A521.1.4.RB_PALUGODCAROLYN

           My organization as a whole shares the same story with all of its clients and it is the story of an organization that provides opportunities and removes obstacles that ensure that students in every life situation can hold that diploma in their hand.  Our message tells of an organization that is everywhere, that offers flexible environments for learning, and is the longest tried and trusted name in the industry.  They put their name at the top of the pyramid with bold statements that claim that “we are the oldest, largest, and most prestigious university specializing in…”.  Our story promises not only academic quality but the prestige of being associated with us.  We use mottos such as “Education delivered your way; education for the exceptional; the road to success; and the leaders of tomorrow are studying with us today”.  Apart from our logos we use an eagle not only to represent the concept of flight, but also to imprint the concept of freedom, strength, and pride. 

          Within the mother organization we have another organization which provides services for  U.S. military members.  The story that we communicate to these clients is a shared understanding of their sacrifice, hard work and their right to achieve their academic goals.   In the sister campus, our brand promise is that whatever obligations and commitments they have to their country, work, family or bank accounts, there is a guaranteed way for them to complete their degrees.  I believe that the brand narrative of our organization triggers what Whalen calls “felt sense” (Whalen, 2007) because our story is the accumulation of the narrative of many others who have walked the same path.  For example, our military brochure has pull out cards with the names, pictures and biographies of some of our students.  Here is an excerpt from a student from one of the pull out cards:

            “I worried about being in a foreign country when I was supposed to be sitting in a class.  But once I realized that (organization name) really does accommodate the military lifestyle, I felt relieved.  A lot of colleges wouldn’t do that.  There were numerous instances where I was on the road while taking classes”.

             Whalen explains, “the felt sense feeling tells them that what you’re saying is the truth” (2007, p. 10).  So why is this?  It is because you are narrating a real live story of a real live person with the same kind of life experience. 

I believe that our story promotes the goals and ideals of the organization.  I have been to many local and non-local graduations as well as conferences where I have met many of my fellow colleagues, directors, deans, and faculty and I feel that the organization’s common story has permeated the culture of the organization and its employees.  Much of the success of the storytelling is because most of us have direct contact with our students.  We see with our own eyes the parallelism between the story that the organization conveys and the real life characters who are our students.  One of our strongest marketing strategies is telling the stories of the men and women who battled through their life situations to get their degrees.  One of the ongoing marketing research projects that we carry out involves student interviews.  Our marketing group currently visits different campuses worldwide and conducts interviews with the local students.  These interviews are used to collect first hand ‘student stories’ to be used as marketing strategies.  Much of our staff is also either ex-military, dependent, ex-dependent or has been exposed enough to the military culture to empathize with the challenges of this type of lifestyle.  In essence, our organization stands with the students through all their challenges because we as an organization live them too. 

References
Whalen, J. D. (2007). The professional communications toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.