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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.
Dave [0:00:02]: Hey, My guess on this episode is Ethan Braden, he is the chief marketing and communications officer at Texas A&M.
Dave [0:00:23]: He reports into the president there.
Dave [0:00:24]: They have a team of seventy people across five pillars in marketing.
Dave [0:00:28]: He's been a member of our community.
Dave [0:00:30]: We got to know each other at Drive, and this is a really fun and interesting in different episode because he's not a B2B marketer.
Dave [0:00:36]: But when you listen to this, you'll see how many of the things that he's doing are the same as you.
Dave [0:00:40]: You just have to know where to look.
Dave [0:00:42]: We talk about changing brand perception.
Dave [0:00:44]: And really, they don't have an admissions problem.
Dave [0:00:46]: They don't need more students and so how do they change the perception of their brand?
Dave [0:00:50]: He's a master at that before this, he was CMO at Purdue University and came up through marketing at Eli Lilly.
Dave [0:00:57]: I've got to know him over the last couple weeks.
Dave [0:00:59]: This was one of those podcasts that made me realize why I like marketing a little bit less tactical, more about this strategy, but I think you're really gonna enjoy this episode if you like our stuff at exit five.
Dave [0:01:09]: So here's my conversation with Ethan Brad.
Dave [0:01:12]: Alright.
Dave [0:01:13]: Ethan Brad, and good morning.
Dave [0:01:15]: Where are you at?
Dave [0:01:15]: Are you in the office?
Dave [0:01:16]: Or you on
Ethan [0:01:16]: the office
Dave [0:01:17]: right now.
Ethan [0:01:17]: Good morning.
Ethan [0:01:18]: I'm on campus.
Dave [0:01:20]: You're on campus.
Dave [0:01:20]: I'm excited to have you on because we had a lovely...
Dave [0:01:22]: I didn't see you after...
Dave [0:01:24]: I sat with you for, like, an hour.
Dave [0:01:25]: We had a great chat of dinner at our van and then we were, you know, gone doing our separate things.
Dave [0:01:30]: Right.
Dave [0:01:30]: But it was great to hang out with you.
Dave [0:01:32]: I'm happy to have you on the pod.
Dave [0:01:33]: My guest is Ethan Bray and he is the chief marketing officer at Texas A&M university.
Dave [0:01:39]: Right out of the bat, what the heck is the CMO of a major institution in the higher education space doing all my podcast about B2B marketing, sir,
Ethan [0:01:50]: You tell me?
Ethan [0:01:51]: I don't know.
Dave [0:01:53]: No, Answer.
Dave [0:01:54]: I wanna show because you have a smart way of explaining how this all ties together, But give your a short answer
Ethan [0:02:01]: to that before we hop in.
Ethan [0:02:02]: Well, first of all, I've admired you and studied you and quoted you for many years.
Ethan [0:02:06]: So let's start with that.
Dave [0:02:08]: Well, I'm gonna be quoting you back.
Dave [0:02:09]: Now.
Dave [0:02:09]: I know all the things you're doing.
Ethan [0:02:11]: So you've been in my slide deck for a long time.
Ethan [0:02:13]: So maybe we'll get to that.
Ethan [0:02:14]: But, no.
Ethan [0:02:15]: I think we have a fascinating marketing challenge and higher education at Texas A&M University in general.
Ethan [0:02:19]: We're one of four thousand universities in the United States.
Ethan [0:02:22]: So It's a complicated, complex, often comm marketplace, and you gotta be distinct to compete today for not only students, but every other audience that we care about?
Ethan [0:02:31]: So how do you do that?
Ethan [0:02:32]: How do you do that successfully and how do that with a hundred and fifty year old brand?
Dave [0:02:36]: So we sat to each other at Dinner at or event in Vermont called Drive.
Dave [0:02:40]: I have a bunch of these topics we're gonna get into and explain for everybody today But I left that conversation, like, kinda like, punching you in the arm being like, dude, why don't...
Dave [0:02:48]: The companies we talk to, you know, Saas brands, tech companies.
Dave [0:02:52]: Why don't other B2B companies take this approach where you're kinda taking bigger swings.
Dave [0:02:57]: And I think one of the interesting challenges is, I don't know what the actual numbers here we have it in our deck.
Dave [0:03:02]: You told us this We have eighty five thousand applicants for fifteen thousand seats annually.
Dave [0:03:07]: So your issue is not growth?
Dave [0:03:09]: Correct.
Dave [0:03:11]: You're working on this perception change.
Dave [0:03:13]: Can you kinda tee this up for us?
Dave [0:03:15]: Like, what's...
Dave [0:03:16]: The challenge that you're working on as the marketing leader or at Texas A&M.
Dave [0:03:19]: If it's not about getting more butts and seats.
Ethan [0:03:24]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:03:24]: I mean, the special place.
Ethan [0:03:25]: Right?
Ethan [0:03:25]: I'd say, I'm in the, like, one or two percent of CMOs in higher education, the and the mis when I talk to people that don't know it tremendously well, We'll say, well, you, is it about student enrollment is around recruitment, etcetera.
Ethan [0:03:35]: I quickly say, no, Not necessarily here.
Ethan [0:03:37]: To your point, we've got this unbelievable demand largely of T But after a hundred and fifty years and six hundred thousand former students.
Ethan [0:03:44]: You know, there's been students I wanted to go here since they were six, and they bleed maroon.
Ethan [0:03:48]: But we've got, you know, faculty.
Ethan [0:03:51]: We've got our administration.
Ethan [0:03:52]: We've got our former students.
Ethan [0:03:53]: We've got our students, etcetera.
Ethan [0:03:54]: We've got a host of other audiences that we care about that I want to demand An and M and be enchanted by An and m equally as powerfully as the students are.
Ethan [0:04:03]: Well, I want the federal government to come here with its needs and it's discovery needs from the rest of eternity.
Ethan [0:04:09]: Right?
Ethan [0:04:10]: Instead of calling our competitors.
Ethan [0:04:11]: I want companies to do the same.
Ethan [0:04:13]: I want them to hire our students.
Ethan [0:04:14]: I want them to bring research partnerships.
Ethan [0:04:16]: I want them to bring their business here.
Ethan [0:04:18]: I want the Wall Street Journal to call my forty five hundred expert faculty on semiconductors and E coli and wildfires and you name it.
Ethan [0:04:26]: And so that same sal and demand that we have with students I need with all of the other audiences to have the greatest impact that I know Texas san could have on the nation and on the world.
Dave [0:04:38]: Okay.
Dave [0:04:38]: So How do you do that?
Dave [0:04:39]: Where do you start?
Dave [0:04:41]: You have a team of seventy people across five pillars brand digital, earned media, P crisis issues and creative, You have this hundred and fifty year old brand?
Dave [0:04:50]: There's, you know, six hundred thousand former students, eighty two thousand students now.
Dave [0:04:54]: How do you move one of these chess pieces forward?
Dave [0:04:56]: And I kinda wanna get into this as to, like, one thing I like to ask the marketing leaders is like, it's great to have these ideas, but how do you go and actually put them in play?
Dave [0:05:04]: Do you think in themes and campaigns and hey, for the first three months of the year, we're gonna do this.
Dave [0:05:08]: Like, I would love to crack into how do you go and move this thing forward a little bit?
Ethan [0:05:13]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:05:13]: I mean I think there's a couple pieces that started it.
Ethan [0:05:15]: One was the charge.
Ethan [0:05:16]: So coming down here, the charge for my former president.
Ethan [0:05:19]: Was a simple four words.
Ethan [0:05:20]: It was national reputation and national conversation.
Ethan [0:05:23]: Most people in Texas have heard of Texas a and University and have some opinion of it.
Ethan [0:05:27]: But twenty five to forty percent of America have never heard of or at least have no opinion of Texas a and in University.
Ethan [0:05:34]: So you can be this regional, you know, salient powerhouse often known for ag and football.
Ethan [0:05:40]: But when you get outside the state, the first piece is like, well, who do we care about?
Ethan [0:05:44]: And that's an understanding of our audiences.
Ethan [0:05:45]: Right?
Ethan [0:05:46]: National conversation.
Dave [0:05:48]: Those four words, I'm glad you brought that this up because so many of the people in in our community right now are, you know, execs are going through planning for twenty twenty seven.
Dave [0:05:56]: And people are asking about how do I set goals, you know, what's the right stuff to focus on and I I've seen this long enough now where It's like, we always default to the goals or, like, not in your world, but, you know, you know this world, but, like, we need to add a hundred new customers and deliver, you know, ten million in new pipeline, but this mission, I've seen this at other companies I was at Drift.
Dave [0:06:18]: I was at Hubspot.
Dave [0:06:18]: Mh.
Dave [0:06:19]: The execs those companies.
Dave [0:06:20]: They had something more that was, like, the goal is not necessarily just a number goals It's more of like, this forward mantra that you got from the leader of the Org.
Dave [0:06:28]: And that almost then sets in motion, what you're gonna go do from a marketing standpoint and give you...
Dave [0:06:34]: To talk about from Mark?
Dave [0:06:35]: You know what Getting at?
Ethan [0:06:36]: One hundred percent.
Ethan [0:06:37]: You know, he set this when It I came down, and I think you have this in the notes.
Ethan [0:06:40]: But this idea of higher education can either be this incredible marketing training grand.
Ethan [0:06:44]: Or if it's not prioritized, if it's not invested and if it's not understood, then it can actually be a place for good marketers to stag.
Ethan [0:06:52]: And that's because there's not a lot of iron on iron of marketers making each other better, and we're trying to improve that obviously.
Ethan [0:06:57]: But for years, this was a place that was pretty...
Ethan [0:07:00]: It had an appetite to tell its story I suppose, but it wasn't.
Ethan [0:07:03]: And it was insular in the respect, if you didn't know you didn't know.
Ethan [0:07:07]: And we needed to turn that around and say, if you have the hire to be not just the best university in the nation, but the best university for the nation, then the nation has to know us and we have to be on their terms, and we have to understand what they want and need, not only from our students, but from our research as well.
Ethan [0:07:22]: And then we have to appeal to that.
Ethan [0:07:24]: We can't be ignored.
Ethan [0:07:25]: We have to be impossible to ignore and we have to be easy to understand and demand.
Ethan [0:07:29]: And so as soon as we understood our audiences, who they are and what they need, then that can orient my marketing contribution to all of that.
Dave [0:07:37]: Yeah.
Dave [0:07:37]: So this is cool.
Dave [0:07:38]: So you have in twenty twenty four, forty percent of America had never heard of or had no opinion of Texas A&M.
Dave [0:07:44]: The top words were football I think you quiz me on this at dinner, and I said Johnny Mans.
Dave [0:07:48]: It's not in here.
Dave [0:07:49]: Sure.
Dave [0:07:49]: Left top words or football, nothing or non sports Ag agriculture, This is all true, but radically incomplete.
Dave [0:07:56]: And so our job was not to invent a different Texas A&M was to make the real Texas A&M impossible to ignore and easier to understand.
Dave [0:08:04]: Take me into some of the big bets you've made.
Dave [0:08:06]: You've done a bunch of interesting things.
Dave [0:08:08]: It's not about, you know, running more targeted adwords campaigns Like, you you've taken some big swing at this, my friend.
Dave [0:08:16]: Let's dig into some of those.
Ethan [0:08:18]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:08:18]: So I think the first one was we needed a insight based distinct brand platform, not for the sake of marketing, but to actually give the place an operating system as to who we are, what do we stand for and why should people care?
Ethan [0:08:31]: And if I can create not just an orchestra of my seventy person department?
Ethan [0:08:36]: But if I can get the entire campus to believe that that's authentic and that's defining of us, then we create a common language that we can tell the world one thousand times instead of telling the world a thousand things one time.
Ethan [0:08:48]: Right?
Ethan [0:08:48]: So the brand platform allowed us to get to this insight of who are we, and where do we exist in our positioning?
Ethan [0:08:54]: That was number one.
Dave [0:08:55]: What does that mean the brand platform?
Dave [0:08:56]: Is that, like, the messaging that you ended up coming up with?
Ethan [0:08:59]: It was our positioning.
Ethan [0:09:00]: It was our messaging.
Ethan [0:09:01]: It's our character.
Ethan [0:09:02]: It's all of our creative identity, all of it?
Ethan [0:09:04]: Right?
Ethan [0:09:05]: It's the entirety of that work map that we have to work with and all the distinctive brand assets that we have to take to the market and be consistent and also be really compelling.
Dave [0:09:13]: And did you do that when you joined was that a early initiative.
Dave [0:09:16]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:09:17]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:09:17]: That was your one the same thing at pretty global beforehand.
Ethan [0:09:19]: It's same thing at pretty university beforehand and Okay.
Dave [0:09:22]: This is funny because we have this little trope that I think is partially a bit, but partial sometimes true.
Dave [0:09:27]: People often say, all the, you know, the new CMO should never come in and redo the brand and redo the website, but I'm also kinda feeling like...
Dave [0:09:35]: But sometimes you kinda need to do that and right?
Dave [0:09:37]: That's what you did here.
Dave [0:09:38]: Right?
Dave [0:09:38]: Would you push back on that?
Ethan [0:09:40]: Well, I think it depends on if you have it or not.
Ethan [0:09:42]: Right?
Ethan [0:09:42]: So I don't have to change the absolute bottle.
Ethan [0:09:44]: There's other higher education institutions that had their platform, something they stand for a common language, a compelling reason to believe in them for years.
Ethan [0:09:53]: This place didn't have that.
Ethan [0:09:54]: So if you don't have it, you're gonna have to.
Ethan [0:09:56]: If you haven't it's working, I don't need to throw that out.
Ethan [0:09:59]: But for us, we didn't, and I believe in any position when I'm at Lilly or purdue etcetera.
Ethan [0:10:04]: We've gotta have some form of a not just a tagline, not just a a logo.
Ethan [0:10:09]: We need to have an identity.
Ethan [0:10:10]: We have to understand what's in character for us, and I need to get everyone singing that same tune.
Ethan [0:10:16]: That allows us to
Dave [0:10:17]: do it.
Dave [0:10:17]: What's the identity for most of our listeners are probably not, don't bleed Texas A&M.
Dave [0:10:23]: They don't know all the engine out they will after this?
Dave [0:10:25]: What's the summary of the deliverable there.
Ethan [0:10:28]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:10:28]: It's easily articulated by saying at Texas A&M, together we stand as a force for good.
Ethan [0:10:33]: And those are hardworking words.
Ethan [0:10:35]: There's a together ness here.
Ethan [0:10:36]: There's a duty.
Ethan [0:10:37]: There's a common bond.
Ethan [0:10:38]: There's a we before me.
Ethan [0:10:40]: There's the twelfth man.
Ethan [0:10:42]: The idea that at any time, an Ag he's willing to go into the game, for instance and contribute.
Ethan [0:10:47]: So that's the together we stand and with thirty eight thousand students standing at every football game, fifteen thousand larger than in, you know, the next closest school.
Ethan [0:10:54]: We have the spirit of together we do something.
Ethan [0:10:57]: The second piece of that is the force for good, and I build that on three words.
Ethan [0:11:00]: I build that on magnitude.
Ethan [0:11:01]: I build that on momentum, and I build that on mission This idea that this place is a force, eighty two thousand students.
Ethan [0:11:07]: One point five billion last year in research, six hundred and fifty thousand former students across the United States in the world, we are a force.
Ethan [0:11:15]: But when we unify that force towards something, we use, you know, two words when it comes to defining the good.
Ethan [0:11:20]: It's one, we've been here for a hundred and fifty years.
Ethan [0:11:22]: There's a perm.
Ethan [0:11:23]: There's also an alt.
Ethan [0:11:24]: There's that this place is about contributing to the greater good where a Land grant University.
Ethan [0:11:29]: We were created to bring education to the masses.
Ethan [0:11:32]: And so our contributions need to be something of impact of consequence of contribution to our state to our nation and beyond.
Dave [0:11:41]: I'm fired up right now.
Dave [0:11:42]: I don't know why.
Ethan [0:11:43]: Come on down.
Dave [0:11:46]: Mentor mine put me on really studying, like Mark Ben off.
Dave [0:11:48]: Right?
Dave [0:11:49]: It was, like, notice how one example of this for every day I know if they still do this.
Dave [0:11:55]: Day for, like, twenty years, Salesforce ran this ad in the front page of the Wall Street journal that was, like, the market share of the Salesforce Crm.
Dave [0:12:02]: Mh.
Dave [0:12:03]: And, you know, we've learned about the importance of nailing this one.
Dave [0:12:08]: It's not always about having, like, like, the sexiest or craziest or clueless message.
Dave [0:12:12]: It's about the ability to, like, repeat it over and over and over and it seems like that's a similar thing where, like, man I come from this we talk to so many folks in our world where it's like, we're changing things every month, and every quarter and it's impossible to actually make progress without doing that, there's some value in picking a lane and going here.
Ethan [0:12:31]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:12:31]: I mean, and if you look at the greats.
Ethan [0:12:32]: Right?
Ethan [0:12:33]: If we look at, you know, nothing runs like a deer, that's a commitment to predictability and sustainability and performance.
Ethan [0:12:39]: Right?
Ethan [0:12:40]: If you look at Yeti, we get you out in the wild and keep you there longer.
Ethan [0:12:42]: That tells me what your product and your whole ethos is.
Ethan [0:12:45]: Right?
Ethan [0:12:46]: The few, the proud the marines.
Ethan [0:12:47]: I have a ambition here that at some point, we will position the idea of ag as powerfully as you have when I say the word marine.
Ethan [0:12:56]: When you hear an ag, you're gonna hear this person this some values based leader of character at mass at scale.
Ethan [0:13:02]: Right?
Ethan [0:13:03]: We need to know what we stand for?
Ethan [0:13:05]: And mean we need to consistently take that to the market.
Dave [0:13:08]: Do you study this do do you actively study this stuff?
Dave [0:13:11]: These brands or is it are you just a consumer where you're kinda always looking for these examples.
Dave [0:13:15]: I love it, man.
Ethan [0:13:16]: I mean, looking the shelves behind me.
Ethan [0:13:17]: Right?
Ethan [0:13:18]: I said on a recent appearance that, you know, if I didn't have a wonderful wife and family, I could work till ten o'clock at night every night on this, and I consume it whether it's on Linkedin or it's on Twitter at subs or to your podcast at Sting or whomever.
Ethan [0:13:30]: Right?
Ethan [0:13:30]: I'm a consumer.
Ethan [0:13:31]: I'm a student.
Ethan [0:13:32]: I'm interested.
Ethan [0:13:33]: I'm curious, and I've got a wonderful mentor who said the other day that where you find discretionary effort you find success.
Ethan [0:13:38]: And I think that's true of me.
Ethan [0:13:39]: I think that's true of my team, etcetera.
Ethan [0:13:41]: If you're willing to pour in.
Ethan [0:13:42]: Long enough consistently enough.
Ethan [0:13:44]: Right?
Ethan [0:13:45]: Says find a job where it's play to you and work to others.
Ethan [0:13:48]: To me this is play.
Ethan [0:13:50]: It's brain candy.
Ethan [0:13:50]: I love it.
Dave [0:13:52]: Yeah.
Dave [0:13:52]: I think there's a common theme to a lot of the smart marketing folks and really just business people in general that I've gotten to know which is, like this pattern matching around reading and assuming and learning.
Dave [0:14:08]: I mean, even just in five minutes right now, you are, like, a fountain of quotes, and I think that the great marketers that I've interviewed on this podcast podcasts are like, obsessed with.
Dave [0:14:17]: It's not like you're trying to study marketing, but it's like, once your brain is turned on to kinda seeing everything as mark kidding in, then you do see like, yeah I've actually...
Dave [0:14:24]: I've never thought of that.
Dave [0:14:26]: My best friend is a marine, but I've never thought of the few, the proud the marines, like dead word there.
Dave [0:14:31]: That's also, like, repetition, like rules of three, the few, the proud that's three on purpose.
Dave [0:14:35]: Right?
Dave [0:14:35]: You can see it in anything once you know to look for it.
Ethan [0:14:38]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:14:38]: I think there's something really unique about and powerful about distinction.
Ethan [0:14:43]: Right?
Ethan [0:14:43]: We wanna be distinct.
Ethan [0:14:44]: We want to be demanded.
Ethan [0:14:45]: I don't wanna work on a dog of a product.
Ethan [0:14:47]: I wanna bring it to market and and en chant people with it.
Ethan [0:14:50]: Like kinda pour into brands that way.
Ethan [0:14:52]: And this place is ample in the opportunity.
Dave [0:14:57]: Taking a different direction from our notes I'll get back here and it's like, but just made me think, Can you advice to people that are listening to.
Dave [0:15:02]: So you're...
Dave [0:15:03]: I would say the majority of the people that listen podcast podcasts are different than you and that they're not, you know, CMO of a major institution in in High ed.
Dave [0:15:10]: A lot of them are, you know, working at a company selling a cybersecurity product or Fintech software.
Dave [0:15:16]: Is there some element to, like, do you feel like those brands, there's an opportunity out there to play a bit bigger right now where we're just getting caught up in the Ai s and everybody's doing the same where we'll talk about some of the things you've done in marketing in a minute.
Dave [0:15:28]: But if this is who you are, doesn't make your skin crawl seeing the way as so many people are doing marketing right now?
Ethan [0:15:35]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:15:35]: I mean, I just try to look for the good in it, but I just think life is short.
Ethan [0:15:39]: Right?
Ethan [0:15:39]: So if that's your product pour into it and make it the best, make it demanded.
Ethan [0:15:43]: You know, winners focus on winning and losers focus on winners.
Ethan [0:15:46]: I wanna win.
Ethan [0:15:47]: Right?
Ethan [0:15:47]: So I've had antidepressants.
Ethan [0:15:49]: I've had pain drugs.
Ethan [0:15:50]: I've had diabetes drugs.
Ethan [0:15:51]: I've had universities.
Ethan [0:15:52]: I've had an online university for working adults that used to be kaplan.
Ethan [0:15:55]: Right?
Ethan [0:15:56]: If you're gonna put yourself into it.
Ethan [0:15:58]: I think he'd give it your all.
Ethan [0:15:59]: And if you're not loving it go do something else because life is short.
Dave [0:16:02]: This a good transition.
Dave [0:16:03]: So you spent eleven years at or ten years at Eli Lilly.
Dave [0:16:06]: You know, the...
Dave [0:16:07]: What is it?
Dave [0:16:08]: Drug manufacturer how to
Ethan [0:16:09]: do that?
Ethan [0:16:09]: How does a pharmaceutical company?
Dave [0:16:10]: Big medicine pharmaceutical company?
Dave [0:16:12]: And This quote here, which I feel like has influence a lot of what you do.
Dave [0:16:15]: Lily, you learned that marketing should be held to the same standards of rigor that we expect from finance, engineering or medicine.
Dave [0:16:22]: Can you explain what that means?
Dave [0:16:24]: Yeah.
Dave [0:16:24]: I just think
Ethan [0:16:25]: no matter what you do.
Ethan [0:16:26]: And I think this is particularly true of marketing.
Ethan [0:16:29]: The idea is we should be making a material contribution to the realization of the organization's goals and vision, and its performance and its future.
Ethan [0:16:37]: Right?
Ethan [0:16:38]: We joke.
Ethan [0:16:38]: My wife will joke.
Ethan [0:16:39]: My friends will Joke right, like, Oh, it's about brand colors or it's about a tagline or it's about a mascot or whatever.
Ethan [0:16:44]: And it's like, no.
Ethan [0:16:45]: It's not.
Ethan [0:16:45]: I want our job and our crew to material add to the demand for Texas a and University.
Ethan [0:16:52]: For the reputation of it for its future.
Ethan [0:16:54]: For its relevance for its usefulness.
Ethan [0:16:56]: Right?
Ethan [0:16:57]: I want to make sure we are needed and contributing the way that finance does or that Law does or that my faculty do, whatever it may be.
Ethan [0:17:05]: We can't just be a joke.
Ethan [0:17:06]: We can't just be a throw away tagline colors, that stuff gets forgotten.
Ethan [0:17:10]: Materially contributing to the creation and the reinforcement and sometimes the changing of audience attitudes, beliefs and behaviors is what we're in the business of.
Ethan [0:17:20]: Yeah better do that damn well.
Dave [0:17:22]: This quote spoke to me because we talk a lot about the people we like to talk to and be around are those who treat marketing as a craft.
Dave [0:17:28]: And it's like, I always think like, so many things when it comes to marketing inside of the company, we...
Dave [0:17:33]: They come under scrutiny or second guess, but it's like, Engineering is a very serious job.
Dave [0:17:38]: I'm not down there like micro managing the engineers work or the product teams work or accounting.
Dave [0:17:43]: But for some reason, the discipline of marketing.
Dave [0:17:45]: I think it's because everybody has written something, everybody has made a little design in Can.
Dave [0:17:51]: Everyone has, you know, Mh.
Dave [0:17:52]: Done public speaking at some.
Dave [0:17:54]: It's like, everyone feels like they can do marketing, but it's this level of, like, no.
Dave [0:17:57]: This is a craft.
Dave [0:17:58]: Like, we put this on the same standard inside of our company here as we do, finance engineering, etcetera.
Dave [0:18:03]: I really like that perspective.
Ethan [0:18:05]: It is an art and a science.
Ethan [0:18:07]: Right?
Ethan [0:18:07]: I don't know, fifteen years ago Gilbert said that marketing just liquor and guessing.
Ethan [0:18:11]: It's a little more than that.
Ethan [0:18:12]: I promise.
Ethan [0:18:13]: And there's a difference between brand and branding.
Ethan [0:18:15]: I think we gets caught up in the branding but the building of a brand, whether it's your own, whether it's your companies whether you're families, your churches, whatever it may be, has an art and science to it.
Ethan [0:18:25]: And I think what I've tried to bring in these environments is bringing the non marketers up to speed on this idea that we want both.
Ethan [0:18:31]: There is a gut to it.
Ethan [0:18:32]: There's a judgment.
Ethan [0:18:32]: There's a taste There's a hell of a lot of data.
Ethan [0:18:34]: There's a hell of a lot of learning.
Ethan [0:18:36]: You're teaching your exit five community that and have for many years.
Ethan [0:18:39]: You need the art and the science to be excellent at this craft.
Dave [0:18:43]: Alright.
Dave [0:18:43]: Let's get into some of the things you've done here.
Dave [0:18:45]: Yep.
Dave [0:18:46]: This is such an applicable lesson.
Dave [0:18:47]: So you've taken this basically blue ocean strategy into your media efforts going where higher ed isn't, and this is so relatable to so many companies that are listening because there's so much competition and noise Instead of fighting for other schools with the same billboards.
Dave [0:19:03]: You've done a bunch of crazy things kinda outside of Texas outside of the four walls of the university, let's go into some of these plays you told me about at dinner.
Dave [0:19:13]: And some of your greatest hits from the last couple years.
Ethan [0:19:16]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:19:16]: There's some fun ones.
Ethan [0:19:16]: I think That'll start with some of the stuff that's spot.
Dave [0:19:19]: Start now.
Ethan [0:19:19]: Start with the philosophy.
Ethan [0:19:20]: Start first.
Dave [0:19:21]: Start with the philosophy.
Dave [0:19:21]: Like, you sure.
Dave [0:19:22]: You said, like, we're not advertising at the Houston airport.
Dave [0:19:25]: Let's talk about some of, like, the go where people are piece of this first.
Ethan [0:19:28]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:19:28]: I mean, if you go back to Blue strategy.
Ethan [0:19:29]: Right?
Ethan [0:19:30]: One of the things that we try to do is if there's the opportunity, identify audiences that I want to grow my perception, my reputation, my trust with.
Ethan [0:19:38]: And how do I access them preferably in a novel way where in a blue ocean, I'm not competing against a hundred other universities.
Ethan [0:19:46]: I'm the only one there, but I'm authentic and what we call it is strategic presence.
Ethan [0:19:50]: Like, we have every right to be there and add something to the conversation and the experience.
Ethan [0:19:55]: So those two words for me is blue Ocean, I don't need to win the billboards of the highways.
Ethan [0:19:59]: I don't need to win the security bins at the airport.
Ethan [0:20:02]: I wanna go to where there's fandom and communities who are engaged, and I wanna offer something to their experience where they go, oh, I didn't know that about Texas A&M, I want to know more or you're contributing that and how could we work with you for instance.
Ethan [0:20:15]: So that to me is how we break into fandom and be authentic and value added within them, which to us has gotten us a lot of attention and a lot greater understanding.
Dave [0:20:25]: One of the first big ones was Nascar and Indy car.
Dave [0:20:28]: There's eighty million Nascar fans, forty million Indy car fans, which is up twenty percent year over year.
Dave [0:20:33]: There's eighteen weekends they're all on Fox.
Dave [0:20:35]: A&M is the only university there.
Ethan [0:20:40]: So Nascar was the first.
Ethan [0:20:41]: And that was through a relationship.
Ethan [0:20:42]: I've got a helmet up behind me where we just kinda fell into this idea of sponsoring a Driver's helmet, that grew and grew etcetera.
Ethan [0:20:48]: I don't need to tell the whole story.
Ethan [0:20:49]: But when I got down here.
Ethan [0:20:50]: We realized again through a school that has incredible Texas equity that wants it throughout the United States, there's eighty million engaged Nascar fans in the United States alone.
Ethan [0:21:00]: Forty one percent are women, and they're the most brand attached of any of the major sporting events.
Ethan [0:21:05]: And more so than any car, they're
Dave [0:21:08]: on forty or A real stat forty one percent of Nascar fans are women.
Ethan [0:21:12]: Correct, and they're getting younger and younger and more diverse and across the country.
Ethan [0:21:15]: It's of a bubble.
Ethan [0:21:16]: Incredible opportunity there.
Ethan [0:21:18]: So Can we take them a story about engineering and national security and defense and support veterans and military families and teamwork and collaboration and aerodynamics and data yet the hell yeah we can.
Ethan [0:21:30]: Right?
Ethan [0:21:30]: And so we've gotten in Nascar with some sponsorships and now it has become an associate sponsorship with H factory team.
Ethan [0:21:36]: So we sponsor races too that makes sense to us.
Ethan [0:21:38]: We sponsored two years ago at the Coca Cola six hundred on Memorial Day with one of our former students names, missing an action soldier on the windshield of that car.
Ethan [0:21:49]: That's the most patriotic event in the nation at least in the racing world other than maybe the Indianapolis five hundred where we were as well that day.
Ethan [0:21:56]: And we want to tell a story about being the number one veteran serving, university in America.
Ethan [0:22:00]: What a better place to do it and to do it largely alone.
Ethan [0:22:03]: So that was through Nascar, and then we can talk about Indy car if you want, which has been incredible, But again, it's not about racing.
Dave [0:22:10]: I want you to tell the story about the lightning in a bottle that you caught from doing the Indy car thing to helmet it, the finish because I just think it's a good example of, like, I said that somebody is silly yesterday.
Dave [0:22:21]: So was, like, in top of my head be like, you made space for greatness, Ethan, which is, like, the fact that you did this and took this big swing, like, this crazy thing ended up happening, and I want you to tell him story it.
Ethan [0:22:32]: And it was accumulated.
Ethan [0:22:33]: Right?
Ethan [0:22:33]: There's a little bit of the lionel messi of, like, you know, it took me seventeen hundred days to become an overnight success.
Ethan [0:22:37]: Right?
Ethan [0:22:37]: We've been doing this for three years.
Ethan [0:22:39]: But the reality was we realized an indy car in particular, eighteen weekends a year on Fox.
Ethan [0:22:44]: That a valuable piece of real estate when they go to the in car camera is the back of the Driver's helmet.
Ethan [0:22:50]: And so we sponsored a Driver and we started putting our logo there just to create in intrigued, then we started bringing our commercial in, he's doing social teams doing social work at the races, etcetera.
Ethan [0:22:59]: It Cr.
Ethan [0:23:00]: We learned more about that.
Ethan [0:23:02]: So this past year, we, again, sponsored Felix Rose qui.
Ethan [0:23:05]: We did it in a myriad of ways, two cars we can talk about, but in particular the helmet.
Ethan [0:23:09]: The helmet incredible real estate like we talked about, and it just so happens that being on his fire suit, On his helmet, as you can see above me, and the back of his helmet, we happen to be with the guy who ends up winning the closest Indianapolis five hundred in its hundred and ten year history.
Ethan [0:23:24]: And the last eighty six seconds of that race are the most exciting race you've ever seen or the most exciting racing action you've ever seen and we're on board for all of it.
Ethan [0:23:32]: So you said lightning, Right?
Ethan [0:23:34]: Marketing can't create the lightning, but it can create the lightning rod.
Ethan [0:23:37]: And our job is to put us into environments where the extraordinary can happen.
Ethan [0:23:41]: And for us, Felix Rose brought the lightning and the extraordinary happened.
Ethan [0:23:45]: We got such attention for that participation that weekend, in particular, and the other seventeen races of the year.
Dave [0:23:51]: It was cool We'll bring it up in post.
Dave [0:23:52]: I wanna show the...
Dave [0:23:53]: You showed it to me at dinner just like, two minutes of the...
Dave [0:23:56]: Yep.
Dave [0:23:56]: Head and him eventually, you know, I don't know what it's called, but he passed the guy and he won.
Dave [0:24:00]: And it was incredible.
Dave [0:24:01]: But to your point, it's so hard because, like, so often in marketing we're making the decision we want that, like lightning strike, but we're not willing to realize that it took three years of doing it and reps and lessons and just time in market for, like, something amazing to happen.
Dave [0:24:15]: We want the viral sensation right out of the gate.
Dave [0:24:18]: That's kinda one lesson I took from at.
Dave [0:24:20]: The other one is just I just love the mechanics of, like, you just sponsored the helmet.
Dave [0:24:24]: And I think there's like so many cool things.
Dave [0:24:27]: I talked to you about this but Same on the podcast so we can, you know, have this for later.
Dave [0:24:30]: But when I was at drift and we wrote this book.
Dave [0:24:33]: Everybody you see it now.
Dave [0:24:35]: Right?
Dave [0:24:35]: You go to Nasdaq.
Dave [0:24:36]: You go to Times square.
Dave [0:24:37]: You get this big billboard and it's, like, congrats on being whatever.
Dave [0:24:40]: Well, in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, not many people were doing that, but I I we found like, it was only these companies that went public.
Dave [0:24:48]: It was this big perception thing.
Dave [0:24:49]: Well I found out you can advertise on that thing.
Dave [0:24:51]: Okay?
Dave [0:24:52]: You could buy for the whole day.
Dave [0:24:53]: Well, we don't have the budget for that?
Dave [0:24:55]: I said, well what's the lowest increment I could get?
Dave [0:24:57]: They said, oh, you could do it in fifteen minute increments.
Dave [0:24:59]: Isn't said really?
Dave [0:24:59]: Okay.
Dave [0:25:00]: For fifteen men in increments, what's the cost?
Dave [0:25:02]: I don't know.
Dave [0:25:03]: It's was like, seventeen grand.
Dave [0:25:04]: Okay.
Dave [0:25:05]: Cool.
Dave [0:25:05]: So We bought it for fifteen minutes.
Dave [0:25:07]: I went to New York with a video team with a photo team, we took the pictures, and so we took the pictures.
Dave [0:25:13]: I think if you mashed up all of the engagement and impressions from what we got out of that on Linkedin.
Dave [0:25:18]: Do you think anybody on social media was like, well, they didn't have it for the whole day.
Ethan [0:25:22]: Right.
Ethan [0:25:22]: No.
Ethan [0:25:23]: No.
Ethan [0:25:23]: Absolutely.
Ethan [0:25:24]: It's about, you know, making, hey, with what you've got.
Ethan [0:25:27]: And standing out again, with audiences that you care about and an impression that you want to make.
Ethan [0:25:32]: It's not just screwing around.
Ethan [0:25:33]: Right now I've got people searching people interested learning more from Felix from us from the team on Fox, etcetera.
Ethan [0:25:40]: I mean, the search data of that, the in entry of that, the way we're taking audiences as a result, that opened the door.
Ethan [0:25:47]: Now we have to walk through it.
Dave [0:25:48]: Okay.
Dave [0:25:48]: What else have you done that's worth talking about for this crew on the pod.
Dave [0:25:51]: I got...
Ethan [0:25:52]: I think...
Ethan [0:25:52]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:25:53]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:25:54]: I really like this one.
Ethan [0:25:54]: I I think it's an interesting one.
Ethan [0:25:56]: So previously, Texas a and in University used to spend a pretty penny to go and do an Ag house Southwest by southwest.
Ethan [0:26:01]: And I think what's interesting about that is who comes to an Ag house at South by Southwest?
Ethan [0:26:06]: Ag.
Ethan [0:26:07]: Right?
Ethan [0:26:07]: Well, the Ag know us.
Ethan [0:26:09]: That's a bit of the choir.
Ethan [0:26:10]: How can we do that differently?
Ethan [0:26:11]: And so one of the things that we've done over now the last three years is we partner with fast company Magazine.
Ethan [0:26:15]: And instead of having our own house, we're a meaningful piece of their fast company grill at the Cedar or grill there right across the street from the J w Marriott of those days.
Ethan [0:26:23]: And when we bring, we bring our science, we bring our discovery, we bring our innovation, we bring our researchers.
Ethan [0:26:27]: So it's fast year, we had an exhibition there.
Ethan [0:26:30]: We're a minute you walk in that grill.
Ethan [0:26:31]: You're gonna get exposed to us, but you're not gonna see football.
Ethan [0:26:34]: You're gonna see our innovations in space.
Ethan [0:26:36]: You're gonna see our innovations in health.
Ethan [0:26:38]: You're gonna see our innovations in farming.
Ethan [0:26:40]: Right?
Ethan [0:26:40]: You're gonna see our innovations in national security.
Ethan [0:26:42]: Then we're gonna give you a panel experience.
Ethan [0:26:44]: You're gonna see some of those innovators are astronauts or innovators in Ai or dementia, whatever it may be.
Ethan [0:26:51]: It's gone so well that found company came back to us last year and said we wanna add an entire day to it that's A&M focused, which will do again this March at South By.
Ethan [0:27:00]: That's a whole new crowd coming in and literally routinely saying.
Ethan [0:27:03]: I'd never heard a text saying m before, or I had no idea you were doing this in dot dot dot across my forty four hundred researchers just here.
Ethan [0:27:12]: And so that sort of presence, I think, again goes back to.
Ethan [0:27:14]: Do we wanna be known more so by our Ag, or is this an incredible blue ocean of people, smart, innovative, Driven people coming to south by that we have an an incredible story to share with them and either introduce ourselves or reintroduce ourselves positively and emotionally as we think about what they think of us.
Dave [0:27:33]: That's cool.
Dave [0:27:33]: That's a good one.
Dave [0:27:34]: It's like product marketing Or it's like, hey, we're known for this one thing.
Dave [0:27:37]: That's actually not the whole story.
Dave [0:27:39]: Let's go tell them about all these other things that we can do.
Dave [0:27:41]: I'm coming.
Dave [0:27:41]: We talked about.
Dave [0:27:42]: I'm coming the Ag house this year.
Dave [0:27:44]: Don't tell Anna, and it's not gonna be happy.
Ethan [0:27:46]: Go, well, you're coming in a fast cup.
Ethan [0:27:47]: There's no Ag house.
Ethan [0:27:48]: But yeah, You come.
Ethan [0:27:48]: Absolutely.
Ethan [0:27:49]: You know, and then I think the other one is partnerships.
Ethan [0:27:50]: Right?
Ethan [0:27:51]: You see on...
Ethan [0:27:51]: Behind me here, but The work that we've done with Buck, the work that we've done with dude perfect, the work that we're doing with Poncho, exploring those other partnerships.
Ethan [0:27:59]: That's what Nascar has been.
Ethan [0:28:00]: Those ideas of bringing to market a combinations Where we're bringing communities together and telling our collective story, has been I think pretty innovative.
Dave [0:28:09]: Well, hold.
Dave [0:28:10]: Let's just give people the intel there though, like, I know this because we hung out, but the connection to Buck and dude perfect.
Dave [0:28:17]: You found people who went to school at Texas A&M and your those are the brands that you're working with in profiling.
Dave [0:28:24]: It's like, we would call it c marketing, I guess, in in my world.
Ethan [0:28:27]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:28:27]: Exactly.
Ethan [0:28:28]: No.
Ethan [0:28:28]: I mean, I want the nation, and I really want everyone eight to sixteen to know that the five dudes are Ag and that this all started here.
Ethan [0:28:36]: And that they're values based and that they're incredible entertainer and incredible dads and incredible former students.
Ethan [0:28:42]: I want you to know they got their start and they love Texas a University.
Ethan [0:28:45]: I wanna make that very apparent.
Ethan [0:28:47]: Beaver App, founder and CEO of Buck.
Ethan [0:28:50]: Right?
Ethan [0:28:50]: I want you to know that this incredible operation.
Ethan [0:28:53]: And now this incredible brand started here, launching in nineteen eighty two as an act.
Dave [0:28:59]: These are, like, case studies.
Dave [0:29:00]: Right?
Dave [0:29:00]: It's kinda, like, how...
Dave [0:29:01]: In my world we called a case study.
Dave [0:29:02]: It's like, oh, these the dudes went to An and m.
Dave [0:29:05]: Like, let's go tell their story.
Dave [0:29:06]: I?
Dave [0:29:06]: They wouldn't wanna do that.
Dave [0:29:07]: They'd sign up for that.
Ethan [0:29:09]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:29:09]: Are you seventeen?
Ethan [0:29:09]: I wanna be a creator.
Ethan [0:29:10]: Right?
Ethan [0:29:11]: You know, that's a wonderful opportunity here.
Ethan [0:29:13]: Till us to tell again, that magnitude of momentum.
Ethan [0:29:15]: We're not just big and stoic and static.
Ethan [0:29:18]: Right?
Ethan [0:29:18]: I've got this incredible magnitude.
Ethan [0:29:20]: I'm spoiled with stories on this campus to detail daily, but I want to make sure they're impactful and relevant and useful.
Ethan [0:29:27]: And so those are some of those, and then we draw those partnerships.
Ethan [0:29:29]: They're not just light sensing deals and not just sponsorships are actually full blown partnerships that we can then story against and create impressions about, and that's what I'm in the business of.
Dave [0:29:40]: How do you decide what is worth doing?
Dave [0:29:43]: Right?
Dave [0:29:43]: In a world we're like, you could go to lunch after this and bump into some kid on the way to the mess hall, or whatever the cafeteria?
Dave [0:29:50]: And they have some amazing story.
Dave [0:29:52]: I'm asking this because this is the endless...
Dave [0:29:54]: The marketers have this, you know, gift sometimes in a curse of endless ideas.
Dave [0:29:58]: There's a thousand things you could go and tell stories around.
Dave [0:30:01]: Do you have a framework or way to go and prioritize, like, what things your team is actually gonna go and do because it can't be everything.
Ethan [0:30:07]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:30:07]: I mean, it's based initially on our strategy, and then I would come down one layer and say that it's our content strategy.
Ethan [0:30:13]: Right?
Ethan [0:30:13]: So within our strategy, framework of this idea of being the best university for the nation of being impossible to ignore and easy to understand, you have to pass those first right?
Ethan [0:30:23]: The second piece to us is then what are our content pillars that we're working against.
Ethan [0:30:26]: And for this next year in particular, We've got one that's big in the space of fostering trust, which is a huge piece right now in higher education.
Ethan [0:30:35]: Right?
Ethan [0:30:35]: Whether that's affordability, accessibility, the value of the degree, the experience of the degree continuing to build perceptions with the American public around trust, is a huge pocket for our programming.
Ethan [0:30:46]: There's two others that we're working on.
Ethan [0:30:47]: Hit on one right now, but this is in the university It's got incredible, brA&Muscle and innovation in the health space, but it's not something that's often well known.
Ethan [0:30:57]: We're known for agriculture.
Ethan [0:30:58]: We're known for engineering, but I've got twelve colleges here, all of which are working on some aspect of Alzheimer's and dementia.
Ethan [0:31:05]: And so I want you to know the magnitude of when you partner with An and m and what you're gonna get in that space.
Ethan [0:31:10]: And so to the point of the stories, what am I looking for?
Ethan [0:31:12]: I'm looking for incredible health stories right now.
Ethan [0:31:14]: I'm looking for incredible innovations they're coming to market and making a practical dent in the world's biggest challenges.
Ethan [0:31:20]: If I've got one of those, let's talk.
Ethan [0:31:21]: If about creating trust or perceptions of building leaders of character, let's talk.
Ethan [0:31:26]: If it's about building perceptions of quantum, let's talk.
Ethan [0:31:29]: If it's about building perceptions of our plays in national security.
Ethan [0:31:33]: Let's talk.
Ethan [0:31:34]: Right?
Ethan [0:31:34]: So there's a call...
Dave [0:31:35]: How do you get plugged into that?
Dave [0:31:35]: Is it like a Slack message from someone in the department?
Dave [0:31:38]: How does it actually work?
Ethan [0:31:39]: Well, one of the best that you mentioned I didn't hit on is, I think the credible blessing that we have when we have forty three hundred faculty on a daily basis working on the world's biggest challenges.
Ethan [0:31:49]: And so I have a team focused on, not only understanding them and knowing them, but what they're working on.
Ethan [0:31:54]: And what is the media value of that.
Ethan [0:31:58]: So where our earned media hits in the last three years have almost quadrupled.
Ethan [0:32:02]: Okay.
Ethan [0:32:03]: Hold Hold on.
Dave [0:32:04]: So you have, like, a sub team in marketing that's job is, like, faculty enable or something?
Ethan [0:32:10]: Exactly.
Ethan [0:32:10]: We call a National earned...
Ethan [0:32:11]: It's earned media P.
Ethan [0:32:13]: Cool.
Ethan [0:32:13]: And are those on
Dave [0:32:15]: do those faculty members have the freedom to, like, beyond x and Beyond Instagram.
Dave [0:32:20]: It, Be beyond Linkedin and sharing stuff,
Ethan [0:32:22]: and that all rolls up into earned media that you get?
Ethan [0:32:24]: Totally Doctor.
Ethan [0:32:25]: Tatiana has over two million followers on Instagram with her physics experience.
Dave [0:32:29]: Damn, that's so cool.
Dave [0:32:30]: Actually, if you think about it, you have forty three hundred, like, subject matter.
Dave [0:32:34]: Your job
Ethan [0:32:35]: is exactly.
Dave [0:32:35]: That's cool Talk to you.
Dave [0:32:36]: It's forty three hundred So subject matter experts.
Dave [0:32:39]: That all could be micro famous in their own little niche, which is so cool.
Ethan [0:32:44]: Completely.
Ethan [0:32:44]: So the New York Times calls about something involving public health.
Ethan [0:32:48]: We're gonna offer you Jay Mat, and the work that he's doing, you know, in public spaces and getting outside and getting off a technology.
Ethan [0:32:54]: You wanna understand tariffs or the economics of egg prices or beef prices right now.
Ethan [0:32:59]: I'm gonna give you David Anderson out of the ag school who literally two years ago had thirty five earned media hits.
Ethan [0:33:04]: And last year had thirty five hundred.
Ethan [0:33:06]: He didn't become an expert overnight.
Ethan [0:33:09]: We just gave him the mouthpiece.
Ethan [0:33:10]: We gave him the mega phone.
Ethan [0:33:11]: We gave him the attention, and he's an expert and he shines now.
Ethan [0:33:14]: They're calling him now as a subject matter authority?
Dave [0:33:17]: Yeah.
Dave [0:33:17]: How do you track that by the way.
Dave [0:33:18]: Thirty five hundred versus here's
Ethan [0:33:20]: a platform.
Ethan [0:33:20]: He he's a platform called Cis that allows space decision.
Ethan [0:33:23]: Like, I okay.
Dave [0:33:24]: Yeah.
Dave [0:33:24]: I started my career P r and Cis incision was how you'd find journalists.
Dave [0:33:27]: So cis still around.
Dave [0:33:28]: Okay?
Ethan [0:33:29]: I come in every day and see between a hundred and fifty to twenty two hundred media hits overnight from our experts and our university and what we're putting out into the world that shapes their perceptions of this place and our people.
Dave [0:33:41]: How much do you control that message like that, you know, professor is or whatever is it scientist some expert Are you reading it and you're like, I wish they didn't say it that way, and we got immediate train them or is there a really long leash here in letting them be experts?
Ethan [0:33:55]: There's a little bit of both.
Ethan [0:33:56]: I mean, they are experts, and we do perform media training and we do coal you know, a pool of our experts that we know are gonna perform or be demanded and create trust with these reporters, etcetera because you want that consistency in that repeat.
Ethan [0:34:08]: So we know some.
Ethan [0:34:09]: Right?
Ethan [0:34:09]: Many are talking to the press in their own ways, and that's fine.
Ethan [0:34:12]: That's their a prerogative here.
Ethan [0:34:13]: I think the big thing that we've tried to do is create platforms for them.
Ethan [0:34:17]: So when we do South by, we're bringing them there on topics.
Ethan [0:34:20]: When we go to fast companies innovation festival, we're bringing them and putting them in there.
Ethan [0:34:25]: We're putting them in our commercials, etcetera.
Ethan [0:34:26]: So we're able to understand who knows what how do they do with the media, And when we get a phone call, it's a really easy equation of you need to talk to x y z, and we are able to help oftentimes pass that baton and they shine.
Ethan [0:34:39]: And and again, I get to do that with a lot of people across all subjects.
Dave [0:34:43]: What are the challenges in your world.
Dave [0:34:45]: Everything I've talked to you about is going awesome.
Dave [0:34:47]: Things are great.
Dave [0:34:47]: Relate to, you know, the listeners, we all got about marketing, everyone's grass always greener.
Dave [0:34:53]: What are some of the marketing challenges that you got right now.
Ethan [0:34:56]: I'm sure it's the same for many folks.
Ethan [0:34:58]: You know, one I think is talent, we wanna continue to get the best marketers in all of those domains that we need, largely two college station, although I have quite a few remote workers.
Ethan [0:35:09]: Paying them on a public university salary and get them to contribute at the level that they would at Yeti or Sony or Coca Cola or American Eagle.
Ethan [0:35:18]: Right?
Ethan [0:35:18]: So the first is I gotta build an incredible team of marketing practitioners many of which, thankfully, the opportunity we have is we can get them out of the business go here.
Ethan [0:35:26]: Right?
Ethan [0:35:26]: But I gotta build a hell of a marketing team that can do justice to this place.
Ethan [0:35:30]: Like I said, we have seventeen colleges.
Ethan [0:35:33]: Right?
Ethan [0:35:33]: You can get spoiled, but you can get extremely distracted.
Ethan [0:35:36]: As to what would you focus on versus bringing in things two or three priorities that we're gonna nail for a year, so that the American public's perception of that will change.
Ethan [0:35:47]: You know, we're not marketing toothpaste.
Ethan [0:35:49]: Right?
Ethan [0:35:50]: We're marketing a giant university and all it has to offer.
Ethan [0:35:52]: I think that's number one.
Ethan [0:35:54]: Number two is just the higher landscape right now.
Ethan [0:35:56]: I think for us it's a giant opportunity.
Ethan [0:35:58]: I love where we're positioned in the spectrum or the pendulum of what the American public wants, but the decline in trust, the decline in perceptions of value.
Ethan [0:36:07]: Decades of what most would argue is just escalating prices, affordability, accessibility, the relevance of the education, the usefulness of the education, the political environment, All of those are shaping the public's perception right now on should a child or a student go to college, where should they go for how long what should they study?
Ethan [0:36:28]: And they're wary of a lot of that.
Ethan [0:36:29]: We have to be a beacon.
Ethan [0:36:31]: We have to be a spear, you know, tip the spear to say that No.
Ethan [0:36:35]: Higher ed is a place where the American dream could still be accessible and alive and well, especially at Texas A&M.
Ethan [0:36:41]: Come here and all those things you want.
Ethan [0:36:43]: I think you're gonna do really, really well.
Dave [0:36:46]: I keep changing my tune as might, you know, our kids are similar age, and I am, like, forty years ago Like, they don't need to go to college.
Dave [0:36:53]: And look, please don't get offended someone listening to this Like.
Dave [0:36:56]: Didn't go to college.
Dave [0:36:57]: I'm not saying any of that.
Dave [0:36:59]: What we're just saying, I do think the value that I see now in my kids going to colleges like the social aspect, learning how to live learning how to live on your own, waking up and having to go to the cafeteria and get food or it's closed, You know, just living life.
Dave [0:37:12]: I think there's a huge benefit to doing that.
Ethan [0:37:15]: While our president did a wonderful job yesterday and what was a state of the university address announcing what we're calling the Ag Passport, which is basically documenting all of the education a student gets outside of the classroom.
Ethan [0:37:25]: So whether it's the service projects, whether it's study abroad whether it's the thirteen hundred student organizations we have here, whether it's civic involvement, whatever it may be, they're getting a huge education here at Texas A&M.
Ethan [0:37:36]: Inside the classroom but also outside the classroom that will benefit them for life, and we want to be able to show an employer now.
Ethan [0:37:42]: What that actually looks like when they graduate.
Ethan [0:37:44]: And we want to expect that they will gain that while they're here and not just sit in their dorm room, which they don't do.
Ethan [0:37:49]: So I think this is an incredible place of a well rounded common sense education that it's producing not only leaders of character but people that are going out into the workplace and making meaningful contributions.
Dave [0:38:01]: Two questions that we're gonna wrap up.
Dave [0:38:02]: Number one.
Dave [0:38:02]: Okay.
Dave [0:38:03]: You're very intentional with your words and naming and branding, and I think that's a common trait among people who are really good at this.
Dave [0:38:10]: Is this an A&M thing or is this a u thing where we don't call them alumni?
Dave [0:38:14]: We call them former students.
Ethan [0:38:16]: In that respect, the tradition and ritual and spirit largely here at Texas A&M is unique and it's special.
Ethan [0:38:23]: The former students aspect, the importance we place on the word here.
Ethan [0:38:27]: Whether it's the twelfth man or giga or Son them off or the war him, we have a language here, but it's, again, a common language that binds and bonds our people across generations, across classes, and, again, I think the experience of being an ag can be as rich from twenty two to eighty five as it is from eighteen to twenty two, and that's a piece of it.
Ethan [0:38:48]: The rings a piece of that.
Ethan [0:38:49]: This incredible avid community is a piece of that.
Ethan [0:38:52]: But I think beyond that words matter, and I love hardworking working words in marketing.
Ethan [0:38:57]: I want them to carry great weight.
Dave [0:38:59]: I do.
Dave [0:38:59]: Dan and I have been talking about this a lot lately, we forgot this lesson a little bit, and we've been naming things more intentionally like The meeting that we do on Friday has a name.
Dave [0:39:08]: The way we're doing this off upside has a name.
Dave [0:39:10]: The way we set our goals has a name.
Dave [0:39:12]: There's something with, like, humans and we like the name things.
Dave [0:39:15]: We pick them up, it's little repetition.
Dave [0:39:17]: Like, when you name something it makes it more real for a reason, I
Ethan [0:39:20]: guess, Yeah.
Ethan [0:39:21]: I want the words to carry weight.
Ethan [0:39:22]: I want the one word to say a thousand.
Ethan [0:39:24]: Right?
Ethan [0:39:25]: And so I think her intentional about that's really important.
Dave [0:39:28]: The last thing actually, this is not a question, But something I wanna touch on.
Dave [0:39:31]: I think the thing that makes your story really interesting to me in this audience is just like, you're very curious.
Dave [0:39:37]: You've learned so much.
Dave [0:39:38]: You're not just studying other higher ed institutions.
Dave [0:39:42]: You're learning from Nike and Hubspot and these, you know, tech brands and consumer brands.
Dave [0:39:47]: Mh.
Dave [0:39:48]: I just think that's such an important mindset because we talked to so many people It's like, well, I need a specific B2B marketing landing page example or I can't make this connection and it's like, I don't know.
Dave [0:39:57]: The more people I talk to like, Ethan it's like, no.
Dave [0:39:59]: You see everything and then you kinda pattern match.
Dave [0:40:02]: Do you have any final words or thoughts On just, like, Getting ideas and inspiration from outside of your industry because certainly you've not just done things that have been done before and hire Ed this blue Ocean strategy is working.
Ethan [0:40:14]: Yeah.
Ethan [0:40:14]: I go back to one leader at Lilly with a quick story by Disney's is Mike Mason.
Ethan [0:40:17]: Mike is the one that told me with jobs.
Ethan [0:40:20]: You always wanna take jobs where there's enough clay mold something beautiful.
Ethan [0:40:23]: Right?
Ethan [0:40:24]: Which is the delta between what is and what could be if you go and do a great job.
Ethan [0:40:29]: So I think of him in that regard, But to your question, when I started at Lilly in marketing, I was working on S, but I was working on the pain side of it.
Ethan [0:40:36]: So you've got this drug that can work equally well in depression, and f and anxiety as it can in knee pain and back pain, etcetera.
Ethan [0:40:44]: And I say that to say I got really geek out in the pain states, I learned all around the descending pain pathway and how pain drugs worked and opioids and non opioids etcetera.
Ethan [0:40:53]: But mike came to me one day.
Ethan [0:40:55]: And as we thought about next roles, in a big company that's just not a pain company, but rather a Company of all of its facets?
Ethan [0:41:02]: And he said, what I'm trying to figure out with you Ethan is, are you a pain expert or you a great marketer?
Ethan [0:41:08]: Because if you're a pain expert, I can never move you to something else?
Ethan [0:41:11]: If you're a great marketer, I can put you anywhere.
Ethan [0:41:14]: And that's what I believe has helped me in my careers.
Ethan [0:41:16]: I can go to higher ed, I can go to profit, I can go to Lilly.
Ethan [0:41:19]: I can go to Yeti, and I'm gonna figure it out because those marketing fundamentals, as Ak says right?
Ethan [0:41:24]: You can learned them in a day, but it'll take you a lifetime to mass stir.
Ethan [0:41:27]: I wanna take that marketing craft.
Ethan [0:41:29]: I believe I can take it anywhere and get to work.
Dave [0:41:32]: Dude this is crazy.
Dave [0:41:33]: That's such a good...
Dave [0:41:33]: Literally, I wrote about this today.
Dave [0:41:35]: There's no chance you read this.
Dave [0:41:36]: I wrote about this on Linkedin today I just was like, spoiler.
Dave [0:41:39]: There is no playbook.
Dave [0:41:40]: Right?
Dave [0:41:41]: The playbook is I love the job of marketing and like, yep.
Dave [0:41:44]: Yes.
Dave [0:41:44]: I'm now the CMO at Texas A&M.
Dave [0:41:46]: I'm gonna use the ingredients here to figure it out.
Dave [0:41:47]: Oh, I'm now the CEO of Hula, the c working space that I go to.
Dave [0:41:51]: No.
Dave [0:41:52]: I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm a rap guy so I like everything to a rap player.
Dave [0:41:55]: Jay z said, put me anywhere on God's green Earth?
Dave [0:41:58]: I could triple my worth, and I feel like it's, like, once you know the marketing strategy?
Dave [0:42:02]: I love that.
Dave [0:42:03]: Are you a pain guy?
Dave [0:42:04]: Like, are you the subject matter expert on pain or are you the marketer?
Dave [0:42:07]: Love that.
Ethan [0:42:08]: Good market.
Dave [0:42:08]: So good.
Dave [0:42:08]: Yeah.
Dave [0:42:09]: So good.
Dave [0:42:09]: Alright.
Dave [0:42:10]: Ethan Brad, and I'm getting the evil stare from this conference room that I'm in right now.
Dave [0:42:13]: I gotta understand out.
Dave [0:42:14]: I hope you have a great day at work.
Dave [0:42:15]: Always good to hang with you.
Dave [0:42:17]: If anything makes me wanna do it more.
Dave [0:42:18]: I...
Dave [0:42:19]: Hopefully we'll do something out by Southwest and I'll see you soon.
Dave [0:42:21]: Appreciate all of your you know, just good vibes and contribution to our community.
Dave [0:42:25]: I I want more people to follow you.
Dave [0:42:27]: We gotta get you past ten...
Dave [0:42:28]: That next milestone Me and the team are gonna be on this.
Dave [0:42:30]: You're at a about eight thousand Linkedin followers.
Dave [0:42:32]: Ten k is a meaningful milestone.
Dave [0:42:34]: We're gonna get you there, buddy.
Dave [0:42:35]: We're gonna do it.
Dave [0:42:36]: Okay.
Ethan [0:42:37]: Okay.
Ethan [0:42:37]: Well, I'll try to do my part on that.
Ethan [0:42:38]: But thank you for having.
Ethan [0:42:39]: I know it traditional or traditional, but this is a real honor followed you a long time and Appreciate.
Dave [0:42:44]: No.
Dave [0:42:44]: It's not.
Dave [0:42:44]: I mean, I put notes in Slack while I have people on the pod because, like, I do show notes and stuff later and...
Dave [0:42:49]: This is actually really important lesson.
Dave [0:42:51]: I think I've been talking to more people.
Dave [0:42:53]: I get caught up in this lane of, like, I need to talk Dave.
Dave [0:42:56]: You need to interview B2B marketers because I'm a B2B marketer.
Dave [0:42:58]: It's like, no.
Dave [0:42:59]: Once you realize the whole world is connected.
Dave [0:43:01]: You can learn more for people who are not necessarily in your industry and, like, I don't know that's why beating you and hanging out of our event has fired me up and getting to see you again it fired me up all over again.
Dave [0:43:10]: So good job, man.
Ethan [0:43:11]: I appreciate it.
Ethan [0:43:12]: Thank,
Dave [0:43:12]: sorry, man.
Ethan [0:43:13]: I'll see
Dave [0:43:13]: you later.
Dave [0:43:13]: We'll see you.
Dave [0:43:14]: Hey.
Dave [0:43:18]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
Dave [0:43:19]: If you like this episode.
Dave [0:43:21]: You know what?
Dave [0:43:21]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.
Dave [0:43:26]: I have something better for you.
Dave [0:43:27]: So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at exit five, and you can go in check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, Go check it out right now on our website, exitfive.com.
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Dave [0:43:46]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community, people are in their posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing planning.
Dave [0:43:53]: Ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing same thing you are, so you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.
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