Please sir, can we have some more?

Usually, this blog is unapologetic and upbeat.
After all, we are “Marketing and Communications”. We grin, smell great and look amazing. If Hollywood was casting University of Beds: The Movie, we’d be the precocious cheeryleadery people buoying people on from the side lines. Or the Scooby Doo gang (Market Research Manager to left in the pic).

But at this time of year, we’re 'in it together' with every other University department, cowering behind plans for tenders and drawing board projects, anxiously waiting for news of budgets. The omens don’t look rosy.

I don’t think I’m going to like this blog. Make me feel all fuzzy.

Most of you who have managed budgets in the past will probably go misty eyed remembering your favourite. For some, it will have been their first allocated spend; for many, it will be the highest they’ve had. Either way, the likelihood is that this was a tidy sum; enough to support existing projects with the potential to engage innovative suppliers in order to improve them and to consider which of a number of options to innovate.

Not so long ago, university Marketing budgets were the stuff of sectorial legend, with at least one reputable commentator regaling universities, every year, with a round robin freedom of information request asking for marketing spend. The resultant information was then laboriously, tediously league tabled, reported and used to berate institutions whose spend was seen as excessive.

Taking the lid off

Recruitment drives have gone a bit

 “Dick Dastardly” over the last few years.

Since then, we’ve had the Coalition and are now being roughed about as a result of the current Government’s obsession with opening up the market. On the surface, the student number removal cap is all very jolly for choice, but puts pressure on those higher tariff HEIs who want to expand, mid tariff institutions to keep attracting mid tariff students and lower tariff institutions to hang on in there and survive. Oh, and enquirers and applicants, whose heads must be whirling more than ever with the expansion, not only of HE and the introduction of absolutely-reputable-honest-Gov private providers, but also with all this racket between unis and the choices being hurled at them and encouragement to look at alternatives to the traditional three year UG route. With all to play for, everyone’s shouting to make themselves heard.

As a result of marketisation, the sector spends more money on more sophisticated advertising. Which would be fine, although advisors and collaborative initiatives explaining and encouraging young people to consider their post school options appear to have suffered as a result. Universities used to in collaborative, avuncular fashion with fellow institutions encouraging people find their right path and aim higher; now the emphasis is on

SHOUTING ABOUT COMING TO OUR UNIVERSITY,
BECAUSE WE’RE 3% HIGHER IN THE NSS,
HAVE ROBOTS IN OUR EXPENSIVE TV ADS
AND ARE BETTER THAN THAT LOT DOWN THE ROAD.

How our budgets aren't done

You’ve just said there’s ££££s for marketing, and yet…..

That’s right. The sector is spending far more money beautifying and shouting. All quite tacky. MARC, you’d think, would be rolling in resource. We're often told, by those who should know, that this is the case. It's not though; it's really, really NOT.

While we’re spending chunks on  advertising and online presence, these chunks are being cut, diced, sliced, removed and spread more and more thinly as more and more initiatives are introduced – think apprenticeships, think STEM. MARC teams and budgets have shrunk. We have fewer (i.e. no) freebies to hook people in to chat at UCAS fairs, are sending odd people to these fairs (trust me, the Market Research Manager talking up a Fashion course is a 'lose-lose'), the prospectus paper is thinner and yet there's so much happening in the sector and in the institution, that we're expected to do and react to more and more. Recent excellent news about TEF and the hope for other good news in the next few months have the potential to be great, but put daft pressure on the Communications team.

We’ve moved from squeezing more bangs from the same buck, to letting bucks go. A recent example is the renaming of our Video Content Strategy Part One to the admittedly snappier Video Content Strategy. A shame; parts two and three were the advice and help content to support conversions (crucial some may say to a marketing strategy). Something, too, to help enquirers feel more informed about their immediate future, rather than a hard sell. Notice a theme anyone?

"You never give me your money;
you only give me your funny budgets
And in the process of negotiation
They get cut - Ooo-oo!"
Macca, 1969

Still, we survive and continue to play our part as best we can, in raising our institutional profile, listening to and attracting enquirers, applicants and students. Yes, more budget and more support would be nice, if only to clean, spruce up or ideally leave The Atrium, where the heating’s feral, the downstairs furniture looks like it’s been in a fight and there are almost as many fridges as there are people. Air con? Bust. And the lights go off on a regular basis. I’d assumed Facilities colleagues weren’t putting 50p in the meter, but have been told they automatically shut off when they’re not needed. (The lights that is, not our Facilities colleagues).

Next week, something a little more cheery. Honest. In the meantime, here are some examples of friendly info films from around our sites. Includes many of last year’s models and possibly a bit ‘gappy’, but here for your perusal.

PLUS, the 'go to' 1970s pop song celebrating money that's not either The Abba or Pink Floyds. Check out the harmonica one minute in; give that man an honorary degree!