A New Brand of Learning: Making Full-Time-Learning Programs Cool to Kids

From mock courts to marine life exploration, hip-hop dance parties to poetry slams, today's full-time-learning programs are a far cry from the old-school after-school mix of study hall and intramural sports. Yet fierce competition for non-school time makes it tough for even the coolest programs to attract and retain students.

"Branding matters to kids," notes Colin Stokes, director of marketing and communications for Citizen Schools, a national organization that offers apprenticeship and academic programs for middle-schoolers. "Our product is achievement -- but we get them in the door with friends, fun, and unusual activities."

Branding is about more than a name, a logo, or an ad campaign. It's the essence of the product or company that strikes a chord with its audience at every exposure and interaction. Think Apple's techno-hippitude, or Disney's carefully controlled "magic." More than mere marketing machines, these brands exude an experiential essence that maps to the DNA of their audiences; likewise, full-time-learning brands should create holistic experiences and messaging that mirror the lives and needs of students.

Building Brands to Change Lives

Here are some of the tools for building an effective brand:

Doing It Right

A brand is more than a marketing tool: It's also a promise that must be kept. One false step, and you can fall a long way down. So, if your program can't yet meet the promise of your promotional campaigns, it's time to step back from the ledge.

Social marketer Jordan warns that a shiny marketing campaign can't fix a broken program; in fact, a marketing makeover could be disastrous if it's not combined with a holistic retooling of the full-time learning program and its brand. "It can really damage this image that you're trying to change," he says, because after the campaign attracts new participants to the same old program, "all it's doing is telling students, 'hey, everything you thought before, that it was boring and dorky and dumb to go to this after-school program? Well, you were right. And now, go back and tell all your friends.'"

On the other hand, Molina says that the meaningful branding they've accomplished with PASA will have a lasting impact. "In Providence, we know that this brand will be here. Once we've built this consumer base, they will return, and they'll tell their friends, parents will tell other parents, and family members will tell other family members. So we have this constant base of new customers and returning customers coming back for the brand because they know it's a quality product."

Laura Bergheim has written extensively about marketing and branding. She lives in Los Altos, California, and is a senior editor at Google.