Hey, That’s My Tagline!

Several of our clients within the past year have been surprised to learn that the strategic taglines and campaign themes we created for them were compelling and popular enough that competitors began using them, too!

So now what? While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, stealing your thunder is going a little too far. But there are lessons to be learned here.

The first institution in question had protected their tagline by registering it as a trademark of the university. About a year later they learned that another institution had started using the same tagline as a campaign headline. Since the phrase had been trademarked, the university attorney was equipped to send a cease-and-desist letter to the offending institution. The competitor demurred. Case closed.

Truth is, you can’t legally stop others from using your marketing idea. Headlines and taglines can’t be copyrighted, and a trademark protects only the execution of the tagline as it’s associated with your name, not the words or the idea themselves.

However, trademark establishes ownership. It plants a flag in the ground, and stamps a date on it. Most offending institutions, when alerted to a prior claim like this, wisely choose to drop their use without further ado.

Now consider a second case. This client launched their campaign using a consistent high-impact branding theme – they didn’t trademark it as a declared tagline, but simply used it is as a prominent recurring headline and guiding theme.

They learned a year later that a direct competitor had started using the same headline in their ad campaign. Which college owned the idea? From a marketing perspective, the key is “ownership” in the public perception.

One choice, for example, would have been to simply abandon the campaign theme to the competitor and create an alternative. Yet we advised the opposite.

Since this institution had a significant investment in the brand – months of intense research, consensus building, and a strategic rollout, a strong identity was already built around the branding concept. They owned the idea among internal stakeholders. We recommended that they quickly build robust opportunities for external audiences to see their decisive “ownership” of the phrase. Put it prominently on the Web, use it for SEO keywords and adwords, create banners, give it to faculty and recruiters as a primary talking point, use it as branded event theme, and in advertising. Connect themselves to it.

If a campaign theme is important to expressing your brand, it’s a matter of who best “walks the talk”? And when an institution establishes this level of ownership, competitors who use the same theme end up pretty much advertising for you. In short, while the idea may not be legally protected, “ownership” of the tagline and the essence behind it can carry the day.

But the real moral of the story is this: If a branding concept, tagline, or campaign theme is important in defining and supporting your brand promise and you would like to use it for several years or more, protect it through trademark as a strategic tagline. Internal legal counsel can do this for you.

It’s easy to check for prior trademark protection to see if any higher education institutions or large corporations have already laid claim to your phrase or idea. Just go to United States Patent and Trademark Office website or the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website and search for the phrase in question. If it’s not being used, pounce on it!

Opportunities Galore

I am sure most of you out there feel that time flies by and many are extremely busy day in and day out. Also with a world that is as connected as ours is today, news and opinions seem to change almost instantaneously. With each change comes new opportunities for marketers to draw in new some new eyes or bring back some old eyes on their products/services.

Everyone has heard the “Cash for Clunkers” phrase over and over and over again these last couple of weeks. That is no accident. But the cheer is not coming from the government as much as it is coming from the dealerships that can take advantage of the opportunity. It seems everytime I hear or see an ad for a local car dealership it incorporates “Cash for Clunkers” or some similar saying.  As we have all figured out, the dealerships are making sure everyone will bring their clunker and buy a car from them using the extra cash.

Not only are the car dealerships taking advantage, but so it Conan O’ Brien and Lexus with his “Conan, Please Blow up my Car” contest. I will let the video do the explaining, check it out (click here). The contest is based around tv viewers sending in videos of their clunkers, the clunkiest car will get blown up and while the owner will receive a new Lexus hybrid.

Recently, I read an article about a hotel in downtown Minneapolis that is taking advantage of Brett Favre’s arrival as a Minnesota Viking.  The hotel created the Brett Favre package where guests stay a couple nights and donate, to the hotel, an old Brett Favre Packer’s jersey and the guest will get a special rate for their third night. The jerseys are then donated to the Boys and Girls Club.

The video below EMG produced for the  Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University when the movie Good Night, and Good Luck came out in 2005. The video below was seen in theaters right before the movie played and was also played at the movies debut in several local cities.

Here are some helpful hints that may help you and your staff catch some opportunites:

1. Eye on the news – keep an eye out for possible upcoming opportunities that may make sense
2. External connections – local business leaders and influencers tend to have some good insights into local news.
3. Internal connections – connect with campus leaders who may have an opportunity that may have “legs”
4. Social networks – watch Facebook, Twitter, and other networks for chatter and buzz about upcoming events or big things that your stakeholders may be putting together or may feel is important to them.
5. Discuss amongst yourselves – make it a point talk with your staff to make the mental connections between the external and internal opportunities. One staff member may have the external opp while another may have the internal opp. Keep the lines open for discussions.
6. Pen to paper – write down several favorite opportunities so that you don’t forget. It may take a awhile before the entire opportunity comes into view, so be sure to take notes on your thoughts and possibilities.
7. Reserves – we all know budgets are tight, but you never know when the big golden opportunity may come available. Keep a little budget for the one opportunity you just can’t pass up.

With some much going on in today’s world, it seems like there are endless possibilites out there.

Eye Tracking is Darn Fascinating

I recently spent some time digging deeper into the details of eye tracking, and quickly realized that I could spend most of a day reading about it. The idea/practice of recording eye movements and methodically analyzing the data to gain insight on everything from how a user views webpage content, to how people walk or drive, is tremendously interesting. Since this is a marketing blog, let’s move away from the walking and driving. My colleague Ashley Martin directed me toward an eye tracking study conducted by Oneupweb which focused on the study of social media sites Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and specifically around how users treated the search functions on those pages.

The point of an eye tracking study like this of course is to ultimately better understand consumer behavior. Us marketers know that’s the goal, because once we’re able to understand more of what the consumer is doing and why, then we can work to shape the behaviors we’re looking for. Eh, it sounds so evil when you put it that way but that’s how it works!

Back to the study and why I found it worthwhile. The study looked at scan paths, duration of first fixation, and length of fixation within the first thirty seconds of the search process. To start, let’s check out how a user looks at their Facebook homepage (image source: Oneupweb).

Nothing too surprising there, though I’m somewhat taken aback that there is barely a hint of green surrounding the red notification in the bottom right. I feel that when I have notifications I’m looking down there pretty quickly. Does that surprise you?

Looking at the Twitter homepage below is a little surprising to me, as I don’t feel like I view the search/trends area that strongly, but I’d never really know that for sure unless I was tested. And that’s another thing: ever since I started looking more into eye tracking, I’m paranoid when browsing websites, trying to analyze my own habits. Anyway, here’s the heat map:

Now begins the meat and potatoes of Oneupweb’s study. Looking at the gaze plot visualizations of a Facebook search result, you can see the progression of fixations the user went through. (For more information on gaze plot visualizations, click here).

The sponsored ads in the right column were viewed before users looked at the second and third results on the page. Sponsored ads truly get noticed. If you can come up with a creative and relevant Facebook ad, people are going to see it… period.

Again, you can learn more within Oneupweb’s short but sweet study on the subject. It begins to delve into a bit of areas of interest, which areas do users have a fixated gaze on for at least 1/10 of a second. Looking at the eye tracking sequence a person takes in moving from one area to the other can be extremely telling. Many times you’re likely to be surprised at the results.

In short, there’s a lot to feel good about when it comes to advertising on social networks!

Health Care for Sick Brands

Now that “branding” has become entrenched as a buzzword with colleges, universities, and non-profits, a lot of the consultations we’re asked to perform focus on diagnosing what ails a brand, and prescribing corrective action. It’s really brand remediation, a sort of health care for brands – the BRAND ER.

Common Ailments
Hundred of illnesses can beset brand marketers. Here are a few of the most common ailments we get asked about:

• Obsessive-Creative Disorder – Creating brand new campaigns every year!
• Budganemia – No resources to do what you have to do?
• Old Brandage – Tired, outdated designs, photo style, palette?
• Psychosis of the Giver – Campaign doesn’t work for donors or influencers?
• Brandnesia – No one can remember what it is you stand for?
• Multiple Personalities – Umpteen entities, each with their own logo?
• Brandkenstein’s Disease – Umpteen entities, all living in one body – “It’s alive!”
• Brandiswine Flu – Pandemic messages that infect everyone and differentiate no one!
• Research Effective Disorder - Little, aged, or no research to point the strategic direction?

We’re obviously having a little fun with these names, but the symptoms are no joke. These are serious and complex brand challenges. And when you face them for real in the field, identifying what’s really going on – and what to do about it – can get pretty tricky, pretty fast.

The Treatment
Take Obsessive-Creative Disorder (feeling the need for new campaign creative every year or two), for example. Many colleges flit from one creative campaign to another – a costly idea. Consider: A corporation investing, say, $80 million in advertising each year might be able to get away with it, but a college investing only $1 million or less is throwing away hard-earned equity by changing too often.

While departmental clients often harp on the theme that “We need a new campaign,” no institutions I know can build reach and frequency at high enough levels to enable them to change campaigns annually. Again and again, data proves that most institutions begin to get good campaign traction after two or three years. So if you’re changing the look and feel of the creative every year or so, you’ll be starting over from scratch in building brand recognition. That’s enough to make any brand manager feel under the weather.

The best treatment for this condition is a program of brand evolution rather than creative do-overs. It is a way to strategically manage creative updates using new imagery, revamped formats, fresh headlines, and incremental design tweaks so that the campaign continues to feel fresh and new, yet builds on what has gone before. It’s a simple idea, sure, but it compounds the impact of your campaign many times over to help you better achieve the holy grail of marketing: Return on Investment!

We’ll be conducting more brand diagnoses in the August 27 Online KnowledgeBuilder – “The Brand ER, Triage For Ailing Brands.” If your brand isn’t as healthy as you’d like, think about joining. We’ll ask participants to describe the symptoms their brands are exhibiting, and then talk over the possible treatments. Should be lots of fun as well as informative.

Stay healthy!

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Recognize Me?

My 2 year old son has recently been watching PIXAR movies. He can already recognize the beginning sequence with the lamp bounding across the screen and jumping on the “I”.  He excitedly smiles and points at the TV because he knows  he is about to watch one of his favorite movies.

We all recognize and are familiar with hundreds, if not thousands, of marketing images around us. As we all know, the most easily recognizable marketing image is typically the logo.

Many of us have run into some of these games that you guess the company based on only a portion of logo or wordmark.  Take a stab at naming the company based on the portion of the logo seen below.

You may recognize several of the logos and you may also start to have ideas pop in your head for what the company behind the logo stands for. As we all know, the logo is only one aspect of the visual representation of the brand based on lots of research, data, and testing. But as illustrated above, logos can be a powerful representation. Even just a small part of the logo can be recognizable and bring up an emotional or thought provoking response.

Below are 16 logos of large state and internationally known higher ed institutions in the U.S.  Try and take a guess as to what school these logos/wordmarks belong to.  Does the small portion of some of the logos below bring up some kind of response? Is the response as strong as the responses from the corporate logos above? Can you describe some of the schools brand as well as you could for some of the corporate logos?

How many can you get right? Write your answers in a comment below, after a while I will let you know if you are right.

How does this help you, you ask? First, here are some questions to ask yourself about your current logo.

• Is your logo unique?
• Is your logo recognizable?
• Do you have identity and logo standards?
  • Color?
  • Font?
  • Use in different scenarios?
  • Size/shape/proportion?
• Does your logo bring up the appropriate response that you want it too?
• What emotions/thoughts does your logo bring out?
• What do internal and external audiences of your university/college think of the logo?

As mentioned earlier, the logo is only one aspect of the visual representation of a brand. If the logo doesn’t match the brand, your stakeholders may not be getting the full and correct visual and emotional response that is intended of the brand. In the end, having a “correct” visual and emotional response to an easily recognizable logo is one aspect that can help bring in like-minded stakeholders.

The corporate logo games above came from http://www.joeykatzen.com/alpha/#guess and http://www.bizzia.com/brandcurve/game-name-that-brand/

What Works in Online Fundraising?

I recently had the pleasure of teaming with Julie Chiron, Capital Campaign Web Manager at Cal Berkeley and a skilled, savvy marketing professional, to give a professional workshop on the “state of the art” in online fundraising. I want to share some of the highlights of our presentation with the brand managers out there who support fundraisers.

Is Online Giving Growing?
Sure is. While the rate of growth has declined recently due to tough economic conditions, the expansion of online giving is far outpacing overall fundraising performance. Online giving in 2008 grew between 14% and 28% (depending on the vertical and who did the research). This is a decline from the several years prior, when annual growth of online donations was more like 40%-45%, but it’s still a huge positive – overall giving was down 4% to 5%. It’s an area marketers need to explore.

Here’s the online fundraising leaderboard for higher education for 2008, (Chronicle of Philanthropy), with the five-year growth for each:

What’s the Buzz?
Nobody raises money (much, anyway) on social networks, but combining online community-building with other tactics has achieved super results. Here are some interesting stats on online giving:

• Online reaches new donors (most clients find 20%-30% are first-time donors)
• 35% – 65% of donor site visitors come from satellite/landing URLs
• Online produces relatively small gifts (averaging $150-$750) but from a many givers

What’s Not Working?
In counseling client institutions, here are the top issues that we find limit the effectiveness of fundraising programs:

1. Absence of a motivational mission/vision on the donor site
2. Absence of a motivational description of how donations are used and why
3. Social networking pages that are not linked to fundraising function
4. Text-heavy donor sites that present the institutional perspective
5. Hiding or failing to promote “The Ask” on the donor site
6. Outdated technology, software glitches, and obscure navigation on donor sites

What’s Working?

On the other hand, institutions that have achieved the best results point to the following Top Ten tactics that have improved the bottom line:

1. Creative/artistic photo galleries of donors that reveal personal motivations
2. Adding a shopping cart application to donor pages
3. Measuring results of 2-3 alternate emails in real time to hone in best motivators
4. Micro-targeting segments through tight, area-specific social networking
5. Adding online tools to help volunteers host local events and small-group community building
6. Combining email with mobile texting to offer previews/reminders/promos
7. Using high-production-value push-pull emails with clear call to action
8. Creating a campaign website that provides depth for campaign themes/results
9. Engaging audiences in social network mysteries, contests, and donor challenges
10. Integrating multiple social networks with the donor microsite

Have a look at the full online giving presentation by clicking here.

Seven Deadly Sins in Online Marketing

We were a little over-ambitious in our Online Knowledgebuilder (OKB) yesterday. If you weren’t in the session, check out #EMGOKB on Twitter to get an idea of the session. Lesson for this presenter, 90 minutes isn’t nearly enough to truly delve into seven pretty robust challenges in the online marketing space. To start with there are so many different possible avenues to cover…advertising, search, website development, social marketing.

My colleague Doug Clark and I chose to focus on the more direct, relationship-building aspects of the online marketing environment. It’s by far the biggest missed opportunity by marketers in every industry and the hottest growing marketing opportunity today. Even there, the information emerging about the value of that effort is voluminous compared to even a year ago – great information for marketers and unanticipated wealth for our presentation. The seven “sins” Doug and I identified are, in “Late Night” countdown order…

7. Failing to create a relationship

6. Not knowing your audience

5. Using traditional tactics in an online space

4. Lack of integration

3. Undefined strategy

2. Being conversation challenged

1. Failing to know yourself

With more than 60% of Americans (as of 2008) using social media (Cone Business in Social Media Study) and, of those, more than 93% saying they believe companies should have a social media presence, there is no justification for a college or university to not actively develop a social media presence. The importance here is to act very much like a social butterfly…initiate contacts, invite people to your spaces, network like there’s no tomorrow! Seems like the University of Nebraska has made some nice inroads in the social space with its Club Red network for accepted students. As important, get to know these spaces; learn how people act, what people expect, what etiquette is used.

When it comes to audiences there is a singular truth – one official college/university YouTube and Facebook page, do not a social media presence make. You must tailor these spaces so that the conversations are meaningful to the various audiences you address – student prospects are interested in different information and conversations than alumni or current students. Additionally, knowing who these audiences are and what their motivations are when on the Web is another critical factor. Two good studies to read are BlogHer/Compass Partners’ Women in Social Media Study and Cone’s research. Finally, try to match the ages and experiences of your social media administrators (those that manage Facebook, YouTube, etc. pages) as closely with the audiences to whom they talk as possible. It’s more authentic for the user and will more likely build closer relationships.

Another sin we often see is institutions simply translating traditional marketing communications tactics to online tactics. Does this sound familiar?…your Facebook Page and your Twitter page consist mostly of news feeds from your PR/Media Relations team? If so, you’re missing a key opportunity to learn what your audiences are looking for, to get to know them and interact with them. Online marketing tactics are much more about talking, listening, learning, and acting your brand than reporting and telling your brand.

Not surprisingly, attendees at our OKB indicated that integration of mediums, messages, unit activities in this space is a continued challenge in most shops. And yet, in this new communications paradigm, cross-platform, cross-unit integrating is more important than ever. If the objective in this new environment is to get to know our audiences and establish relationships with them, then it is increasingly important to maintain a record of the history of the relationship so that it grows richer over time. No one likes a friend who is constantly asking them the same questions about themselves!

Closely tied with the issue of integrated tactics is the need for a strategy around an online marketing presence. A big DON’T is launching into social spaces simply because they are there. A big DO is to have a clear idea of what you are after from your customers in these social spaces. Another reason to segment you presence based on your audience. With one group, alumni let’s say, measuring numbers of participation and using engagement to increase donations may be the objective. That’s a very different conversation than one that seeks to encourage students who have been accepted to your institution to enroll. In order to understand if you’re being effective you’ll want to have ways to measure these strategies.

In the number two spot of the deadliest sins is the notion of being conversation challenged. We observe this taking a number of forms: institutions that create pages, but never converse; those that over post information, cluttering the inboxes of their audience with alerts; institutions that are very self absorbed — always sharing their viewpoint, but rarely seeking to understand their audience’s viewpoint; those that don’t seem to be listening – comments, and questions on their pages go unanswered and unacknowledged; and finally situations where institutions fall into the trap of responding to sensitive issues raised by students or others in the social space without considering the implications of those types of communications.

Doug and I wrapped up with what we considered the deadliest sin of all…the failure to know yourself. It’s one that really didn’t need a lot of belaboring as it’s really not new news to most. However, there are still a lot of colleges and universities that have neither defined distinctive brand attributes (we call it your brand platform) nor identified personality attributes that help add dimension to their brands. Without these foundations in place, launching into a social media space that demands a clear voice and point of view can be lethal…in particular, when many different individuals at the institution are responsible for representing its interests and don’t share a clear understanding of what those interests are or what the institution stands for.

That’s a quick recap of the presentation. If there’s one leave behind I have, it’s this. If you’re not social now, get to it. This isn’t something that’s going away. It will grow. It will change. But it’s here to stay in one form or another.

Check out the schedule on Online KnowledgeBuilders coming your way (Brand ER and Twitter up next) here http://www.emgonline.com/knowledgebuilders.htm.

Be Very Quiet, There’s a Guerrilla Marketing to You

Last week, I came a across a tweet from “@ldlow: OMG I think I’m going to be sick! http://bit.ly/4mxoqK“. I click the link which takes me to an AdAge article and try to read, but get distracted by the particularly gross image below

It is a clever and attention grabbing (albeit gross) way of guerrilla marketing Parrissa wax strips. I RT’ed this on Twitter to all of @emgonline’s followers and got a response from @meddlem “@EMGonline about guerrilla marketing…I bet that guy doesn’t get many dates. Interesting concept…not for higher ed, though.” And that got me thinking… guerrilla marketing has been steadily over the last 10 years, but I haven’t really heard of any creative uses of guerrilla marketing in higher ed.

I have searched and searched, but have come up with little. The biggest kind of guerrilla marketing in higher education I can find is the use of paid current  students (without anyone knowing they are being paid)  to blog, vlog, tweet and connect with other potential/current students online (even these examples are more similar to social networking/online marketing than guerrilla marketing).  I have come up with little in comparison to the above hairy guy example to grab peoples attention in higher ed.

To make sure we are on the same page here is a definition of guerrilla marketing from Wikipedia

“guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral.”

Again, while there are not any big higher ed examples, below is a list of some more well known tactics as well as some recent tactics.

• In early 2007, police officers in and around Boston noticed a bundles of electronics and lights being placed by busy streets and bridges and thought it was a bomb scare.  Turns out, it was a LED lighted placard of a character (moon men) from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force show on Cartoon Network. They were used to promote a new Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie that was coming out a couple weeks later. About a 150 of the devices were found in about 10 cities. Some cities took legal action against this hoax, some did not, and the Cartoon Network CEO stepped down. The device can be seen below and read more about the tactic here in a CNN article.

• According to a recent CNN Money article, in November 2009, McDonalds introduced the Quarter Pounder to Japanese markets using a bold tactic. McDonald’s teased local crowds by taking off all McDonald’s traditional branding off two of their Japan stores. They surrounded the buildings with walls that had “Top Secret” written all over them. The stores were hidden for 2 to 3 weeks and were then unvaled with their new black and red Quarter Pounder look.  The teaser was so successful that McDonalds opened three more stores with similar tactics. One of the three stores went on to break daily sales figure records in Japan.
• Everyone knows how hard the job market is… last week I came acrross a story on 9News, a news channel in EMG’s hometown of Denver where a young man used guerrilla marketing to get the attention of the top exectives of a local marketing agency. The jobhunter setup a breakfast buffet hoping that executives would come out of their offices, get some food, and take his resume. He also setup a “Steiner for Hire” voting booth where shoppers at a neighborhood shopping mall could go in the voting booth, read his resume, and give him feedback.
• I found one of my favorite guerrilla tactics when  I read one of last weeks article in The  Star Phoenix. A group called Tourism Saskatchewan hired an actor, gave him a Think Saskatchewan flag, and told him to walk down the streets of Calgary and gather people to join his mini parade. Many in the parade were actors , some were not and joined in the fun anyway.  Watch the YouTube video below to get an idea. You can pretty much tell who the actors were as they are carrying outdoor equipment.

Personally, I would love to help anyone attempting a reputable higher ed guerrilla marketing tactic (wink wink – let me know).  Creativity is key and use common sense safety as always – no more moon man type Aqua Teen Hunger Force mishaps. Also, let me know if you know of any higher guerrilla marketing tactics that worked out really well or really poorly.

Nebraska Launches Distance Ed Winner

Last week the University of Nebraska (NU) announced an aggressive plan to re-engineer its distance ed programming and greatly expand online courses to capture a larger share of the growing national and international online market and to better serve in-state students.

It’s a program to watch, already getting some attention, and probably the best-engineered “re-launch” of distance education to occur on the national scene in a long, long time.  It’s the result of a 2-year study, system-wide strategic positioning efforts, and a comprehensive series of recommendations by EMG, done in close collaboration with NU System staff.

The effort calls for nothing less than a re-engineering NU’s distance education approach:

1. Strategically positioning distance education as an “Integrated Academic Enterprise” employing the same professors who teach on the campuses
2. Marketing distance ed programs at all campuses under a single brand
3. Leveraging campus support services such as financial aid, call centers help desks
4. Strategic expansion of online programs based on emerging market needs
5. Increased brand marketing initiatives to carefully targeted audience segments
6. Creating a unified website as the entry point for all NU System online courses
7. Restructuring the financial model to spur new program development
8. Increasing tuition in order to provide/support exceptional academic quality

“We offer students what they want,” says NU President J.B. Milliken: “the same professors who teach on campus, exceptional student services, current and relevant curricula and a sense of community. Whether students are in the classroom or online, they are part of the NU community.”

By marketing all distance education programs under a single brand, Milliken says, potential students will be better served and operating costs will be reduced.

NU already offers more than 1,200 courses and more than 70 online degree and certificate programs, ranging from bachelor’s degrees to PhDs.   Aggressive new program expansion will be guided by market needs.  For example, one of the first programs out of the chute will be a bachelor’s degree completion program in business – the first time an NU business degree will be available completely online.

A new brand identity, logo, and the distance ed website, now under development, will debut this fall.   Arnold Bateman, director of NU’s distance education efforts, also plans a more aggressive regional, national and international marketing strategy in support of the effort.

All of this requires investment, and NU has wisely determined to increase and codify tuition so that NU courses are competitively priced, yet still leverage the prestige of the AAU-member NU name for students who want premier quality.

News accounts have reported recent missteps in distance ed initiatives by a few big state universities.  These costly and embarrassing snafus resulted from miscalculations of marketplace needs and lack of understanding of the marketplace itself.  Unlike these efforts, NU’s initiative has been carefully and strategically planned, and aims to put NU into a league with the big boys of distance education – University of Maryland, Penn State, UMass, and for-profits such as the University of Phoenix.

With the strong foundation they’ve begun, we’re betting they’ll succeed handily.