Episode 10 - The Perception Cliff, the Trajectory of Streaming, and the New Creepy Cool

We put up a billboard on this road because our president drives that way to work every day. And we need him to see it. And if he doesn't see it, and faculty don't see it, then they don't think we do anything on campus, right? You say what? Not as if people stopped doing that, and I don't believe that. That's true. [LAUGHTER] Hey, Mallory. Once the last time you were retargeted by an ad. I mean, this morning, you can't open up Instagram and not have an ad retarget you within about 30 seconds, but I'll tell you what, I am getting flooded with these really cute Mary Jane Sombos from Adidas. And I think I have probably seen at least five ads for them every day for the last five weeks. It's remarkable that I have held out this long and haven't bought them yet, but just wait. I am sure that by AMA, I will be wearing the Mary Jane Adidas Sombos. What about you? Oh, also shoes. The billiard brown suede oxfords. Absolutely gorgeous. I am going to be wearing those to AMA because I did buy them. We don't have-- I'm pretty sure that Instagram has realized exactly when I have the second martini every night. And those ads just pop up right at my weakest moments. And it's just quite wonderful. I look at Instagram and I say, "You know me so well." Oh, you hear me. Phone. 24/7. Wafly. And speaking of knowing someone well, we have the honor of welcoming Jen Longcar to higher ed icons. She has more than 20 years of experience, and she has spent her career challenging the status quo. She's done everything from pioneering digital marketing to leading higher education into the world of measurable performance TV, AI, and attribution. She is the co-founder of ambio.edu, and she partners with colleges and universities nationwide to rethink how enrollment marketing should work in a world where student behavior is changing faster than ever. She's candid. She's practical. She has a relentless focus on results. And she's just an amazingly authentic and terrific human being and we're thrilled to have her here today. And I know that Jen agrees that enrollment decisions form long before a student ever fills out a form, which is part of this entire episode and conversation with her. And that is the same premise our sponsor built a business on. On deck marketing keeps colleges visible where high school's decisions start, which is inside the school day. Their North American in-school network puts branded screens in high schools and runs digital channels that hold presents in feeder markets. So institutions are a familiar name before the search ever begins. You can learn more at on deck mktg.com. Well, is it time to chat with Jen? Oh, let's go. Let's go. You are an OG of digital. What's re-targeting? Isn't that kind of creepy? So I would love for you to talk to me about what it was like bringing digital to this industry. What were the hardest barriers to overcome? What were the biggest doubts that you had to push through? Yeah, so, well, I can't take all the credit and say it was just me, right? I was on the team at Carnegie that brought digital to higher ed. But we were a very small team at that time. So funny. Pitching that back then re-targeting, it seems like it's eons ago. And we used to have the most jenky PowerPoint decks that we would go and show that had these bubble people on them. And the big sell back then was that 98% of people would leave your website without doing something back then. And so in higher ed, we were saying, what if you could capture just 1% of those 98% that left? Would that have an impact on your numbers? And when they would think about it, they'd be like, well, yeah, obviously that would. And most people loved it. They didn't really understand it, but they loved the idea of it of being able to stay in front of students that came to their website. And it was so funny because every conversation was the same. You would start explaining it and you could just see this deer in the headlights look with people. And then you would say, we know how you go online and you go to, we would use this example all the time. You go to Zappos and then this pair of shoes follows you everywhere. I know it's just so funny. I'm like dating myself. The pair of shoes follows you everywhere. And they would be like, oh, yeah. And we'd be like, that's re-targeting. And they'd be like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, we can do that to students. Yeah, you can. But in a, you know, not an over-the-top way where you're beating them over the head with a hammer with your about your institution. But then you would get people-- and so most people, when you would say that and you would talk about it that way, most people were like, oh, that's really kind of creepy cool. We used to say creepy cool. And I still say creepy cool about a lot of the stuff that we're doing. But then you would occasionally get people that were like, ooh, that's big brother. I don't want to do that. I feel like, you know, that's really over the top and we don't like that. And we don't want to be part of a test case. And so it's really interesting because those schools that would say that back then are the ones that struggled for years after because they were late adopters on the digital movement, right? And the schools that did adopt started with re-targeting and adopted things early. They are the ones watching over the years that have continued to kind of be on the forefront of advertising in our industry. So yeah, that was the creepy thing was always, has always been the conversation, anything digital wise. And it's just getting creepier and creepier, right? Or creepier and cooler all at the same time. I don't know. I feel cooler, yeah. Every time I log into Instagram, I'm like, you know me so well. How did you know I didn't press by yet? And yes, I do need another backpack. A hundred percent. And it's listening to your conversations. Like, you know, and it's always been doing that from the very beginning. It's been doing that even though the platforms will tell you they don't. They absolutely do. How long, I mean, you said that it wasn't necessarily a hard sell for everyone, but how long did it take for it to become basic best practice in higher education? Or are there still institutions or like, I'm not doing that? Oh, so yeah, I would say it took, I think we went out with digital. I want to say in 2010, it was 2010. And it took a good three years before people really started adopting it. I mean, I remember we would get these small contracts in and just be like, yes. And then we'd get like a $20,000 contract and be like, oh my gosh, $20,000. And I think the first $100,000 contract that ever came in was like at least two years later. I mean, almost two years. It took a long time to get to that point. And there was one of the people I worked with did cartwheels down the hall because it was like so exciting. So it took a good three years of really pushing it for people to start really adopting digital. As I mean, back then, only like 20 to 23% of budgets were dedicated to digital marketing back then. I mean, think about it. Most schools were spending a lot of marketing on billboards. And so that was always a big thing. I would say to people too. And I think I wrote a blog about it a long time ago was that, you know, it's almost like having a billboard, retargeting is like having a billboard that kind of follows your audience and just, you know, like, imagine walking out the door of a student walking out the door of their home and there's a billboard now right in front of their house for your school because they were interested in you. And you can measure that, right? You can see that. So how about you take some of that money from those billboards where you can't measure anything. And then you put it into this and you test it out. And I think that was the big thing that really started moving the needle and then then social started to come into the picture. And then Google started to really come into the picture, right? And that changed everything when that started happening. Oh, we can do Facebook advertising and oh my gosh, Facebook is a marketer's dream because back then you could target based on anything you wanted. It was like, here you go. Here's everything about our audience. What do you want to do? And so I feel like once that sort of come about then it just changed everything and then you start getting IP targeting and geo fencing and all of the different things that, you know, we're now doing like no big deal anymore. Those were fun. It was fun times back then. I know. It's so like back then, back in the good old days. But really it was such, I'm so thankful I got to be part of that because riding that wave in our industry was so incredibly fun and cool. And I think anyone who was on that team with me back then that went through that from start to finish will tell you the same thing. Like it was just such a fun time. So do you remember any of your earliest campaigns that you launched like, do any standout? Yeah, actually. So one in particular, it was an international campaign for the University of Cincinnati. I still want to my favorite because I also love Charlie Schwartz shout out to him who now works at Carnegie, but was at Sincere for a long time. But he was like, okay, you've been recommended to me. I'm going to give you guys some money and we're going to test out retargeting to international students. And we actually presented on this. at two different conferences. It worked so well that they're on the ground recruiter. And I think it was Vietnam. I'm pretty sure it was in Vietnam. They're on the boots person who was there called and said, all right, I don't know what you're doing, but I literally have people walking in and applying because they said they're seeing us everywhere on the internet. - That's awesome. - It was so cool. And then they also had one of their students that they used in the ads. And she came home for the summer and was like a celebrity everywhere around Vietnam. Like everyone was like, oh, we see you online all the time. So yeah, that's one of my favorite stories that we could absolutely tie back to that. And then to, then so that what they did was they ran for like six months and I think they paused their campaign. I wanna say it was like January and their person on the ground actually called they were having a conversation. He's like, yeah, we were getting tons of applications and for some reason he's like it just kind of dried up and stopped and Charlie's like, that's when we stopped our campaign. So they had absolute great data to back up everything that we're doing. So yeah, we presented at CIS about that ones. I think we presented at International ACAC, maybe UNACA, I can't remember. But yes, since he was a good case study for a while around that. - So Jen, you talked about how exciting the time was when you were introducing digital with a small team to higher education. That to me sounds a lot like the dot com boom that a lot of us rode. And I'm just curious, is AI what bursts that bubble? - Yeah, interesting. That's super interesting question actually to think about. I don't think it's gonna burst the digital bubble. I think it's gonna change the digital bubble. It's gonna change what we've become used to. AI is almost, it's really funny. Actually, it's reframing it. Taking us back in time a little bit until what's old is new again. And I think that we got very, so back then, going back to like, when it was just retargeting, it was fresh and new. You know, the idea was to get people back to your website because that was your best content. That was where people learned about you. That was a foundation of everything. And I think somewhere along the line, we got away from that. And the website stayed there. And it still played an important part in the marketing. But we started getting away from that and driving people to landing pages and microsites and using paid search ads and taking them where we wanted to take them. And sometimes we were kind of forcing people down this, forcing this square peg in this round hole and sending people to places where they didn't necessarily, they couldn't get a lot of information from. Like a landing page, you couldn't really get a lot of information because I think everyone got so excited and so hung up on the measurement part of it that we forgot about the experience part of it and the experiential part of the whole process. And I think AI coming in is somewhat, it's changing that and it's shaping the narrative a little bit because it's taking us back to a time where people were allowing them to get the information that they want before they even get to the website, which is cool. But we're seeing paid search. Those long tail keywords and stuff are really kind of diminishing because people are getting their answers much sooner. So by the time they get to the site, they've already done their research. They've already got their answers a lot of time. They're either ready to request information or ready to apply. So I think we're seeing a resurgence of content being so important, not that it was ever not important, but I think now people are starting to focus on it a little bit more and not just keyword stuffing and things like that, but really content that is gonna be picked up in these AI answers. So in a way, where it's a little bit more nuanced, we're going back to some of that more organic being more important than that just shoving people down this funnel. And so I think schools are having to rethink while they're having to rethink content, they're having to rethink the role that their website plays in the journey with these students. So we're getting away from some of that more down funnel actions that we've been trying to push people into. So I don't think AI is gonna necessarily, it's not gonna get rid of digital or anything. I think it's gonna come in, it's going to change the way we do it. We have to be more thoughtful in the way we do it. We have to be more open-ended in the way we do things. It's going to change the abilities that we have to target people. We're gonna be able to layer in a lot and let AI take over on the back and then really go find the right people. So yeah, I'm really excited. I mean, AI plays is starting to come in and play such a pool role in what we're doing as marketers. I'm excited to see where it's gonna take us. It'll be interesting to see though because everybody's jumping into that swimming pool. Eventually that pool is gonna get really overfilled. And I think we're gonna see a natural selection of those that are doing a really good job with that rise to the top and those that are just in it to be in it are gonna kind of fade away. So it'll be fun to watch that trajectory over the next couple years. - But to clarify, you did say that the website is gonna be more important, right? - Yeah, I think the website, yeah, yes, the web is gonna be really important. And you know, funny enough, I mean, I've always felt, you know, your website is your strongest, that's your strongest tool. It always is because if you think about it, that hasn't changed anything. And I always, one thing I tell my clients all the time is you need to put yourself in the seat of the student or the seat of the consumer. And you need to go through the process because all of us are guilty of getting head down in our job and being very insular in the way we think about marketing. And we need to think about it from a bigger picture and put yourself through the paces, right? Of what are these students go through? And if you think about something, you see an ad for something, what is the first thing you do? You pick up your phone and you Google it or you search it, right? And you go to the website, that's not gonna change. So the website at the end of the day is still your best marketing tool. But now you have to think about all that content and how that's being pulled into these various places. You have to be more thoughtful about it. It can't just be this regurgitation of things that you have on PDFs that you're ending out. And it needs to be more thoughtful. It needs to be more question and answer oriented. So yes, Vult, it is very, very important. (laughing) - Thank you. - You know, I think that it is forcing us to remember our brand awareness strategies and tactics because if you show up in a AI chat and the student has no idea what your institution name is. I've never heard of it before. The first time they're hearing of it is when Claude is sending it as a response to what are the best science programs in a 30 mile radius of where I live. My suspicion is a student is going to be more likely to go to the website of the two or three institutions that they're actually familiar with. Maybe not the two or three that returned in that search result or AI result that they've never heard of before. And so this is leading me to ask you about streaming TV which is where, like your new venture, Jen, what is up with streaming TV? Where in the funnel is this positioned? And as somebody who clearly puts stakes in the ground around the new and the upcoming, is this that for the next era of AI search? - Yes, I mean, simple answer is yes. And outside of our industry, as you both know, we are late adopters to everything, right? And I like to say in the real world, outside of our higher ed bubble, even with the internet, even with web advertising, digital advertising, that was exploding outside of our industry. And we had to wait and the only thing we could adopt, it's not because we didn't want to adopt the other strategies, but the only thing we could afford as an industry back then was retargeting to start with, right? It was very expensive. And streaming has somewhat been the same. It has been exploding. It is one of the fastest growing places outside of higher education, 70% of marketers outside of our industry are moving their money to streaming. And so it was the decision to take this on and bring this to our industry. There were two things really that led to, that had to be like no brainers when I decided to do this, was number one, is it something we can afford, right? Because I'm not gonna take something out there to our industry and be like, this is such a great service and sell you on it and be like, it's only $1 million, Mallory. You would be like, yeah, Jen, okay, bye, peace out. So no, that was one of the first things was, we need to make this affordable for schools and all sizes of schools, not just the big universities, but also small, tiny niche schools. They have to do marketing too. So it needs to be affordable for everyone. And number two, it needs to be measurable for everyone. We need to be able to tie it back to ROI because budgets aren't getting any bigger and in order to add new and different services, you need to be able to measure it. And so, no dummy when it comes to all of that. So those were two big things for me. And we are doing that. And streaming though is following the exact same trajectory that digital followed. It has been wild. I am literally living back in 2010-2011 with us. Talking to schools about it, it's the same, I get the same creepy questions, I get the same, well it's TV, it's too expensive, does it even work, we can't measure it, we've tried it before and it didn't work. So I'm reliving that and as the adoption grows and as the proof plants grow, as clients use this and incorporate it into their marketing strategies and they see the results, it is taking off and people are like this is a no- this is a no-brainer. Like why- what took us along to do this? This is incredible. So it's very similar to digital and we do things a little bit different, we do, you know, we have AI incorporated into everything we do from the front end to- and building the audiences and going out and finding audiences wherever they're streaming to the optimization piece that's built into it. So being able to see what people are doing after they're exposed and are they going to the website or what pages are they visiting and then the platform optimizes based on that so that your budget is being spent on the right audience, finding people that look just like that. And then all the way through to the measurement piece at the end, we're able to tie back and world students actually back to the exposure to be able to say, yep, there is your whole list of students that saw your commercial and went to your website and took some kind of an action. So I get the creepy cool thing, you know, all the time with that, but it is, I think, in two years, I keep telling people in two years, we're going to be in a very different spot talking about this and to your point, the reason why Mallory is because I keep telling people that if you are waiting to reach out to students until they are already know who you are, you are late to the game. You're going to be late to the game because somebody else has gotten their brand in front of that student more than you have. And believe it or not, you probably hear this too. I mean, both of you is, I feel like there's this constant battle between branding and lead generation, branding and lead generation. Well, that's just branding and awareness. Well, that's just lead generation. And I keep trying to just be into everyone's heads, like branding is lead generation. People don't know who you are. They're not, they're not going to request information from you. They're not. And so this is a really nice tool because it does both. So it drives enrollment, it drives lead generation, but it also increases brand awareness and it's getting it at the household level, which is also something that's different because we've gotten so good over the years with digital, so refined in our targeting, so good with our targeting down to that student level, right, which is what everyone's wanted to do, except the problem is now that everybody's doing that. So the students are getting berated by messages all over the place. So we like to take a step back and say that the living room is the new quad and that's where conversations are starting around the dinner table. They're starting a living room in the car with siblings, with friends. And so just being present when people are living their lives and in a non-intrusive way is happens to be a tool that's working exceptionally well. Can you explain the mechanics of this to me as if I'm like five years old? Yeah, absolutely. So anytime you stream, if you're streaming, I mean, so think about this. I think this, when I say this to people, this is the thing that kind of causes the light bulb. Your TV on your wall is just another digital device in your house now. It's your phone on the wall, basically. You can't get a TV that's not a smart TV anymore. As soon as you plug it in, the first thing it asks you to do is connect to the Wi-Fi. And as soon as you do that, you are now connected, your TV is connected to every other device in your household. So anything you look at on your phone, anything you search for on your laptop informs what you're going to see on the TV. So now you know that you are seeing completely different commercials than your next-door neighbor is seeing. It's not, we are gone from the day of, you know, watching friends on Thursday night and everybody seeing the same commercial before that comes on. This is tailored to you. And I mean, you talk about creepy. The creepiest of creepy is with healthcare and pharma. And, you know, you go to the doctor and get a diagnosis and two days later, you're seeing ads all over the place for that same diagnosis and that medicine that you're being prescribed, right? And that's not a coincidence. So I think about it that way is that all of those things you're looking at, we can target by. So down to the household level, we can target by interest. We can target by any number of demographics. We can target by first party list data. We can target by mobile devices to identify households and putting commercials into those homes. And then what you're doing is we have all the different streaming providers into one place, into one DSP essentially. And so we load in all this audience data on the front end. And it's all real time bidding. You know, we're bidding on ads to get in front of them. But then also we're able to retarget them with commercials. So we can also retarget people that are coming to the site with commercials. So now you think about, you know, you're the billboards used to be, well, we put up a billboard on this road because our president drives that way to work every day. We need him to see it. And if he doesn't see it and faculty don't see it, then they don't think we do anything on campus, right? You say that as if people stopped doing that. And I don't believe that. Oh, there's a 1000% I'm still doing it. And it's so funny. Whenever I say that, a meeting, everyone's like, yeah, yeah, we've all got that billboard. Yeah, everybody. So I had a school this year. It was really funny. Retargeting from the website with commercials, right? That's just a very small part of the budget. But it's a really important piece is retargeting from the website because then what happens is your students, the current students see it, the board members see it, the president sees the faculty see it. I had one marketer tell me that she did a town hall and she said faculty are never excited about anything with marketing as you both know. And she said for the first time ever, they were like, oh my gosh, we're seeing commercials on TV for our school. And how can we do that for our programs and all these, she's like, it was the first time ever. They've been excited about anything. So there's a lot of little benefits you get to that too. But then most people's behavior is going to be to see that commercial. Most people are watching TV with their phones, sitting next to them or their computers. And they're going to Google, right? And they're going to go to the site. And the cool thing is is that we can trap that and see who's doing that. But then, you know, there's all there are things, hopefully, that the school is also doing. I mean, it's all part of the ecosystem. And that's what I tell everyone. Like what you're doing is, whenever you add streaming to the mix and it's going to amplify everything else you're doing 10 fold because it is increasing that brand awareness. It's creating that layer of credibility because there is something about seeing brands on TV that is increases brand affinity and brand credibility. And we just put out a big survey where we surveyed 2,000 high school students and asked them about their media consumption and what social platforms are they using? What platforms are they using in general? How often? And then we did ask them some streaming questions like, how does this make you feel when you see commercials on streaming? And they said it increases the way we feel about that brand and it builds trust. And I think that a lot of even enrollment, enrollment teams and marketing teams together tend to focus more on the action piece of things and in less about the building, the trust and the awareness and all of that when that really leads to what's over here at the other end with the action. So this is nice because it does both. It helps to do both. It's very exciting time. Did I do a good job as if you were a five-year-old? Yes. Yes. I feel very educated. So that works on me. So I hear my question because this sounds super exciting in the way that you explained it is really, really awesome. It sounds like it is like it's amazing how well it works. So I also know it took a year and a half for you to be convinced to do this. And you said that launching this was quote unquote jumping off a cliff with your eyes closed. Now you had already done this once before and you wrote the digital wave what took you so long to decide that you were going to ride the streaming wave? Well, it wasn't necessarily, well, I think okay. At the beginning I was a little skeptical about skeptical just like everybody else's about the streaming piece and because again, and this is I think why I can create such a argument for it because I was there and was also skeptical at the beginning when I started talking to my business partner about it. Is it too good to be true? Is it really going to work as well as they say it is? And, you know, yeah, it's working for all these big brands but is it going to do the same thing over here? And so that was a little bit scary. But my business partner is great. I have a lot of trust in him and so the conversation, you know, I trusted him. But I think it was more so what took me so long was really just the idea of going out on my own and do I have enough street cred in higher ed to do this, right? And because we all know that this industry is 150% built on relationships. [BLANK_AUDIO] I will go to the grave arguing with anybody who says differently. It is about the relationships you've built over time, your integrity behind that. And I think for me, I needed to remember, I was also not in a great place for the two years when this decision was being made in that, and I don't mean not in a great place, but I mean just the job that I was in at that point left me feeling very unfulfilled and doubting myself very much so. And so I was like, do I, can I really do this? Do I know what I'm doing? Are people really gonna believe me? Are they gonna want to do this? And so it took me a long time to get to a point where I was like, yeah, yeah, you know what you're doing? Yeah, you can do this, you can take it out there. And then I went to NACAC in October, well September of 23 and head business cards already made and was handing them out to people and was like, hey, this is what I'm doing in a couple weeks. I'm gonna be announcing this. And I think the reactions that I got from people really solidified that I'd made the right decision. And ever since then, it has been just the best two and a half years of my life, the most exhausting two and a half years in my life, but that absolutely some of the most rewarding times of my life because it's been such a fun way to ride. True story, everyone I know knows you and loves you. I mean, it worked. Amazing, I'm like, oh yeah, I was talking with this client. You're like, oh, Sully and I'm like, you know Sully? I mean, you've heard from your single client I've talked about. You're like, oh yeah, I just chatted with them. I've worked with them for years. You are a legend in the industry. So it totally makes sense that you are loving this and doing incredibly well out on your own. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. And like I said, I struggle with imposter syndrome, like so many of us, I think. And I struggle with it. A lot has been something that I've always struggled with. So hearing that makes me feel really good. And sometimes I'll be talking about things. And it's like I'm almost having an out of body experience like listening to myself talk. I'm like, wow, you really do know what you're talking about. You have learned a lot of things over the years. Like you're kind of smart sometimes. So it's funny. But I talked to a lot of other-- I think one of the biggest things I got when I started this was from a lot of women who reached out to me, specifically, and said, holy cow, this is impressive and awesome. And such a motivator for me. And we don't have a lot of women, business owners, and higher education. And the fact that you're doing this is so motivating and so inspirational. And that I love. That literally is great. If I can be a mentor for you, if I can help you, and I am one of-- and Bolt knows this, because he knows me really well. I'm one of the most candid people, and very honest people about the way I feel about things. And well, sometimes to a fault. But yeah, I'm happy to help you. I'm happy to tell you my struggles, but I went through how I overcame them all of the things, because if someone is thinking about going out on their own and starting their own business, it is very scary. And it really is jumping off of a cliff of your eye shut, because you don't know. I mean, you could take, you know? But at the same time, I also know how I am. And if I set my mind to something like I usually don't fail. So I'll find a way. This is going to work. It's going to work. [LAUGHTER] We're going to make it work. You know, the parallels between what you did with this industry and digital and now what you're looking to do with streaming. There's so many parallels, but one of the biggest differences is that the first time around, you were doing this from within an organization. And now it's like your name is on it, right? It's your organization. For you, what are the differences? Yeah, well, OK. So first and foremost, over the last almost 20 years I've been doing this, I've taken the things that I loved that worked really well. And I've been trying to adopt those at Ambo. And the things that I know didn't work really well in the past. The great thing is is that I have those lessons learned and making sure that those lessons, those things, don't happen again. But part of it is surrounding myself with really good and smart people. And I have to give a shout out to my team because the team that I've built is incredible. And I've handpicked everybody that's on my team because of different strengths that they have and things that they've done over the years. And if I've worked with them in the past or they were clients or they were colleagues or whatever it is, but major shout out to them because with Ambo wouldn't be Ambo without the people behind it. So it can't just be me. I can only do so much. But definitely having your name attached to something is scary and being like, if this doesn't go well, this is on me. If this goes well, it's on me. If it doesn't go well, it's on me. That's a scary thing to have. So we need to make sure it goes well. So I think my team, we constantly have conversations about how can we be better and how do we stay on top of everything. So even as we grow, our clients don't feel that. And they always feel like they're important and that we're staying on top of that. So that is, I think, a really key thing that is important to me is staying in front of that growth. And we are having a lot of growth. We're doing great. Things are going really well. And the clients that are working with us are super happy. We have a 95% renewal rate, which is amazing. Two grand in the industry. Thanks. So I think it's really important to stay on top of that. And I think along the way, one of the most important things to me is I will always go to bat for my clients. And I've always been like that. No matter what, I will always go to bat for you and fight for you to help you keep your doors open and to help keep butts in seats. And at the end of the day, how you get there, if you get there and you give all the credit to somebody else, but we were a part of that. And we help drive it. I'm fine with that. As long as you bring us on, and we can continue to help you do that and be successful. And you want to give credit to Google or whatever. That's fine. I'll give you all the proof points that I can to show that we're making a difference. But at the end of the day, all I care about is that you're making your class and you're keeping your doors open and your president is happy with what you're doing. So the other thing is, too, like we do have agency partners that we work with. And that's one of the things that I actually love doing is partnering with other agencies. So I tell schools, even though we're a full service agency, we don't have to do all of it. We can come in and just do the streaming piece if you want. Or we can do streaming and audio streaming or streaming and social, whatever you want. If you're working with another agency that you're super happy with, let us come in and collaborate with that. We play nice in the sandbox with everybody. And I think that's something that gets lost a lot in our industry. When it comes to other agencies, not necessarily wanting to partner with anybody else, because you're feeling like someone's going to come in and take your ball or whatever. I don't know. But at the end of the day, what's best for the client? What's best for the school? Yeah. Because that's the most important thing. I am curious, because this is a term that you coined. How are you helping schools combat the perception cliff? Tell us a little bit about that and how your work helps to deal with that. Yeah. So again, won't take 100% credit for that. That term came out of a podcast, the Vine Down that I did with Emily Smith at College Vine. She and I were going back and forth about the changing of perception. I think that's when that term got coined. But it's real. And I think the biggest thing for us is all we've been talking about is the enrollment cliff. For the last-- gosh, I don't even know how long, five, years, six years, whatever. And that is quantifiable information. You can track that. You can track the demographic shifts and everything like that. But what's been silently happening over the last probably eight years, six years, maybe seven, eight years, is this changing of perception of higher education in general. It's the sweeping movement across our country that higher ed, that colleges and universities, you don't need a degree. You don't need a degree. It's too expensive. The payout's not there. You don't need it. And that is the part that you can't quantify. And so that is the part that I think is going to come in. And everybody's going to say, well, I've been doing all the right things. And I've gotten into new demographic areas. And I'm targeting all the right people and the numbers should line up, but they're not. And that's when that's going to come in because we are seeing that lack of support from outside of our industry. And I think as an industry, we need to do something to combat it. And come together collectively. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't. And I have talked to so many people about, like, how do we do this? But I think collectively, we need to come up with a way to advertise to the masses just about getting a college education. And whether you go to a community college or you go to a vocational college or do you go to a four-year institution, you need to be a lifelong learner, right? Being a lifelong learner and-- getting a degree. And I also think the thing is too that we students learn and live so much at college, the experience, right, that you just learn about life. There's so much more you learn about yourself, you learn about life. It's much more than just a degree and a program. And I don't think we talk about that enough as an industry. I think we forget to talk about that. It fundamentally will change who you are as an individual. And your experiences and you'll meet friends for life and you could meet your significant other. And you know, like there's so many things that we don't talk about that happen outside of just going to class and getting a degree. So I think the perception cliff is a scary thing that we're not doing enough to combat it. And it's not going anywhere. And can I ask like your opinion on what an actual real coordinated response would look like industry-wide? Because there are a couple examples of attempts at coordinated responses out there right now. And I mean, maybe my hot take is like I'm not seeing the needle move. So I don't know is it the response like needs to be better? Is it there needs to be more coordination? Like I don't know what the solution is. So I'm asking you. Yeah, I think it needs to come. Well, it's going to have to come from, it's going to have to come higher up, right? If it's coming from like governance. And you know, I can't say the Department of Education anymore. But somewhere, it's going to have to come from somewhere. I know the Tennessee Board of Regents did something a couple years ago and they did a statewide collab where they had other state institutions all kicked in like a little bit of money. And they came up with a statewide marketing campaign to promote education in general. Just go to college. And it wasn't about the school. It wasn't about any of the schools in particular. It was just focused at students in the state to get them to go to continue their education. And I think it's going to have to be a collective effort. And I don't know. Like there's been ideas we've floated around. And I've had various conversations with people about like, well, what if every school kicked in a small amount of money? And it could be not, it really wouldn't even have to be that big if everyone kicked in a little bit of marketing money. And it went into like a pool with just a higher education fund pool that funded this nationwide marketing campaign about higher education and continuing your education. And would not be brand specific at all. It's very much almost like a coalition for education. I don't know how you would even, I don't know how to start it. I don't know how you would do it. It's been something that I've been talking about for a while, but I have not been able to necessarily champion it because I don't want it to seem like it's self-serving. Like, oh yeah, you're a marketing agent. Of course, you want to do that. I'm not. I'm just super passionate about higher education. And I don't care who does it. I think we need to do it and we're missing the boat. Now I feel like in terms of moving the needle, schools are already strapped with their budgets. And so the idea of letting go of any little part of it is hard and they don't want to. And so, you know, they're like, well, why should I have to pay for that? So is it something we can get grants for? I don't know. It's going to take a lot more than just me talking about it. It's going to have to be a bigger movement for us to do something. Yeah. Convinced me that vitamin C is important in my day to day diet and then I'll go buy orange juice. Right. And so it's like, if you're selling oranges, you've got to back it up a few steps before. Well, look at, I mean, that's a great example. Look at the milk industry and what they did with got milk, that campaign changed the milk industry forever. I mean, it changed it. And now everyone's like, oh, I have to drink milk. Well, you don't have to drink milk. But that campaign sure made you think like you needed a drink milk. So, you know, there's, that's the great thing about marketing. I mean, it can be done. I think it could absolutely be done. It just would definitely have to take a coordinated effort and we'd have to find money somewhere to do it. Well, Jen, you based your career on seeing things that would work far before everyone saw that it would work. You take a look at what you did with digital and what you're doing with streaming now, introducing something that has proven to be exceptionally effective in an industry that hadn't heard of it before. So, here's my closing question for you. What's next? What do you see in the horizon that might be the next shore bet, the next big thing? Well, I think AI obviously is going to play a huge role in that. There's no getting away from it. It's here to stay. And it's just going to get bigger. I think the schools that are figuring out how to use it to their benefit and in everything they're doing, like in their student communication, which I know there's some companies, it's funny because there's a lot of companies out there that are doing different pieces of that in terms of communications to students. And I don't really think anyone has adopted anything AI-driven marketing yet necessarily. I could see one of the things that we're looking at and talking about is really helping schools because when it comes to AEO and GEO, content is so important and being able to generate that content and stay on top of that content that you need to have out there. It's not like you can just set it and forget it. And I think that looking at AI on how to develop content for AEO and GEO specifically, I think is going to be something that it's really interesting to me. I think that could be a place where we could see some movement because teams are getting smaller, bandwidth is getting smaller at a lot of these institutions. Budgets aren't huge, so you need to be able to, you can't just hire someone all the time that can't just be the answer. I need to hire a content person that can pump out all this content on an ongoing basis. So what tools can we develop that can really assist with that? I think that is one space that I think could be the next big question mark. Is great. Now you did this SEO and this AEO audit and now the company who did it for you is giving you content recommendations and what you need to do. So either you hire a company to do that content for you. You're hiring someone to do it or you hire somebody. So you're paying a company or you're paying an employee. How can we come up with a tool that generates content for us, understanding us as an institution, knowing what we need to get across and use as those audit results to be able to do it? That's kind of where my head has been going with things lately. Cool. Thank you. So, yeah. I don't know if that's the answer, but I feel like that's where we need, as an industry, I think we need to learn to work smarter and not harder in so many ways, right? And I think you're going to see schools that are going to start doing that as opposed to farming everything out all over the place because a lot of schools have been farming out these things, but now I think they're starting to get a little bit smarter and wiser and are like, hey, we can take more of this in-house and do it in a smarter way than having to always pay someone else to do it. So I think that'll be really interesting. We're going to watch schools, I think, diversify their partner lists, I think diversify the services that they're doing. Yeah, it's going to be a, we're going to have the next couple years are going to be really fun and I think we're going to see a lot of change in shake up in the industry as a lot of these new tools come out. There's so much to think about, Jen. Thank you. We so appreciate your time. Thank you. You are such an icon in this industry. I've said this now on some of our recent episodes, but Vol and I seem to be uncovering, right? It's almost like this formula of what makes a higher ed icon and recognizing trends before their trend is definitely one of those things that keeps coming up. But yeah, it's so interesting how it's, it's always grounded in what is foundationally just good tenants of Marcom. And I think the last 45 minutes has been a master class in what is new, what is next, but yet still grounded in what we know is just foundationally the right thing to do. So thank you for helping us push forward, but also reminding us that there's just some stuff you don't forget about. Oh, I love it. I learned more about digital in the last 45 minutes that I've known. I've appeared in it. So it's been great. Well, I appreciate you both having me. Seriously, you guys are both icons in yourselves. And so to be a guest on your podcast means a lot to me. So I really appreciate it. Okay, Mallory. So I've said this many, many, many times before, but I'm in my 50s and I drink. So my memory is not as great as it used to be, but why dimly recall that you did a presentation once called from Hollywood to higher ed? I remember exactly when that was. It was like May 2020. And I'll tell you about the reason why I felt so passionate about putting that digital event together for him, Stoner is because I was living in Hollywood. and watching the industry around me, the entertainment industry. My husband's connected to that industry as well. And I just kept seeing the same cycle repeat itself. Something would come new and fresh to the entertainment industry to Hollywood and then five years later, higher ed would open its eyes and be like, oh, we should try this thing. Like insert influencer marketing, insert streaming TV. All of these, and it just keeps repeating itself, the cycle. And Jen commented on that, right? And we know, like everybody who's listening knows, it takes higher ed a little bit longer to adapt. And that's OK. But it's true. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And must have been deja vu, like listening to Jen talk about what streaming, the streaming service that she offers, because from what I understand, Grant has talked about this over the dinner table. And it's really cool, like you were saying, to finally see that sort of horizon in marketing, being co-opted by our industry. Yeah, I have had many a dinner conversation with my husband who's affiliated with HBO and their streaming. And the commercials that would appear if you are watching House of Dragons or Euphoria. And it is wild. Like I can't say, and disclos everything on the mic. But just where they are at with their abilities to connect not only the products that you see in the TV shows directly into what ads you are going to be served while you're watching that show. But to the point that they're able to understand, what your Amazon purchases have looked like, and put certain things in front of you, in certain patterns or colors or whatever, that go with the things you've bought in the past that may or may not be connected to the show. It's just like, Jen wants to talk big brother. Like this is next level. And your ability to just buy right from the QR code now that appears on your screen. I mean, it's really, I'm excited that colleges and universities are like waking up to this. Well, deja vu. I mean, doesn't this remind you of the early days of selling responsive design at Emstone? How often did you show up to a pitch and spend half the pitch just educating people on what responsive design was? Most. Every time? Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's part of what I love about being in this industry is being able to bring ideas that might not be new, but they're new for higher ed. And we find ways to adapt and adopt them in meaningful, but appropriate ways for what we are trying to accomplish. Yeah. And somebody has to pick up the torch of educating the industry on the thing. And I think that's what makes Jen such an icon. I mean, she's done this. She did it so well in the digital space. And now she's doing it again with streaming. And so it'll be really interesting to see how that goes. And I asked her about the company around her, right? Because it is one thing to do it from the comfort of the larger organization around you. It is different to take up that torch when your name is on the line. Absolutely. But another thing that she said explains to me why she's been so successful. She said a little early on that everything in higher ed happens with relationships. And it's absolutely true. I mean, I've been in this industry for what? 25 years now. And what I'm finding is that those relationships transcend the institutions. Clients who work with us and have a really great experience in one place want to work with us in another place. And you build that level of trust over time and across different institutions, across different agencies. And that, to me, is number one part of what I love so much about the industry. Our industry is those longstanding relationships. But also the idea that you get to work with people that you really love to work with, right? Again and again from project to project. Yeah. Yeah, that is-- I mean, this industry runs on relationships. And so for those of us who've been able to build them over decades, that really works in our favor. But for a young company that is just starting out, even though they have some people like Jen there, that's they're going to have to work just as hard to build the brand awareness that they're bringing to their clients. It's like, will she be taking the same medicine that she prescribes to the people she works with? We will see. We will see indeed. But knowing Jen, my bet is that Ambio EDU is going to be a household-- or do we say household? Do we say a campus-wide name? I can't wait to see the ads on my next HBO show. That's all I have to say. Awesome. Well Mallory, that wraps up another episode of "Higher at Icons." As we leave our listeners for this episode, what should we be? Iconic. Thanks everyone. Talk to you next time. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] "Higher at Icons" celebrates the pioneers, thought leaders and change makers who have shaped and continue to shape higher education marketing. New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Subscribe and leave us a rating wherever you listen. 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