Blog Recap:
In Episode 99, titled “Why Even Big Name Schools Need To Worry About Brand,” our host Shiro got the lowdown on why branding is crucial—even for powerhouse schools like Texas A&M. Skeptical? Well, keep reading!
When you think of Texas A&M, you probably think of a massive, well-known institution, right? So, why on earth would they need to worry about branding? Catherine broke it down beautifully. One of the biggest takeaways was the idea of staying relevant, not just in Texas but on a national and even global scale. It’s about more than just having a famous name; it’s about continuously showcasing why you deserve that status.
Catherine’s journey into the branding world is pretty unexpected and super interesting. Originally, she was a musical theater major—how cool is that? She found her way into digital marketing because she loved storytelling, a passion that translates surprisingly well into her current role. Whether she’s helping to build personas or sifting through Google Analytics data, she’s basically a modern-day detective unraveling the complexities of digital marketing for one of the nation’s largest universities.
One cool concept we dived into was “dramaturgy.” In theater, a dramaturg helps everyone on a production understand the who, what, when, where, and why of the story they’re telling. Catherine carries this over into her marketing roles, helping to shape and understand the story Texas A&M wants to tell.
Even at a big school, Catherine says there are always gaps to fill and messages to tweak. She highlighted how different schools within the university, like the College of Engineering and the Mays Business School, have unique goals and challenges. By playing the role of detective, she ensures that each school’s digital marketing strategy aligns with its specific needs and objectives.
We also talked about the brand’s new initiatives under fresh leadership. Catherine emphasized that marketing in higher education is all about staying ahead of the curve. Texas A&M might have strong traditions, but it’s important to align those values with today’s students who are facing a rapidly changing world.
In short, Episode 99 gives us an inside look at how even giants like Texas A&M need to continually innovate and adapt to remain top-of-mind. And Catherine, with her fresh perspective and unique background, is definitely the right person for the job.
Curious to hear more? Tune in to Episode 99 of the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, follow and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes! Until next time!
Read the transcription
Shiro:
Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast hosted by Concept3D. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple, or Google. My name is Shiro Hattori, and I’ll be your host today. And I’m very excited for the guest who’s gonna be joining us to talk about why even big name schools need to think about brand as well as the importance of becoming a dramaturg in marketing. And we’ll cover what a dramaturg is later. So no worries if you don’t get that. To discuss the topic, I have Catherine Talison, brand manager at Texas A&M joining us today. Catherine, welcome to the show.
Catherine Tolleson:
Hi, Shiro. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Shiro:
It’s great to have you as well. And as a icebreaker, I do ask all my guests, please tell me what you love about higher ed.
Catherine Tolleson:
That’s such a good question, and I feel like I should have thought about that before I got on this podcast. But I feel like my gut reaction to that question is just I love the community, and I love being a part of something that’s truly built towards steering the future, of just just going towards the future, and be that with students and how we teach them building new leaders, industry leaders, country leaders, everybody. So, yeah, just I love the fact that we’re building towards the future and getting to be a part of that from the beginning.
Shiro:
Well, great. Thank you so much for sharing that. So in terms of our our topics for today, I know we had a chance to chat just last week, and we were able to get this recording on the schedule pretty quickly, but you have a pretty interesting background. Can you tell us a little bit more about your role and how you got into higher ed as well?
Catherine Tolleson:
Sure. So, yeah, I have kind of an unconventional background in how I came to find marketing and especially going into branding and, my background with digital marketing. I actually went to school originally as a musical theater major, and, quickly found out that I did not wanna starve and wanted a consistent paycheck, and just wanted to also be a little bit more well rounded. I think, I love the arts, but it’s all or nothing and there were other things I wanted to I was interested in and, but something that was so vital to, the theater world that I found translated as I moved into marketing was the concept of storytelling, and that was, I think, where my my hook was with marketing and with theater was I I enjoyed getting to tell a story to audiences. And so that was the big bridge for me when I decided, okay, I’m gonna move into marketing instead. In theater, there is a job in every production called a dramaturg, And the dramaturg is somebody who basically helps the whole cast and production team understand the who, what, when, where, and why of the story you’re telling. Is it set in, you know, the 1800, where is it? Are we in Texas? Are we in London? Where are we? And then basically the world’s building. And so that, you know, the actors and everybody else involved can understand what they’re diving into.
Catherine Tolleson:
And so when I got into marketing, that is kind of the mindset I’ve tried to maintain, and that’s kind of how I grew to really appreciate especially digital marketing and data analytics. So, most recently at Texas a and m, I was working as a digital strategist, for all the colleges, schools, and recruitment marketing. Prior to that, I worked in business to business marketing with a company called Tetra Pak. And the thing that I found in common with both roles was, in building, you know, an analysis of personas and just understanding what the client’s needs were. The first thing I had to do was also understand, like, the audiences we were trying to cater to and what were their actual needs. So, yeah, that’s a little bit of how I kinda came into my most current background, and then because of that, I guess, more creative side that opened doors for the branding side of things, which
Shiro:
I’m
Catherine Tolleson:
really excited to get started with.
Shiro:
Yeah. It’s really funny. At right after our intro call, I actually had a conversation with someone who’s been marketing in in the marketing for, like, 30 years. And I I told her about, our call, and I was like, yeah. Somehow she has a theater background. She’s a GA, a Google Analytics, like, specialist, and she’s a brand manager. And she’s like, what? How do those three things come together? She was very impressed.
Catherine Tolleson:
I I’m really glad I have that background because it this kinda helps you understand the more ish stuff about what you’re looking at. So yeah.
Shiro:
Yes. And this this person I spoke to was like, you know what? That’s actually really good probably because it she probably brings a unique perspective to things. Right? And that’s, like, I think an important key personality trait of of becoming a good marketer is, you know, like, being able to kind of flip this switch and see things from a different lens. And and tell me, as a dramaturg, like, so you’re it helps you under you help understand your audience, right, to make sure they’re understanding, like, what’s going on during the theater play. Like, are there times where you’re like, I need to shift, like, what’s the right word? It’s not script, but you have to shift, like, the show a little bit just to just because you’ve under understood that your audience really isn’t catching along and stuff. Are those things that happen in theater?
Catherine Tolleson:
I wouldn’t say that there’s, like, this moment where you have to flip a switch. I think that’s the beauty of production is it’s such a collaborative effort. So I I think the dramaturg is working pretty closely with people like the director, and it’s kind of you you hold their hand through it. I think, it depends on, you know, the company you’re working with. But, in my experience, what I observed was that, you know, the dramaturg was pretty heavy on the beginning and works pretty closely with the director helping maintain that vision, that the director has in mind. And, oftentimes I found that, especially in smaller areas, the the dramaturg might also be the director, which kinda helps because then, I don’t know, it’s all in one brain and you’re it just makes things a little more fluid. But you do certainly have to take into account like where the production is being had, what is the message you’re trying to tell, and are there things you need to keep in mind depending on the audiences, and the demographic you’re reaching? Like, literally, where’s the theater and how does that demographic accept certain art forms? So yeah.
Shiro:
That’s great. It sounds like we’re talking about marketing, like, exactly what you explained. Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about your role. So you just literally, you’re just starting this week as the brand manager at Texas a and m. But before that, you were working as a marketing strategist at Texas a and m, and you told me you’re playing the role of detective a lot. Can you tell us a lot of the things you were detecting and what you were doing in your role as well?
Catherine Tolleson:
Right. Yes. So as the marketing strategist, I my particular role was catering towards the colleges, schools, and recruitment marketing. So, the thing I found, is a lot of people have a different understanding of what digital marketing entails. Some people and some of the colleges had, you know, they just needed someone to come in and consult on, like, what is Google Analytics and why should I use it and how does it help me in my school? Other people were more well versed and so we got to get more specific in how they were approaching certain campaigns either with paid ads or organic or even going so far as building personas so that they could pivot what their existing campaign looked like. I say I played detective because a lot of times I found and this I think is not necessarily limited to, higher education. I do think it’s something that can easily be found in the private sector as well. It’s just a disconnect between, especially when you’re in such big you know, corporations or in this case, a big university.
Catherine Tolleson:
There can be disconnect on what is the the key messaging we’re trying to we’re trying to send out. I think in a decentralized, format, which is how Texas a and m is set up right now, There’s a central marketing team, and then we have empowered or the goal is to make sure that all the colleges and schools are empowered to, basically stand on their own 2 feet and give them cast the vision and send the message of, like, this is what Texas a and m stands for. So do with that what you will in the perspective of, like, how that applies to nursing students and how does that apply to students applying for, degrees in agriculture or engineering. And so taking those values and making sure that it translates still. But I say all that because, a lot of times the colleges and schools, like, they don’t necessarily have an in house consultant. So they would come to central marketing. And, a lot of times their their previous leadership, they would have hired different agencies, and multiple different agencies over time as leadership would change. And so with that comes different understandings of what is our messaging and just different connotations and different campaigns over time that maybe didn’t fully wrap up.
Catherine Tolleson:
And so I found myself playing detective and understanding, like, where, what was the goal, is that still the goal that you’re trying to achieve? And sometimes it wasn’t, and they just didn’t realize that as the baton was being passed on that the vision for their school had changed. So, yeah, that it was a lot of just kind of undoing little knots and finding, you know, where the trail ended.
Shiro:
Yeah. And I’m sure the migration to mandatory migration at GA 4 didn’t help with any of that.
Catherine Tolleson:
The tech support did
Shiro:
make things
Catherine Tolleson:
a little bit messy, but, you know
Shiro:
Yeah.
Catherine Tolleson:
We got there. We got there.
Shiro:
That’s great. And you you mentioned a lot of this the schools of or colleges of. Like, what are some of the biggest, colleges of at at Texas A&M?
Catherine Tolleson:
Oh, well, definitely engineering. Engineering is one of our biggest goals. The Mays Business School is also really really popular. There is no problem when it comes to finding people who want to apply to go to school there. Also pretty popular is our agriculture programs.
Shiro:
Mhmm.
Catherine Tolleson:
Across the board, there’s I mean, I didn’t know until I came to a and m how many different, like, avenues within agriculture there were. I I I’m almost embarrassed to admit how limited my my knowledge of it was, but it’s quite vast. And just as you look at engineering, like, there’s technical engineering, there’s mechanical engineering, there’s aerospace engineering, just like that. There’s so many different niche avenues when it comes to agriculture. And how the university is connected to that is interesting to me. So those are probably the 3 biggest ones I can think of off the top of my head, but then we have other sister programs within the Texas a and m system like the, Galveston, for anybody who’s interested in maritime academy. Like, that is a great option as well that, again, until I came to a and m, I didn’t really think of as an option. You know, you think of schools near the Great Lakes and, for, you know, especially kids in Texas or near Texas who are interested in in that, it’s a great option.
Catherine Tolleson:
So that was actually a lot of stuff I got to learn more about as I played detective, with the colleges and schools, just understanding what they have to offer and how can we share that messaging with the audiences.
Shiro:
Gotcha. And then in your case, you know, explaining about the KPIs and the different goals that different schools may have, like, maybe agriculture is they launch a new program, and so, you know, their main goal shouldn’t be, like, enrollment immediately. If they’re launching something new, they need to maybe, measure something a little bit higher. Like, how how many views are they getting to their, website versus, like, enrollment, which maybe is your the business school, which has no issues with enrollment, like you said, their North Star could be enrollment goals. Right? So that’s where, like, the different goals come into hand. Right?
Catherine Tolleson:
Yeah. That’s a really good question. There’s so many different examples. I think, like, probably, like, for maze, for example, there might be more push. And this changes, I think, from different semester to semester. But, like, for example, there’s not really a problem with getting students to apply. But if there’s students that we’re wanting to have applied for, you know, something more of an online MBA, that’s a new thing that we’re offering and trying to get that program going. That’s gonna have a different goal than students who are the traditional MBA program type, who would be there in person every day, just a totally different demographic versus a nontraditional student who is doing this online and what their needs are very different.
Catherine Tolleson:
So and that’s the whole reason they’re probably doing an online program is for some flexibility. So being able to make sure that that’s marketable. I mean, it’s just a totally different goal.
Shiro:
Yeah. That definitely makes sense. Are there what are, like, your first steps if, let’s say, hey. We’re Katherine, you know, we need help with our understanding our GA four instance. Like, what are the first couple things you do when you get access to a a new GA four account?
Catherine Tolleson:
Well, why did you get GA 4, first of all? What was what was what did you understand this to be? What was the reason you wanted this tool? A lot of times, 9 out of 10 times it was, oh, so I can understand the traffic I have coming on a website. And then depending on how long they were using it, I had to actually be developed a series of questions because it that was a recurring question was, can you help me with my g a 4? Actually, it would be, can you help me with my analytics period? Which is such a broad question. I was like, oh, we can use for so many different things. So a lot of times I would ask, well, are you looking for a specific campaign that you are doing, on your website? Are you do you have a specific form you’re trying to ensure that students are going to? Are people just not visiting your website enough and you’re looking for ways to promote this page? Who has access to this page? Was this created by an external agency, or was this done by an internal marketing person? And, you know, are there tags? Are we using other Google tools within that whole Google Analytics realm? So basically, understanding what is the baseline that I’m working with here, and then we can decide if we’re turning this ship around completely or if we’re just doing a little bit of a degree change. And oftentimes, you know, we the big thing that we found in my experience was tag manager got really messy, because of how many different agencies a lot of times schools would end up working with. And that’s not like that is not anybody necessarily doing the wrong thing. It just happens over time, you know, with so many different changes of leadership that could happen or, you know, just as people grow into different roles, stuff gets kind of forgotten. And so we found, with one school, for example, they had something of, like, a 150 different tags, that were impacting how just like the functionality of the site in general.
Catherine Tolleson:
And it was loading really slowly, and half of the those tags were for things that were no longer relevant. So we turned off something like, I don’t know, like, 85 different tags. And even then, like, the remaining tags that were left were question marks. So I don’t really know who we’re supposed to talk to about this. So it was again that claim detective in trying to find where where do I what’s my next step here to undo that so that we can get you to a a solid baseline level where it’s you can move forward without having to necessarily build the plane as you continue to fly.
Shiro:
Gotcha. Yep. Yeah. We we recently hosted an event around GA 4 and, like, common mistakes. An agency partner here in Denver sees, and that was one of them. It was more specific to events, but just having, like, so many events in your in your, back end that it’s like you lose track of what is a conversion, what isn’t, and it makes the data, like, really hard to look at. So I think cleanup and just, like, looking at your systems to make sure everything is is in is value adding is is so important. It’s definitely something I struggle with too.
Shiro:
You don’t wanna get rid of something, and you’re like, oops. So, like, that fear always, like, prevents you from hitting the delete button, but, it definitely does or can prevent you from moving forward. So I completely agree. Awesome. Well, let’s switch switch gears a little bit here and start talking about your new role and, some of the new responsibilities you’ll be taking on. So this is just a little bit my own opinion, but from what I know, a and m a and m is a big, big brand. Right? And I don’t think from what I’ve seen from admissions data or enrollment data that they’re having, you know, as as big of a fear around the the enrollment cliff in the next 2 years. Why does a school, like, you know, with this big name and big brand, why do they need to invest in brand?
Catherine Tolleson:
I’m really excited about this role because I’m joining at a time where the brand is something that we’re really diving into even more than before, especially with the new leadership that we’re under. And the big question we wanna make, wanna answer is how can we be relevant, not just in Texas, which is I think where our brand is so well known, but also nationally. So I I think we have a pretty prominent presence within the south, but across the nation, I think we wanna be known. We wanna be up there as accredited experts in in the fields that we offer at the university. So that’s part of it, part of why we’re really trying to focus on the brand and how do we just level up essentially. And then also, and I know we talked about this a little bit in our, you know, our previous conversation, but in the world of marketing, you can’t get behind. And Texas A&M is a brand that cannot get behind, we value tradition and I think there’s so much that it has to offer and sharing what those traditions are, but also remembering that our audience today is not the same audience it was in 1980. And making sure that they can understand those values through the lens of what a a student or a prospective student is looking for in a, in a university or in a college, it might be different.
Catherine Tolleson:
They might be looking for different things. They are competing for a totally different kind of workforce than, after they graduate than what, you know, different generations were, and I think that will continue to be the case. So we are trying to make sure that this brand is relevant 10, 20 years from now. And I think that starts with thinking of, you know, what have we done and what can we do moving forward so that it’s not just the students who are applying today for the university, but also in the future and setting ourselves up for success so that as we continue to pivot, we have established that really healthy baseline in what our brand stands for and making sure it’s something that everybody can understand.
Shiro:
Yeah. Thanks for explaining that. Is is this a new role? I I think I forgot actually to ask in our last call.
Catherine Tolleson:
To my knowledge, it is. I’m sure that it’s been fulfilled in other under different kinds of titles, but this is to my understanding, the first time we have, like, an official brand manager, we’re gonna have a branding hub within the marketing system at Texas A&M University. So, you know, that’s gonna include other this branding hub is gonna include other things like data in there and analytics and, you know, recruitment marketing and how do they apply to the brand as well, but there is going to be a very specific area that is specifically, I keep saying that word, but it really is, it’s so niche for the goal is looking at the brand. It’s just people who are going to be seeing how can we elevate it. And, so yeah. And it’s all based on this new leadership that we’re under and the vision that they’re casting. So yeah.
Shiro:
That’s amazing. Is is this part of, like, an overall strategic plan that marketing was able to be involved with as well?
Catherine Tolleson:
You mean, like, for the university as a whole? Or
Shiro:
Correct. Yeah. Uh-huh. Just, like, bringing a new title. Like, this is a pretty big responsibility. You know?
Catherine Tolleson:
Yes. I I don’t know how far back it went in conversation as they started, like, reevaluating the structure of things. Mhmm. But it it became pretty clear once they started, you know, making moves that brand and how we approach it was gonna need to be a pivotal role. And I think that that is something that is going to definitely contribute to getting that national recognition that president Walsh is striving for us to achieve. So I don’t know that it was necessarily pillar number 1 of the strategy, or the initial strategy, but it became pretty clear early on.
Shiro:
It’s amazing. And are there what are you excited for in this new role? I know you’re just starting, so I know you’re you’re just just at the very forefront of it.
Catherine Tolleson:
I’m excited to have a seat at the table in the sense that I’ve gotten to keep my boots on the ground, but I also am gonna get to be a part of where the action is taking place and, how we are making those decisions and kinda getting to see more of it upfront. You know, I was at the part of the table where, you know, I was building up the, the personas and understanding, okay, this is where we need to go. I will pass this information on to you. And so the collaborative side of things where now I’m on the other side of it where I’m gonna get to put those ideas into motion, I think I’m really excited about that. There’s some big things coming down the pipeline for Texas a and m. I don’t think I’m at liberty to talk about in detail, but I’m very excited to see what happens and how we accomplish those goals. And just, yeah, that’s what I’m most excited about. It’s just being able to have a seat at the table and just look at things from a different point of view.
Shiro:
Well, thank you so much for sharing all that. I think we need to check-in probably, like, in 6 months to see how all the good work you’re doing is is translating into execution or planning. I’m really excited to to learn more about, how your role develops and how things develop at A&M. I’m wondering where our listeners can, connect with you and to learn more about what you’re up to.
Catherine Tolleson:
So I am on LinkedIn. Look me up there. I’m on all social media platforms. That’s yeah. I would look me up on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. Those are the main places.
Shiro:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for joining, and thank you to our audience for tuning in on this episode. Thank you.
Catherine Tolleson:
Thank you so much, Shira.
