Podcast spotlights UND’s branding success

Interview with UND VP Meloney Linder Mecklenburg describes UND’s brand evolution, offers ‘lessons learned’ for other universities

At UND Today, we’re always looking for stories that offer fresh insights into the UND community, especially key elements of the community that haven’t been described before.

Here’s one such story.

A Fargo-based film and branding agency recently interviewed Meloney Linder Mecklenburg, UND’s vice president for Marketing & Communications, for a podcast on the topic of, “How to build higher education branding that a whole community believes in.”

Tellwell Story Co., the Fargo-based agency, is a marketing company that helps “nonprofits, higher education institutions, and purpose-driven brands cut through the noise and tell stories that actually connect,” as the Tellwell website describes. Customers include Choice Bank, True North Equipment, Nodak Insurance Co. and a number of other North Country as well as national institutions, while the company’s YouTube page gives marketing tips and tells brand stories though an extensive lineup of videos.

These include the Tellwell Podcast, which is where the interview with Meloney Linder Mecklenburg appears.

Tellwell describes the podcast in a detailed story and summary that accompanies the video. The interview is meant for marketers, but as mentioned above, it gives extensive information on the marketing and branding efforts that have, among other campuswide strategies, helped UND grow its enrollment and services over the past five to 10 years.

Here’s how the story that summarizes the podcast begins:

“In 2018, Meloney Linder walked into a retired logo and a community that hadn’t yet decided its new brand was true.

“She joined the University of North Dakota as Vice President for Marketing and Communications during a historic brand reset. The Fighting Sioux logo was gone. A new positioning, ‘Leaders in Action,’ had been set the year before. And nobody had fully bought in.

“Her job wasn’t to invent the brand. The research was already solid. Her job was harder. How do you make this real?

“Most universities have a brand document sitting in a shared drive. It means almost nothing until the day a faculty member, a student, or an alum says it back to you without being prompted. That gap between the document and the belief is where most higher ed marketing dies.

“This post breaks down how Meloney closed it. If you lead marketing at a college, a university, or any mission-driven organization coming out of a transition, the moves are transferable. Steal them.”

As mentioned above, the podcast itself and the rest of the summary are available at the Tellwell website. Enjoy!