Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson 

Hello, and thank you for joining for this special episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA’s CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episode, we’ll explore life through a marketing lens, delving into the conversations of individuals that flourish at this intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through our thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, we have a really special guest. None other than Ethan Braden. Ethan serves as the Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Texas A&M.

Drawn to Texas A&M because of its rich brand, story tradition, academic excellence, research prowess, and commitment to selfless service. He brings a passion for building brands and teams that love and trust Aggieland. Braden leads the university storytelling and reputation building strategies, passionately positioning and promoting and protecting the powerful Texas A&M brand, nationwide and globally. Ethan, in the midst of this championship season, welcome. My goodness, this is a conversation that we’ve been looking forward to having for quite some time. You’ve really been a powerhouse in thinking about how to market a university and all that it is in today’s world.

R. Ethan Braden

Thank you, Bennie. Good to be here.

Bennie

Talk a bit about what really drew you into marketing higher education.

Ethan

Yeah, I had a tremendous mentor, who presented an opportunity for me to follow him to Purdue University a matter of six or seven years ago. And it was a great opportunity for my family and quality of life. And as I had a boss at Eli Lilly and company once tell me, always take jobs where there’s plentiful clay to mold something beautiful. And with what I saw at Purdue and with Dan’s leadership and at the time, President Mitch Daniels, it seemed like an incredible place to bring marketing mojo and marketing discipline and tell the world the story of this university that people may not have heard of or fully understood. And so I was fortunate to do that for five years at Purdue University and Purdue Global, their university for working adults, and then got this opportunity two years ago here at Texas A&M. And I would say the same thing. The complexity, the opportunity, the product, the people, the clay is just so plentiful in terms of molding a beautiful and powerful and impactful and important story.

Bennie

You know, it’s amazing that you’ve only been at Texas A&M for two years. And recently, this year, you got a spot on Fast Company’s list of brands that matter for 2025. I’m going to move us away from the end of that story of being successful and being mentioned there, but start off with a bit of research that you did just last year. I’m fond of telling my marketing team that sometimes we have to be bold and courageous and we have to look in the mirror and ask if we’re ugly or not. And it strikes me that you kind of did that. You did market research last year and found out that 40 % of Americans had no idea or opinion about your university. How did that feel when you first read those numbers?

Ethan

Correct. I mean, it’s not entirely shocking to me. Now, September of 2023, all I knew about this place was Johnny Manziel a little bit watching R.C. Slocum as a kid and Maroon, right? Maybe, maybe Reveille. So it was not lost on me that many in America in particular and global or globally have never had an emotional and comprehensive positive introduction to this amazing place. If you’re an Aggie of which, we’ve got 80,000 students, we’ve got almost 600,000 former students worldwide, but 80% of the Aggies in our alumni, so to speak, we call them former students, live in Texas, right? 80,000 students, 95 % of which are Texans. It’s an incredible honor to be an Aggie in general, but especially in the state of Texas, and so traditionally, they hadn’t told that story beyond the state boundaries, or very well.

And so it wasn’t completely surprising and it’s actually not that novel to many of the other schools that we benchmark when we do this research, Illinois, UCLA, Purdue, Michigan, others. There’s 35 to 40% of America who will say, have no opinion of or have never heard of them before. But it was very, it was humbling and it was enlightening for many down here because they’re so close to it. And they believe in some respects, everyone’s heard of them and knows much about them and they don’t. And that’s the opportunity.

Bennie

Wow. Right. You talk about that kind of clay and having the opportunity to mold from the soil there. You know, this drives us from understanding your insight, where you’re on the market, to moving to what gets you on that fast company list. But more importantly, what has the impact? Talk a bit about how this comes together in your new campaign, thinking about, you know, together we stand as a force of good.

Ethan

Yeah, we did a lot of research for a year, a play that I really learned and cut my teeth on at Eli Lilly and Company. And then we ran at Purdue and ran with Purdue Global and I brought it down here. And it’s really about deep human truth and introspection and really understanding what is our insight and what makes us distinct and what we stand for and who we are and why people should care. And so we really needed to get to the depths of that in a place that is rich with tradition and history.

It’s big and it’s complex and it’s complicated. It can be traditional at times, but yet so innovative at the same time. And so we needed to really understand ourselves and get to a point where we could go to the world and say, is our identity and our value proposition. And what we saw is, as you said in the introduction, this deep history and this deep bond and this duty to service. And so what we kept coming back to is this place is a force, right? The largest undergraduate engineering program in America, one of the largest endowments in America, just bigger than Notre Dame, bigger than Michigan, right? 600,000 former students, 80,000 students, the largest university in America today. It is a force. But then you see its impact across whether it’s the research areas, whether it’s the largest student run service project annually, whether it’s the fact that we train 200,000 emergency personnel annually from all over the country and all over the world, it’s a force for good. And it’s the place that stands together to do good. And so we wanted to make sure that that impact, that service, that duty, that selfless orientation really shines through. And we really mean it when I say, and we kind of landed on this idea, that if you read US News & World Report or Wall Street Journal or whatever you want to read, many, we can debate all day, what is the best university in the nation? We want to be that. But the only way we believe to get there is actually to be the best university for the nation. And I believe we have that with the magnitude and the momentum and the mission that we have here and that we really found here through our research.

Bennie

It’s interesting as you kind of look and see what’s hidden in plain sight, the unusually high number of public servants who come from your university who are learning, training, and going into serving the public.

Ethan

Yeah, we were founded as a military institution, requiring military participation until 1960. But I think even more so than that is as much as our core values have been ingrained and espoused and even etched in the building since about 2003, they’ve really carried us for 150 years. So this is the place, probably comparable to Lilly and bigger than anywhere else I’ve ever been, where anybody you stop, and if you were to pull them and say, what are the core values of Texas A&M they can spit them off, right? Respect, excellence, leadership, loyalty, integrity, self-asservice, and they live them. And the experience down here reinforces that from the day you come for the rest of your life. It’s not just till you graduate, it’s beyond. And so this orientation towards values, I think, attracts a student that wants that. It attracts a faculty that wants that. And it culls them, and it polishes the diamond even further.

And they’re attracted then to going out and serving their communities and serving their states and serving our nation and doing things incredibly well for the world. It serves at the bedrock and at the foundation and at the nucleus of what we do here. And it’s no secret. And I think it’s real magnet to a lot of really wonderful leaders of character.

Bennie

Powerful. So I’m to ask this question as you embarked on doing the research and kind of running the play. How did the brief change from 2024 to today? How did you know the conceptual framework, the strategies change for how you’re going to tell this story?

Ethan

Yeah, I think the word that, a couple words I think are one, evolution and two, dexterity. I don’t want to just be a slogan or a tagline. And yes, a force for good is a powerful positioning for us and it’s ownable. But really what we’re trying to achieve and perpetuate is a brand platform that’s got enough freedom within that framework, that’s got enough of a plan, that’s got enough dexterity and flexibility that the College of Education and the College of Engineering and student organizations and the former students can find themselves and find a place underneath that tent. So whether it’s this idea of together we stand, which is very powerful for many, with the 12th man and the history that we have there and the unity and the duty that we have, or it’s this idea of being a force, and God knows we’ve got individual faculty members who are a force by themselves. But then we’ve got the force of the Corps of Cadets, we’ve got the force of 180,000.

I want folks to have enough in that insight to find a place and to localize and to shine as the best version of themselves or their division or their department or whatever it may be in the guise of Texas A&M University. And so I think that’s been the evolution from an idea to a true essence or a platform where everyone can get in character when they go to market and they can go to character as the best version of themselves at Texas A&M University being the tip of the spear.

Bennie

Really interesting, kind of coming into the best of yourself. I’m gonna ask that question a bit with your stakeholder community. As many universities face, and you’re no different in this space, but I love your insight. How do you manage and navigate simultaneously? We talked about the dexterity. Speaking to an audience that’s 19, 20 year old students, an audience that are grad students, faculty, administration, alumni, parents, the Texas community and those outside. How do you find that kind of balance with your approach to addressing all of those stakeholders?

Ethan

Yeah, I mean, I think there are things that are universal and that’s what’s at our essence and that’s at our core and our values and who we are and what we stand for and why we think the world should care. I think the other part of that though is then knowing your target audiences and prioritizing and speaking to them with the limited resources, time, efforts that you have. You know, I speak to this idea of 80,000 students, you 95 % of them being Texan.

I’m a rarity in the space of higher education where I think about enrollment and student demand probably as little as any CMO in higher ed today. And I will never become complacent and I don’t ever want to take that for granted. But the demand for this place allows us to actually reorient our efforts and our focus to audiences that don’t know us. And that’s why we focus on national reputation and national conversation. Inside the state of Texas, within those Aggies, we want to speak to them because we want them to be full of pride and we want them to carry the word of mouth and we want them to be evangelists for the place and what we’re doing here. But my job as a central marketer, when I’ve got folks all across the campus speaking to various audiences, is really to bring in those who have yet to embrace the spirit of Aggieland all across the nation, all across the world and say, I think we have something really special here that you can be very attracted to. Great brands attract and yes, they repel. And I know we’ll repel some and that’s okay. But I think there’s a huge swath of the country that can be really attracted to who we are and how we’re positioned and what we do. And so understanding those audiences, prioritizing those audiences, and now, these days, going to them on their terms is what’s so important to us. And so we talk a lot about the diversity of audiences that we have and who is this for and what are we trying to achieve. What are the attitudes, the beliefs, the behaviors that we are trying to create with that target audience and making sure along the way that it is focused and that it shouldn’t alienate others, but it may not be for others and that’s okay.

Bennie

Right, right. Well, talk a bit about when you’re a student and you find this unexpected home. You know, one thing that’s really powerful about Texas A&M is it feels like home. But as you said before, it feels like home for 90 % of those who are Texans. So what happens when students come in from outside and find themselves in this new experience that feels a bit like home?

Ethan

Yeah, this place is incredible. It has a spirit. It has a bond and a common tissue that is just a common thread that’s just evident. And it is. It’s special and it’s spiritual. And I’ll tell you a couple of things about that that I think are so interesting. So one, we did market research a couple of years ago and used a firm that I love in Chicago called Brand Trust. And they sent wonderful researchers to work with us who were not Texan. And when they gave us their output one of the things that one of the researchers shared with us is she said, I’ve never done research with an organization. And she had worked with Morton’s and Ram Trucks and Jack Daniels and others. But she said, I’ve never worked with an organization where the respondents use the word cult as much as yours did. And most of the time when they said it, they actually meant it in a positive way. And so that can at times be the stereotype of this place. But in many respects, I see it as a really good thing. And I’ll give you an example why.

Bennie

Ha ha. Right.

Ethan

So there is a term here for people that don’t buy fully in, that don’t go to all of the ceremonies or don’t go to the football game or maybe don’t wear all of the Aggie garb that you see on me from head to toe. And the term is a two percenter. It’s a person that didn’t completely buy in. And I haven’t heard anybody say it this way. Maybe it’s novel, I don’t know. But what I like to share with people is I think that’s really special because I think it’s true. I think it’s actually about 2% that don’t do that, right? Which means the other 98 have found a home here, have found a connection here, feel like they fit, feel like they belong, find an organization to be a part of, and thrive and contribute, and don’t just get education, they get understanding. And it’s a reason why about 85% of our undergrads get their class ring. Getting your Aggie ring here is a bigger deal than getting your degree. We’re the biggest customer of Balfour by like four or five X because all of our students want that affiliation and they want that common bond moving forward. And so the thing about Colt here that I think is so interesting is you might see some things on TV or you might hear some terms like fish camp or whatever it may be, howdy week, et cetera, are vernacular. But as much as I want to share that with the world on their terms and I don’t want that to scare them away.

What I’ve learned is all of these are incredible, thoughtful experiences to create community and bond and belonging in those students that carries with them for a lifetime. And I think it does that as well as any organization or university I’ve ever seen before. And so whether you came from Connecticut or you come from Denton, when you get here, you’re an Aggie and you’re surrounded with Aggies. And the idea is us, not me. And that’s a powerful connection for the rest of that young man or young woman’s life.

Bennie

So in keeping with this connection, I’m gonna ask you a question about swag. My friend, you’re a chief swag officer. What’s your favorite piece of Texas A&M merch these days? We’re getting ready into big game this weekend. You’ve seen it all. What’s your favorite piece of merch, my friend?

Ethan

You’re gonna get me in trouble with all of our licensees and partners here because I can’t list them all off at once But I’ll speak to some of our most late our latest ones that I’m really excited about So I am you pretty much will never see me in something other than a poncho shirt I love their apparel and we’ve been lucky enough to partner with them this past year on licensed gear for Texas A&M University. I think they’re just unbelievable shirts, their long sleeves or short sleeves, their corduroy, their flannel, their denim, they’re just an unbelievable company. I love them to death. We give them out. My wife will tell you I’ve got too many hanging in the closet. And you’re just seeing them all over not only Texas, but in general. They’re just a wonderful piece of apparel. And I love their company. And then the other one that’s been novel to me, because I never had one until I got here, is we’ve got this incredible new partnership with Stetson. We were the first university that Stetson partnered with on a collegiate collection of felt hats, felt cowboy hats.

So I got this beautiful black felt Stetson Aggie cowboy hat and I got to wear it. It’s like Clark Kent turning into Superman, man. I put that thing on and it’s a great feeling. So I’m really proud of the work that our licensing team has done and the draw, the magnet that we are for great partners. But those are two of the licensees, two of the partners that we’ve acquired in the last six months or so that

Bennie

That seems just right, my friend. That seems right.

Ethan

I think it really gives our Aggies something to wear and be really proud of.

Bennie

So I’m going to ask, you’ve been noted as really a kind of ground breaker in university marketing, both at Texas A&M and Purdue. I’m going to ask the question, you know, you do, you said from the beginning, you get this unique benefit by having a gravity there at Texas A&M that enrollment is not a challenge for your space to kind of break through. There are other things that you’re looking to break through on. What advice do you have to other university marketing leaders who may not have that embarrassment of riches, who are looking to break through?

Ethan

Yeah, I think you’re right. My first piece of advice to them is usually, you have a decision to make as to where you go, first of all. So choose wisely. And the reality is we’re all getting the headhunter emails routinely of the 4,000 universities out there that at least most or some need a great marketer. So you have a lot of choice. Choose wisely. Go where there is the clay to mold something incredibly beautiful.

But I think it’s the universities, and it doesn’t mean you have to be Texas A&M University, but it’s those that have a really clear sense of identity and positioning and distinction and their mission that are then able to then bring that to audiences. We’re really clear here now about who we are and what we stand for and the difference we want to make in the world and what it means to be in character. And as a result, I believe that in understanding or having that market orientation here, that there’s a bunch of folks out there that are not Aggies that aren’t necessarily gonna come attend school or teach for us necessarily, but that would align with and respect and even be enchanted by that mission, that purpose that we have. And so I think for all marketers, it’s get to that, right? Get deep in that, spend the time on it, do the hard work to get there strategically versus just the flashy tactics, et cetera. And then once you understand that, own that and take that to market powerfully, unapologetically, and lobby for the resources and the talent and the time that you need to go out and make a ding in a really complicated, really crowded, really noisy world of higher ed, because they can stand out. And there are universities out there that I think have a beautiful positioning, understanding something about them that is unique and it’s not commoditized the way that so many are. I mean, you can look at our billboards around towns all across America and most times I can take one’s tagline and move it to another and it wouldn’t have made a difference. So do you have something that is, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re completely unique but is it distinct? And how do you bring that to market and make sure that it’s something the world wants and if they do, give it to them, give it to them with boldness and confidence and authenticity and just be a, have a hell of a lot of fun as a marketer bringing it to market.

Bennie

Right. You know, we talked about you having an incredible product in everything that the university represents, but going from this kind of lack of understanding, lack of exposure, to now being recognized as one of the most noteworthy public universities in the country. What’s interesting is your work didn’t change, but the way you positioned the story did.

Ethan

Yeah. Yeah, what changed is, yes, the storytelling, I think, went from insular to authentic and empathetic with the idea that I want the outside world to understand us and to be enchanted by us and to respect us and to demand us in a way that in the past we may have said, stay out. We may have said, you don’t get the inside joke. You don’t have the ring. You don’t understand our vernacular. And we don’t really care.

We deeply care. We deeply care because we can’t have the impact that we have, that we’re capable of having if we approach outsiders, non-Aggies, et cetera, that way. And so I think one, our locus or our orientation has changed, which is national reputation, national conversation, this empathetic understanding of wanting to bring a new introduction to A to the world. was number one. And then two, in the past, we weren’t really a marketing juggernaut. We were mostly a customer service center to a university making tactics. That’s not what gets me excited. Doing bold things on behalf of the cream of the crop of this place and taking it to the masses, having the reach, the relevance, and the recall that we need to have that impact is the marketing fundamentals and the discipline and thus the resources and the brawn that we’ve needed to share that message broadly that otherwise was captured like largely here and stuck here in College Station.

Bennie

So talk to me a bit about that evolution. I can imagine that, as you said, marketing in the past was competent, but service-driven, in service of things happening, not boldly leading in this space. And you come in with a different vision that says Texas A&M is more and can show up as more. What were the initial reactions like?

Ethan

Yeah, I mean, I go back again. I like to think about upstream versus downstream. So again, I made the decision to come here with some understanding that there was a relatively common and strong appetite for a marketer like myself that this place said, we want to share our story powerfully and together to the world. And we just haven’t before. So I had the right clay again in that regard. That was a big deal. 

I think the other piece was really just coming down here and having the confidence of my leader with the assurance of the autonomy and the resources and the support and the ability to take some risk. Now, that has to be gained and that has to be earned and that has to be reinforced and it has to be proven. And that’s a flywheel. But my leader and my president coming down here said at one point in time, we don’t know what great marketing looks like. We don’t know what great marketing takes and we don’t know what it costs, but you do.

And so to have that sort of trust and sponsorship to come down here and run my play and then get the troops behind you, right? Inspire a shared vision of what that can look like and then give them some tastes of success, which, you know, sales or wins cure all. They do that once and they say, I wanna feel that again and I wanna feel it again, right? It’s very intoxicating. So we wanted to give them quick wins of what great looked like and then we wanna go double up and double up.

Bennie

Right. Right. Great.

Ethan

Again and again and again, but the last thing I’ll tell you and anybody’s heard my podcast in the past can tune out when I say this because I’ll say you’ve said this ten times but it’s it’s universal to me and that is so many universities in particular but marketing organizations in general are often the driven by the demands and the requests of somebody else and I’ve always said that I want to help us pivot and evolve from being the driven to the driver and that’s what we are now we’re the driver of the Texas A&M University brand and we’re the driver of that movement of the faculty of the staff of the students and telling that story universally and powerfully together so that what you hear is this wonderful symphony of the impact and the individuals of this special place.

Bennie

So how did it feel to wake up the day to realize that your football success on the field wasn’t always the lead story for Texas A&M now?

Ethan

Well, it’s still probably the lead story most days. And I’m perfectly happy with that. Coach Elko is doing an unbelievable job. My dear friend Trev Alberts as our athletic director has assembled an incredible operation there and across many other sports, including watching our ladies volleyball team tonight in the semifinals against Pitt on ESPN after upsetting number one Nebraska this past weekend. So we got so much to be proud of. But what I love is this combination of

Bennie

Yeah. Yes. Right.

Ethan

the athletics and the academic or research or service attention. We should be a blend, right? We can be great at both, and a few universities are. And so whether it’s the Fast Company Honors or whether it’s Wall Street Journal, or it’s the amazing breakthroughs that literally every day I come into the office and I see between 200 and 500 earned media hits overnight, every single day, about the incredible people doing incredible things, making an impact out in the world.

Just in the past that wasn’t getting the same attention and so there is a balance We can be spoiled in both domains and athletics is the front door to so many to come here But we’re so much more than that and so I want to get I want the world and I want an individual audience member to see all of that and Say I had no idea. my gosh, you’re curing cancer and you’re growing protein on the moon and you have this unbelievable football team or equestrian team or baseball team or you name it?

Bennie

Right. Right. You know, you’re right. You see it, you know, we’ve seen it when we talk about this. You see it in the portfolio of the work. So yes, we’re in the middle of football championship season. We’re going to talk about college athletics, but you’re also working on AI driven flood prediction, right? And working, breaking ground on a new Alzheimer’s research space, right? All of that, those things are all simultaneously true.

Ethan

Yeah, with 4,300 faculty, right, there are just incredibly impactful, cool, exciting, hopeful things happening all over the corners of this campus. And that’s the clay again, right? That’s what I get to play with on a daily basis. I’m not creating. We’ve got all these experts, and they’ve long been experts. We’re now giving them the platform and the microphone and the avenue to share those stories and for others to share their stories. And that’s what’s so much fun is we just have so much to work with.

That can be, you know, that you can create confusion that way. We are spoiled, but we could also be scattered. And so we do have to focus in the areas that we want to be preeminent, like national security, like space, et cetera. But no, there’s good things happening all across the corners of this giant university. And that’s why I think one of our value propositions or one of the offerings is that the impact that we can make at scale, we can make a huge difference in hypersonics or semiconductors or Alzheimer’s or or rural healthcare for that matter, because we’re working with 80,000 students and 4,300 faculty, not 10,000, right? Come recruit for my 23,000 engineers if you wanna make a big dent in one of the most pressing issues for the nation.

Bennie

Right. Hmm, but let’s talk a bit about, you know, platforms and distribution. One of the things that you did is you radically overhauled your YouTube strategy. So we’re going to be pragmatic for a second. We’ll talk about it in space where we all have access to YouTube, but we don’t all have access to strategy. So talk a bit about, you know, your approach in this past year, year and a half to your YouTube strategy.

Ethan

Yeah, we did a similar thing at Purdue, and we were, in a way, forced to because it was when COVID hit. Many campuses will say, and I’m sure many organizations will say, and many cities will say, well, if we just get them here, we win them. Just get them to campus, or just get them to walk through the doors of our company, and that employee is going to become an employee. That happened to us at Purdue with COVID, where we said, well, now students can’t come to campus and their avenue to learn about us and experience us and determine their fit and make the most important decision they’ve ever made in their lives at that point, which is where do I go to college, is going to be largely made now virtually. And so we overhauled not only our approach, but our content and the configuration and our sophistication with YouTube. And so I brought that down here. And when I got here, I was surprised to find it was a place that was largely ignoring and neglecting YouTube.

It was largely ignoring and neglecting video storytelling, which would be like a merchant ignoring Amazon. You do that at your own peril. And so one of the things I said from the very beginning was we’re going to go from what we are to a video storytelling juggernaut. And that is a place we will invest in the hiring and the training and the accessing and the distributing and the resourcing to be excellent at. And so we’ve done that. And we’re getting there. And that’s a journey. And we’re nowhere close to where we will be in time. But we’re getting better by the day.

But the other piece was then really working with YouTube and understanding the platform and their ABCDs to say, this isn’t just art. This isn’t just your gallery, right? There is a science to this. And we need to design our video storytelling to succeed on YouTube. We need to organize and thumbnail and distribute and pay to be effective on the platform. So now you speak to the results. When I got down here, the year of YouTube views that we were having at that point in time was 336,000 views of our content.

And we’d had one video in our 15 years on the platform that had ever amassed a million views. This past year, we had 80 million views of our content. 88% of those views took place outside the state of Texas. We’re seeing 85 to 90% average view durations. And we have 23 videos now, just in the last year, that we’ve produced and placed on YouTube that have amassed at least a million views each. So we’ve transformed our commitment and our understanding and our excitement for video storytelling and YouTube as such important delivery vehicle to hearts and minds and eyeballs nationwide and globally.

Bennie

So in that, what’s been the most surprising success video? We all have the videos that we know are gonna hit, but then there is always that one that we didn’t see coming and it’s in our portfolio and it’s the little truck that could in this space. But what video in your portfolio has really kind of outperformed your thoughts or expectations?

Ethan

Well, give me two, because I think one’s worth telling, and the other will directly answer your question. I think the first one is, we can tell incredible stories about some of the more basic kind of kitchen table economic subjects if you tell it well and you capture the viewer with an intrigue and an interest and a what’s in it for them.

And so I think of Professor Mark Benden, for instance, and some of the work and the storytelling that we’ve done with him relative to standing desks and the impact that standing desks can have on employees or students, right, who are fidgety and tired of sitting all day, and the impact, for instance, that standing desks can have in the classroom on their cohesion and their understanding and their behavior in the classroom and the impact that can have on education. And so I think it’s… It’s cool to find some of these nuggets where it’s relatively simple or maybe it’s traditional at this point in time to think about, I shouldn’t sit all day. I should stand. But good storytelling brings that to life. But I will say real quick that my favorite story in this respect is that when we launched last year’s commercial, never having had a video that had amassed over a million views, I told the team we were launching it on a Thursday, the Thursday of Labor Day weekend or before. And I said by Tuesday, so the day after Labor Day, I want a million views of it. And they thought I was crazy.

Bennie

Right.

Ethan

And I said, well, there’s this thing called the Reach Planner with YouTube. And so go back and tell me how much money do you need so that we can put some paid behind it and achieve a million views by Tuesday? They came back and they said, we need X amount. I said, here it is. Go. What’s so cool is that the planner told us with X amount of dollars, we could expect 850,000 to a million two in views. We got over six million views on that initial investment. 6X what it expected us to get. And so I’ve said, yes, we will pay for the click, but it’s the content that keeps them consuming it, consuming it 85% of the way to the finish. And in that respect, got us 6X of the views that we thought we were going to get for that investment. And that’s just beautiful storytelling that hits hearts and minds. And so the success of that commercial from last year, now with 25 million views on YouTube, 80 million on TV, that’s one of our our favorite pieces that we’ve created and that was my team in Texas Filmworks to put that together.

Bennie

Excellent. So if you were to give some advice to Ethan when you first stepped on Purdue’s campus as a high-rate marketer, what would it be?

Ethan

I think any time you go from a place that has such an expertise and a commitment and a common language and a muscle in marketing, like an Eli Lilly and company, and you go almost anywhere else, but in particular, a university campus. I came on there with a lot of corporate speak. I came on there with a lot of energy and expectations. I was hitting a different tennis ball than necessarily those that were returning it.

And it was my previous president here, Mark Welsh, who gave me advice at one point in time when I got here. So, right, I’ve been in the space five years and I still haven’t learned this completely. But he said, hey, this is a place where sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. And one of the things I’m coaching our team on more than anything these days, especially our new hires, is how important it is to learn how to work within the system and how important it is in a place like this that you get most things done through other people.

And so really understanding our systems, our finance, our procurement, our vendors, our project management, like mastering that to be the most effective and not being a complete asshole in the process, but actually working well with your colleagues and bringing them along instead of bulldozing them has been really important. I think this is a, know, this in Texas in general is a place where influence without authority, warmth, relationship, care go a long ways. And I probably didn’t have all of that the minute I stepped on the campus at Purdue.

Bennie

But you’ve learned, friend.

Ethan

I’m learning. I’m always in process.

Bennie

Wow. So what’s next for you on Horizon? What are you excited about for this upcoming year?

Ethan

We just have so much, you know, I have a whiteboard to my right. And for one reason or another, it was in mid summer. I just wrote the date three years out from now. And so it says July 1st, 2028. And it was something I learned at Purdue, but it’s just this idea. And I remember, can’t remember who it was attributed to, but it’s in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. But it was an individual who said like, anytime I look back far enough at my work, I’m allergic to it. I’m disgusted by it. And there’s an insight there, and there is, I think there’s a reality there of like, the work we’re doing today will pale in comparison to the work that we’re doing in three years. And so when we got to Purdue, we were celebrating videos that were achieving 100,000 views or 150,000 and taking them to President Daniels. And then we amassed a million and we went, oh my gosh, are you kidding? A million, and it was 20 million and it was 50 million, right? What I’m excited about is just the continued development of this team to be the most capable and competent and confident and expert and excellent group to do justice to the special place and to tell these stories and more and more of them effectively and efficiently in novel ways to just have more and more impact. Our presence this year at South By will be, you know, 2X, 3X what it was last year. Our thoughtfulness and the story that we’re gonna tell in our motorsports partnerships that we have this coming year. I’m so excited about it. They just fit and they feel and they’re just gonna do so much better than what we’ve done in the past. Our work with Fast Company, same thing. The storytelling there, the opportunity there, the stages that we’re gonna put our experts on, the way we’re gonna tell their stories, the partners that we have now with Dude Perfect and Buc-E’s and Poncho and others. Every day we just kinda come in and we row hard and we create compound interest and we look back a year later and go, my gosh, we’re so much further down the field. So I’m looking forward to what this is gonna feel like in a year from now when the team is that much better at doing this place the justice it deserves.

Bennie

Well, you know, I think that answer alone has earned you an invitation back, my friend. So what I want to do is, yeah, let’s get together a year from now and we’ll do that reflection again. What have we learned? We’re regrown and having that moment of surprise that we thought a million was good.

Ethan

Hmm. I would love that. Right now I’d love that.

Bennie

A year from now. Yeah, man, let’s have that. And I’m inviting myself to be a part of your experience at South by Southwest. We’ll be there. You know, I want to get a chance to fill this in person.

Ethan

Please, we have an incredible opportunity. Hey, you know what, on that, please do, the presence we’re gonna have at South By this year is gonna be awesome. And it was great last year, but it’s nothing like what we have cooked for this coming year. And I will say, we went to AMA and higher ed most recently in DC, and we take a big group. I’ve done this for years. I think it’s really quality to have them exposed to other universities, to have the team building that they experience by going in mass and getting exposed also to the great vendors that are there, we always bring back some new connection. But I’ve had it a couple times where if you send a good team to a meeting like that, they come back with their chests out a little bit. They come back saying, hey, we’re pretty damn good. And what I like to remind them of is the quotation from Yellowstone where Rip tells Beth, Beth, there’s always a bigger bear.

And so we can never get complacent. Anytime, as Jim Collins says, you think you’re great, you’re on the pathway to mediocrity. That’s the strive that we have here is just to continue to get after it each and every day, believing we can get better. And so that would be fun. I’d love to come back and have to digest what I’m saying to you right now, a year from now, and how probably bad it was, but reflect on the year and what we’ve done.

Bennie

Yes.

Ethan

And where we started with you, that would be a real treat. And you are absolutely invited to everything we do at South By and anywhere else we go.

Bennie

I will be there and I can’t wait for us to continue this conversation. This is the fun of these conversations. We get to be perfectly imperfect as we build for better and we’ll keep an eye out for these bigger bears, my friend.

Ethan

All that. Absolutely, they’re out there and there’s some great marketers in this space included that are big bears doing incredible work on our both at our residential colleges and as well as our the online universities have great marketers at them. So there’s always a bigger bear.

Bennie

Well, I just want to take this moment to just thank you for being a part of the podcast. We’ve been looking forward to getting together for a long time, and I’m really excited to have you here with all of the great work you’ve been doing, the energy, the vision, and the recommitment to the mission that was already there for Texas A&M, As I said before, being a top university is important, but being a top university for good, I think, is even better.

Ethan

I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Bennie

And thank you for your support and the team being there for AMA Higher Ed. And just open us up to share some of this insight that I know will be invaluable to our higher ed marketers and our marketers who are growing and leading. Ethan, thank you, good sir. Have a great weekend. All the best and success to you and the teams.

Ethan

Thanks, Bennie. I really appreciate it. And beat the hell out of Miami this weekend.

Bennie

And on that note, thank you all for joining us for this episode of AMAs Marketing / And.