Why Yesterday's Innovation Is Today's Normal
by Steve App, Business Development Manager
Did you take an aerial photo of your entering class this month?
Through our work with clients and STREAM research, we see marketing content from a wide range of campuses at Campus Sonar. And a few weeks ago, group photos of this year’s entering class—and the sophomore class for those looking to make good on annual traditions—filled my social feeds, as campuses celebrated Welcome Week and the return of students to campus. I can still remember taking an aerial photo of Temple Law School’s entering class in 2015. We didn’t have a drone back then; we had to resort to using our camera from a third-story office window. But we still felt cool. Moreso, we felt different from our peers.
Fast forward to today, and aerial group photography is a core aspect of Welcome Week. A drone photo is no longer unique; it’s almost, well, normal. To stand out, creative teams have put their own spin on the photo. West Virginia students created the shape of West Virginia. At Notre Dame, students wore t-shirts of various colors to signify the diversity of their class. At Iowa, students wave to the University’s Children’s Hospital. At BYU, students did the more traditional wave, creating the cool visual effect of a moving “Y.”
These effects are a fun way to take a common activity and make it true to your brand. But great marketing—or moreso, a distinct brand—isn’t borne from stunning photography and witty copy. In Welcome Week and every other week, it’s the experience that matters. Experiences that are uniquely yours, impossible to duplicate at other campuses.
In the context of Welcome Week, consider Colorado School of Mines where incoming students carry 10-pound rocks from their hometowns up Mount Zion, place them on the mountainside in the shape of an M overlooking the town, and then paint them white. At the University of Montana, this year’s entering class took part in their first ever Freshman Float, tubing down the Clark Fork River while learning about public land stewardship.
As Liz mentioned, “normal” is a complicated state, craved by those under duress and cringe-inducing to those looking to stand out. For the latter crowd, putting a creative touch on a common activity is a good start, but better imagery and copy are an arms race with no finish line. Instead, look to the student experience to differentiate yourself. (If you’re not sure where to start, consider reading the blog post linked below.) After all, it’s easy to duplicate another campus’s drone photography; it’s harder to carry a 10-pound boulder up a mountain.