands that Matter campaign. So. So tell me about that. What's what's been that experience like? Have you guys gotten a lot of publicity from that Like tell me how that came about.
00:18:34:08 - 00:19:02:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, those sort of like huge wins for the team. I was in the interview process when we got the first recognition and I just that was like one more reason to join Purdue, right? Like they were recognized nationally for being a brand that matters. So the first time we were really recognized for the marketing team and getting 50,000 people to speak in one voice, if you have this great brand DNA that's North Star, how do you get all of your campus to speak this way and really be moving toward one key message?
00:19:02:22 - 00:19:27:02
Speaker 2
So that was really like that first recognition. The second one that was just a few months ago, really honored all the different paths that Purdue has to higher education and just this idea of accessible excellence. So making this incredible education accessible, whether it's through our high schools, Purdue Polytechnic High schools or Purdue Global, which is our new online university for working adults.
00:19:27:13 - 00:19:43:23
Speaker 2
So yeah, and I don't know if you saw, but yesterday that company added us to the most innovative list and want to get it wrong. I think we're 16. We're right above NASA. So that was a huge win and super exciting that the world is recognizing that we are this innovative place.
00:19:45:01 - 00:19:52:15
Speaker 1
Neil Armstrong probably had something to do with that. Yeah, like let's let's put these guys a little ahead of us.
00:19:52:22 - 00:19:56:19
Speaker 2
Right now, like train those astronauts and then they go to NASA's.
00:19:56:22 - 00:20:30:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that's and what I would I noticed in those announcements or whatever is that it's not a list of colleges that are on on this. It's a list of like literally Nike's and McDonald's my favorite restaurant and like all kind of like all these like normal like mainstream brands. And then Purdue is in there, which I think is super cool and super aspirational for other schools to see that like it's not just about the short term enrolling students.
00:20:30:19 - 00:20:50:22
Speaker 1
You know, it's it's really about creating a culture like really taking your brand seriously and having that be consistently across all of, you know, your messaging and your students embody that and your professors embody that. And so much so that it's noticed on a mainstream level.
00:20:51:12 - 00:21:09:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it's a great point. And I also think as higher ed marketers, definitely we can learn from each other, but we can also learn from those other big brands out there, right? Like we're constantly watching Nike and McDonald's and Disney and seeing what they're doing and getting inspired by the places they're playing in and the things they're doing.
00:21:10:09 - 00:21:28:04
Speaker 1
Quick break here and tell you more about our video storytelling subscriptions. Look, making even one video takes a lot of legwork, lots of steps to go through. You've got to herd all the cats. And then at the end of that, you get one video, but you don't want just one video. You want you want to fill your calendar with videos.
00:21:28:04 - 00:21:47:03
Speaker 1
You want to fill your YouTube page with videos that you can use in all kinds of different ways. But imagine a world where that's not a stressful process, where you get 132 videos across the year and pretty much all you had to do was find the stories to tell and pass it to someone else. US unveiled. Our aim is to take the friction out of telling great stories.
00:21:47:03 - 00:22:06:14
Speaker 1
Whether you're big school like Purdue and have more resources and internal video staff and stuff, or a small liberal arts college without a lot of that stuff, you can tell really compelling stories all year round and fill your content calendar with video content. So we're going to batch shoot a year's worth of content and then every month drip out to you
00:22:06:14 - 00:22:30:02
Speaker 1
One new student or alumni story could be a faculty story too, along with a whole package of additional video content. So you get the full story, which is usually 2 to 3 minutes. You get a 30 second cut down, a 15 second cut down, and then eight topical videos. So these are videos, you know, we work with your school to think of what are eight or ten questions that we can ask the student while we have them on camera that your school likes to promote.
00:22:30:02 - 00:22:59:06
Speaker 1
So it could be scholarships, could be career development opportunities on campus housing. We'll get them to talk about all that stuff and sell it for you. So all in all, you're going to get 11 videos a month, 132 videos per year. Not only that, but it's it doubles as an investment in a massive B-roll and interview content library because we're going to give you all the footage that we shoot all year long and you can use that in any other ways that you want forever at no extra charge.
00:22:59:09 - 00:23:17:23
Speaker 1
That's all part of your subscription. Head over to Pricing.unveild.tv and download our pricing guide, which has everything in it that you need to know. Okay, Back to my conversation with Emily Richwine. When you're in creative meetings, what are the things that are keeping you guys grounded content wise or like what you're creating content about?
00:23:18:10 - 00:23:38:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's definitely that. Definitely it's the everyday person. So we're always going back to that. We're also going to that idea of innovation and accessibility, always kind of reading ourselves in those ideas. First, when I'm leading my creative teams that we're brainstorming in a video or story, I'm always like, okay, what are what do we want people to take away?
00:23:38:07 - 00:23:52:14
Speaker 2
Like one of them is what do we want people to think about Purdue that they didn't think about before? What do we want to reinforce? And then the second part that we bring as creatives is like, what is the emotion we want them to feel? So we want them to feel inspired? Do we want them to feel proud?
00:23:52:14 - 00:24:11:00
Speaker 2
Do we want them to feel like they're going to go to our website and do something? You know? So it's really those two things. It's like, what is that strategic pillar that we're driving? And then what is that emotion? And I think if you do that and you have that in the back of your mind, you know, when you're reviewing creative work and it hit the mark or not, because it can be, you know, everyone has opinions on creative work.
00:24:11:00 - 00:24:14:13
Speaker 2
But if you go back to that, it's pretty easy to say, Yeah, we nailed it.
00:24:15:16 - 00:24:48:03
Speaker 1
That's great. And I love how much you talk about what you want the viewer to feel or the reader to feel. And I think a lot of marketing teams aren't doing enough of that. I think a lot of marketing teams are saying, We're investing in this campaign. And so we need to say we need to we need to use it as a platform to say all the things that we want people to know about our school rather than like in like, in like pitching to students almost rather than like, what do we want them to what's a dent that we want to make on their emotions that's going to make us memorable because because pitching
00:24:48:03 - 00:25:10:17
Speaker 1
to students like isn't memorable. You know, like, that's all information that might be good information. And if someone is and if someone is like, really ready, like they're maybe considering your school over another school, that's probably a great time for them to hear that kind of stuff. But for people that when you're when you're trying to like widen the funnel and attract people, it's really is like, what is the what is the emotion?
00:25:10:17 - 00:25:27:12
Speaker 1
You want to leave people with? And that might not lead to a direct sale. And I like a direct, you know, application. And I think that teams like have really struggle with that, especially especially small, smaller marketing teams with limited resources. They're like, this is our chance to say everything we want to say and we don't want to waste that.
00:25:27:12 - 00:25:33:21
Speaker 1
On telling a story of someone that I don't even know.
00:25:33:21 - 00:25:55:23
Speaker 2
That is they're saying, Oh, we don't have to think about, you know, where people are in that funnel. What do they know about Purdue and what's that thing you want to influence? And that was different for me coming from retail. You post a video, you post an ad, you expect them to buy, you know, that day or the next day you can really track it when someone looking at colleges says, and it's years, sometimes decades in the making.
00:25:56:07 - 00:26:03:07
Speaker 2
So there's a little bit of patience and a little bit of really understanding where people are and delivering that right message.
00:26:04:02 - 00:26:07:08
Speaker 1
So how are you guys measured like or what do you measure?
00:26:08:07 - 00:26:26:23
Speaker 2
I mean, it depends what the application is. We measure our engagement a lot in sentiment for video and stories. We really look at read time. You know, do we hook that person? Do they stay with us? I know we're going to talk about whatever you can imagine that one kind of hit. All the records blew out of the water.
00:26:26:23 - 00:26:39:04
Speaker 2
So I think that's when people are engaging. They're saying we also do brand live studies. You know, did we increase someone's attitudes behind Purdue with our piece of creative? And that's always a good marker.
00:26:40:00 - 00:26:41:00
Speaker 1
So that's like a survey.
00:26:41:20 - 00:26:43:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, a brand, let's say. Mm.
00:26:43:18 - 00:27:11:00
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. Awesome. Well, on that note, let's talk about whatever you can imagine. So for people who are listening, this is a like a two minute commercial at that is just super like emotional and I would say went viral. I think I feel like once you cross the million mark of yeah you've gone viral and this is 9919 million as of yesterday when I looked at it.
00:27:12:14 - 00:27:20:15
Speaker 1
So tell me about that. Why did that why why was that the ad to make and tell me about the process of making it?
00:27:21:03 - 00:27:49:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we start out like I'm sure a lot of higher ed schools do over the summer to make our new institutions spot that we were in use for essays, for games we would use online. What was that one like hero video spot that we would go back to over the course of the year? We have done lots of our TV spots, you know, reasons to believe top six whatever school we have those great our TVs, we love them.
00:27:49:14 - 00:27:54:06
Speaker 2
We love telling students and prospective parents about them. They're super important. What do.
00:27:54:06 - 00:27:55:17
Speaker 1
You say? Reasons to believe.
00:27:56:02 - 00:27:57:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, we call them reasons to believe.
00:27:58:02 - 00:28:01:04
Speaker 1
Okay. Is that like a certain kind of video or.
00:28:01:23 - 00:28:07:02
Speaker 2
It's just like different rankings that we have?
00:28:07:02 - 00:28:07:10
Speaker 1
Okay.
00:28:07:21 - 00:28:11:11
Speaker 2
So like top ten undergraduate engineering programs, something like that. Okay.
00:28:11:12 - 00:28:12:20
Speaker 1
Gotcha. Yeah. Okay.
00:28:13:00 - 00:28:33:04
Speaker 2
Well, a lot of institutional spots that we've done and other schools have done and been grounded in, you know, those kind of rankings and beautiful campus shots, smiling students, that kind of thing. So we love that. We definitely we have one. We use it. But for this we wanted to explore something different. Going back to that idea of emotion and story, where did we want to like, play and live and explore?
00:28:33:12 - 00:28:58:17
Speaker 2
So we worked with our creative partner Matt House out of Ohio and they came back with a few concepts and one of them is this idea to tell this story and that really told our portfolio brand story. So we have the high schools, we have the Purdue Global for working adults, like how could we tell this story? So we worked on a storyboard together of kind of a dad and a daughter talking about going to college, which is this universal moment.
00:28:58:17 - 00:29:17:12
Speaker 2
Right? And it's like full of everything we all of us higher ed marketers of this potential, a possibility like that's the great thing that we get to do. So we lived in that space. That was our insight, that drove our story. So as this dad and daughter, she's little. She's like eight years old and she's like, Dad, what am I going to do when I grow up?
00:29:17:17 - 00:29:38:12
Speaker 2
And they go through this series of things that she's that she gets to do, whether she's at the high school or she's at our main campus in West Lafayette, and she does things like rockets and she does she's with a horse. She's like a vet who now at one point she's dancing and she's cheering. She's playing in the barn like all these wonderful moments and dreams that are her possibilities.
00:29:38:21 - 00:30:03:10
Speaker 2
And it just like flashes through all of them and just ends in this beautiful way of like, she can do anything she wants, which again, is just the promise of Purdue. It's the promise of higher ed that this is this moment that changes your life. And I think it shows in the video kind of that anything she's doing an engineering project and you see her working in doesn't work and it doesn't work and it doesn't work and it doesn't work.
00:30:03:10 - 00:30:12:23
Speaker 2
And in the end it works. And she just goes, which is just this wonderful moment of, yeah, like if you're a boilermaker and you put in the work, you're going to do whatever you want. So we love that payoff.
00:30:13:09 - 00:30:15:16
Speaker 1
That's where isn't that where it ends, where she.
00:30:16:06 - 00:30:19:03
Speaker 2
Ends right there with that moment of like, epiphany.
00:30:19:23 - 00:30:39:14
Speaker 1
I thought that was great. I mean, like, the ending was just, like, perfect. You know? You really want. I always teach. When I teach about storytelling, it's like the hook is super important, but the end is super important. Like what? You leave people with, You know, we try. We always try to. It's hard with documentary storytelling because sometimes you don't.
00:30:39:14 - 00:30:57:19
Speaker 1
You can always predict, like we're not scripting it, you know, when we're telling someone's story. So sometimes it's like the ending. There just wasn't much left in the in the pot here, you know? But like when you can really plan it like that, I felt super smart to just end on that. You know, she finally got it kind of moment.
00:30:58:01 - 00:31:00:19
Speaker 1
So you guys, well, where did that play out?
00:31:01:16 - 00:31:26:20
Speaker 2
It played. It debuted on our first home football game back in August. So it was our PSA. We ran it during football season. We ran it a lot at sporting events and we ran it a lot on YouTube, as we saw 19 million views. And we partnered with our really great partners at YouTube and Google, and it was really about finding those right audiences.
00:31:27:03 - 00:31:47:19
Speaker 2
So the audience that we were targeting on YouTube was actually the unaffiliated audience that didn't know Purdue. So really showing them the spirit of Purdue was a great place to meet them, possibly for the very first time. And we talked a little bit about how we measure success, that one. I think what I'm most proud of is for our team is that video has like a 80% view rate.
00:31:47:19 - 00:32:06:06
Speaker 2
It's a two minute video. Like that's unheard of, right? I mean, we've had meetings where Google YouTube, like we're we're not sure why like they love this so much. Like we could see all the numbers over a year. But yeah, there was a meeting where we were kind of having this conversation, like, how why is this resonate so much?
00:32:06:06 - 00:32:22:17
Speaker 2
Why are people watching it? And I throw out I have this Blaise Pascal quote that I just it's like guides me as a creative director and it's this idea of the heart has its reasons that reasons we'll never know. And it's just this idea that, yeah, we can measure a lot, We can predict a lot, but there's that little heart part.
00:32:23:09 - 00:32:27:02
Speaker 2
Well, icing on the cake that draws people in and connects.
00:32:28:01 - 00:32:47:03
Speaker 1
That's awesome. I love that. How did you distribute that? One thing we talk about on this podcast, you know, a little bit is, is how you get content out to people. So as I assume from what you're saying, you guys said paid ads and stuff like that. Like what were some other ways that online you distributed that.
00:32:47:15 - 00:33:15:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we definitely shared it on all of our channels and we shared it and creative ways. We did lots of social organic posts, just kind of like behind the scenes, how it came together. We did lots of photography, so definitely got our fans involved. We definitely have their TV placements. We also ran it during some really big events on TV, so one of my favorites that we did was the Macy's This is Day Thanksgiving parade in the Midwest and a couple markets.
00:33:16:05 - 00:33:34:05
Speaker 2
So I believe we did Indianapolis and Chicago. That was really exciting. I mean, that's something as a little girl who grew up to be a marketer, I used to watch with my grandpa and like I was just as interested in the Christmas ads as the actual parade. So that was awesome to think about, you know, the young children watching that with their families.
00:33:34:11 - 00:33:44:04
Speaker 2
We also played it during the Big Ten championship and Citrus Bowl game, so got lots of eyes on it that way. In addition to YouTube targeted campaigns.
00:33:44:09 - 00:33:46:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Did they play the whole ad on TV or.
00:33:46:20 - 00:34:06:19
Speaker 2
We had a 92nd version for TV? Okay, that's the other thing we do a lot. We do a lot of versions, so a lot of our videos will have a two minute and 90 seconds, 6030 for some of our peak campaigns. We're doing fifteens and we just started doing like six second bumpers, which I was like, there's no way we could tell a story in 6 seconds.
00:34:06:19 - 00:34:12:07
Speaker 2
It's like my new favorite thing to tell a story in 6 seconds is this one creative challenge.
00:34:12:17 - 00:34:37:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, I worked with Baker College on some some ads for their nursing program, and we they were like in our pre-production meetings, they were like, we need a we need a 32nd or 15 second and a five second. And did you say 5 seconds? Like I was like, What are you going to use that for? And and then sure enough, you know, getting into the editing process, I'm like, this is really hard.
00:34:37:13 - 00:34:42:01
Speaker 1
This is, you know, you really just you just got to pick like one line out of the script and.
00:34:42:01 - 00:34:43:04
Speaker 2
Like, you've heard.
00:34:43:10 - 00:34:51:19
Speaker 1
One or two images, but they were actually they ended up being cool, like, you know, my favorite parts of the some of my favorite versions of the way.
00:34:52:07 - 00:34:57:02
Speaker 2
That's how I felt at the end. It felt impossible. But then when I saw and I was like, these are pretty cool.
00:34:57:14 - 00:35:02:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, cool. Where do you use those like, bumpers for like YouTube pre-roll types.
00:35:02:22 - 00:35:04:07
Speaker 2
And skippable Utopia.
00:35:05:00 - 00:35:29:19
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. And I would have thought that, you know, because you said you guys targeted people that weren't affiliated with Purdue because, you know, I would think that you target maybe the core your core ambassadors that are, you know, graduates or whatever, or people that are within that circle of of Purdue that will then share it out to that other layer that aren't, you know, affiliated with Purdue.
00:35:29:19 - 00:35:32:13
Speaker 1
But you guys went straight for the non affiliated what was that.
00:35:33:12 - 00:35:51:00
Speaker 2
Yeah so I used we used Google and YouTube for that because our core audience, they got to see it right when we played it on those big games in those big events and they're already following us. So they saw that there too and they did share it and loved it. And so good to see all the comments. So we kind of got the best of both worlds.
00:35:51:00 - 00:35:55:02
Speaker 2
We just really thought about the chain of and who was there and who we wanted to reach.
00:35:55:16 - 00:36:18:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay, cool. So take us behind the scenes about it to tell us about the production, because you told me in an earlier conversation that it was, you don't have to tell me the budget, but it was actually quite scrappy. Like, you know, it was a great example of like, you can create a really slick ad for, you know, like a small budget, have just a few people with cameras, you know, running around.
00:36:18:16 - 00:36:33:12
Speaker 1
You don't need a 20 person crew, contrary to what most of my colleagues in this industry would tell you. So tell me about like tell me how you guys pulled that together on a smaller budget.
00:36:33:18 - 00:37:01:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we worked in that house, which is a small agency, to kind of preplan pre-production. My team and their team worked hand in hand. We had just a team of three shooters, minimal equipment. We saw everything on campus. We did used to three actors, so our main character, Little Girl and Dad, were upcoming actors, but everyone else you see a student, I think that was one of the things that surprised me.
00:37:01:19 - 00:37:27:01
Speaker 2
Coming from fashion retail to higher ed is maybe it's just a pretty thing. I think it's probably throughout higher education, but everyone wants to help you, right? Like we would reach out to really cool, innovative places on campus and a lot of the engineers and the directors, they was like, Yeah, we would love to host you and helped us find the beautiful place that helped us cast the the horse tester helped us set up that engineering experiment at the end.
00:37:27:01 - 00:37:30:02
Speaker 2
So we had a lot of boilermaker help, a lot of hands went into it.
00:37:30:19 - 00:37:56:21
Speaker 1
That's awesome. And I would say and just as a as a side tip, if you want to save money on a commercial, get, get free extras and like, you know, people from the school to volunteer because that's where people don't think about like, okay, if we're going to show a classroom scene and it's a full classroom, like that's like 30 people, you have to pay individually, you know, to be there when.
00:37:56:21 - 00:38:16:20
Speaker 2
That one thing that we have that I feel like other institutions can learn from is we have a program called Boilermaker, Boilermaker, Ambassadors, and they are students who are interested in working or learning more about marketing. I think there's a, I want to say 20 to 30, and they are usually our go to for models. They kind of know the drill.
00:38:16:20 - 00:38:25:14
Speaker 2
They know they need to show up and be professional where Purdue clothes like be our biggest fans. They they already are so they make the best actors.
00:38:26:03 - 00:38:30:05
Speaker 1
So they're they're in like tell me more about that because that's how.
00:38:30:15 - 00:38:49:23
Speaker 2
They're almost like an internship program, right? Like they learn from us, they get paid and they serve as our ambassador. So they will show up for us on campus at events. They'll show up for us to be our actors and actresses. They'll film big things like whatever you can imagine. They'll film small projects that we do kind of on like a student to student basis.
00:38:50:07 - 00:38:52:01
Speaker 2
So they've been great partners.
00:38:52:20 - 00:39:01:11
Speaker 1
That's a great idea. I think, like even small schools could do that. Just say like, we're going to give you a small stipend, Just just be available, you know?
00:39:02:07 - 00:39:02:15
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:39:03:02 - 00:39:10:00
Speaker 1
It's hard. It's hard to ask for favors, you know, from people. But like, if you're if you're, like, paying them a little bit.
00:39:10:00 - 00:39:13:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, they're I mean, they love it and we love them. So. Yeah.
00:39:14:07 - 00:39:19:06
Speaker 1
That's awesome. Did you guys expect such a big response to the commercial?
00:39:19:22 - 00:39:38:01
Speaker 2
I mean, we hoped for it when I started. I've been at Purdue maybe a year and three months. The goal I was given was to have ten videos that had 100,000 views on YouTube, which at the time I was we didn't have a lot of videos. I think maybe we had two that were at that level. So I have like, okay, this is a big goal.
00:39:38:01 - 00:39:59:12
Speaker 2
We're going to make it happen with whatever you can imagine. I think as we started to have it come to life and we started to see it just in like storyboard and scripting, I knew there is something really, really special there. I knew that people Oregon embrace it. I think our strategies are amazing and they embraced it and they got all their eyes on it, right?
00:39:59:12 - 00:40:10:21
Speaker 2
Like you can't you can make great creative that no one ever sees. Thank goodness we have just as strong a strategy to be a team that knows how to get eyes and hearts to follow our work.
00:40:11:16 - 00:40:44:16
Speaker 1
That's cool. So I'm curious and we didn't talk about this on our phone calls other days. So if you don't have like a great answer, we can edit this out. Okay But I'm curious to know if if Emily Rich Ryan were to be plucked from Purdue and went to a small to work where the marketing team is kind of centralized, maybe there's multiple campuses but you're you're a small team kind of doing everything for the whole campus.
00:40:44:16 - 00:40:57:00
Speaker 1
Like what what would be some of these strategies that you would take to a smaller school that may not have the big budget to spend on ads or the the more robust team of creatives, things like that?
00:40:57:13 - 00:41:17:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would definitely oh, I think we talked about like I would definitely have that North Star. What is that, you know, brand perception that you're driving? I would think about creative projects in stories and how you want to tell them, Don't get tied like we always do. A written story of Facebook profiling ten posts like really think about what's going to support that story.
00:41:18:07 - 00:41:34:02
Speaker 2
I would lean into the emotion that you want, not just the action. I'm kind of have both of those in your head kind of get best of both worlds that way. And I think it I think it could be a great advantage to have a smaller team. We talked about some of our creative teams really owning that project from start to finish.
00:41:34:02 - 00:41:40:18
Speaker 2
There's like a great beauty in that because you get invested in that story and then you can tell it on all the platforms. Like no one else.
00:41:41:07 - 00:41:44:15
Speaker 1
Tell us about the jobs that you guys are hiring for. Let's let's get those filled.
00:41:44:16 - 00:42:10:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll put a plug in because we have lots of open roles on our markup team. I specifically am looking for a video producer and two writers, so we've got two ones more like an entry level and then I've got more of an experienced writer role. So check those out. Look at our we've got great stuff. If you want to look at our Purdue Marcum website and get to know more about us, follow us on all of our channels.
00:42:10:17 - 00:42:21:06
Speaker 1
Awesome. Yeah, this is fun. It's good to know you too. I just, you know, respect the work that you guys are doing. And I follow Ethan's stuff and he just seems to sing your praises. So.
00:42:21:23 - 00:42:25:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, he's a great follow on LinkedIn. We always this hearing really good.
00:42:25:14 - 00:42:36:06
Speaker 1
So he did use that word enchanted with me. He said she'll she's sure to enchant when I when I plugged that we were going to record this today.
00:42:36:16 - 00:42:39:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's like the new word, but it works.
00:42:39:06 - 00:42:47:10
Speaker 1
It does work. That's cool. It's different. You have to have a word that's like it means what you want mean, but it's not something that is just in one ear and out the other.
00:42:47:10 - 00:42:50:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, it definitely it definitely suits them.
00:42:51:21 - 00:43:08:14
Speaker 1
Well, thank you for listing three quick things I want to give you before you go. Number one reminder to go to pricing.unveild.tv, that's U-N-V-E-I-L-D If you're interested in our subscriptions and you can download our pricing guide there. Number two, if you want to take the storytelling you're already doing to the next level, I have a free resource for you.
00:43:08:14 - 00:43:26:10
Speaker 1
It's a three part framework for creating compelling student and alumni testimonials. You can get it at unveild.tv/studenttestimonials. Doesn't even have to be for video, but the framework to use in any format in which you tell student outcome stories. Number three will love it if you leave a review for this podcast. It helps us out a ton.
00:43:26:12 - 00:43:35:22
Speaker 1
My name is John Azoni, go connect with me on LinkedIn and in the meantime we'll catch you on the next episode of the Higher Ed Storytelling University Podcast. Thanks.
