Does Higher Ed Have a Peacock Problem?
I’ve long suspected those of us in higher ed have sold our signal short.
As Faris Yakob’s recent WARC article clearly articulates, there’s a need to re-examine our media decisions amid a continued loss of advertising signals and consumer confidence.
“Advertisers that have gone all-in on performance media have essentially abandoned the signaling value of media, in exchange for better signals they use to target it. Unfortunately, or perhaps not, those signals are about to get much, much harder to see.”
If we are at an intersection of a constricting category and a decline in perceived value, shouldn’t we seek to invest in media that creates a stronger sense of shared understanding?
We know that media’s contribution to brand building is through perceived cost (fitness/cost signalling) and collective knowledge, yet, college search campaigns, lead gen, and ‘black box’ solutions like Performance Max dominate. We treat our audience more as a means to a click than co-creating meaning of the institution.
In a recent report by EssenceMediacom and Burst Your Bubble, researchers examined the role of media channel on perception of the brand. And while research like this helps to close the gap between reach and impact, it should also begin to create the necessary dialogue around building better relationships with our audiences.
As the price of performance media increases, we need to ask ourselves is the price worth the subpar signals? Or better yet, when establishing trust, what are the media choices and context we place our ads in signaling?
