So the starting gun has been fired on what is being billed as the closest General Election for 36 years – and there seems little doubt that Education will at least get a mention, for the first time really since another young man with excellent presentational skills referred to it (in triplicate, no less) on the 1997 hustings.

 

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With HE making headlines about funding cuts, FE can easily be overlooked. Yet this sector drives the economy by providing skilled technicians and that's what most companies want.  Funding is also tight for FE, and leaders in the sector will have to learn the lessons others have learned before them.  Apart from the miserable business of cost cutting, there are a number of pro-active steps which can be taken and which can lighten the gloom. 

Is branding still important? Most certainly, yes. Stakeholders have to understand what a college is all about, what its core brand values are, what it stands for, what benefits it brings to stakeholders. New college structures will undoubtedly emerge, as a result not just of mergers, but of the formation of federations and other groupings and the need for powerful branding which presses the right buttons with employers and stimulates them to pay for training will be paramount.

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I’ve just returned, with two of my colleagues (Gabrielle Golding and Arabella Arthy) from the (FE) College Marketing Network Conference in Coventry. It was the first time I’ve been to an FE gathering, and you can’t help but be impressed with the enthusiasm and drive – and as the photo shows, we all worked very hard!

More seriously, it seemed to me that a key theme of the Conference was Employer Engagement, an area where I believe Colleges are, by and large, ahead of universities in terms of the importance they place on this area. Both financially and in terms of their mission, it is much more critical for them, but one wonders whether, given the way the political tide is flowing, HEIs might not find themselves having to play catch up before too long. Of course some universities, for example Warwick or Hertfordshire, have been fully engaged with the business community for a long time now, but that certainly isn’t true of the majority.

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Well, here goes, my first ever blog. Time, I guess, for me to join the 21st century.

Last December, Ian Rowley (Director of Development, Communications and Strategy at the University of Warwick) and I gave a talk at the CASE Asia-Pacific Conference in Hong Kong. It was entitled “The Perfect Storm” and was about the confluence of trends in demographics, globalisation/competition, finance, and technology, leading inexorably to a vision of a small number of elite campus based institutions whilst everyone else sat at home studying in front of their computers. Needless to say, the white knight riding to the rescue was called Branding, on his trusty steed Marketing.

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We are delighted to announce that as of July 6th, Martin Bojam is joining 360 Education as Managing Partner. Martin was, until recently, Deputy Chairman of JWT Education, providing market research, brand development and marketing communications for education institutions of all kinds on a global basis, and is looking forward to building a similar practice at 360.

Martin has over 10 years experience in the education sector and works across the spectrum of British education, from universities, FE Colleges and business schools to independent schools and organisations such as the British Council.  He has collaborated with many industry bodies such as CASE, NAFSA, English UK and AMBA, and has spoken at many of their conferences, in the UK and elsewhere.

A graduate of LSE, Martin started his career in fmcg marketing before moving to work in a number of marketing and advertising agencies, specialising in strategically based solutions to communications problems.  He has considerable experience in the market research and consultancy fields.

"I'm tremendously excited to be joining a group of highly experienced professionals, who really understand how to apply marketing thinking to real world problems. Education is my passion, and I am very confident that at 360 Education we have an immensely attractive offer for the sector, as it enters a period of unparalleled threats and opportunities."