Creating a Message Matrix: A Workshop for Ford PAS Leaders

1
Creating a Message Matrix A Workshop for Ford
PAS Leaders

• Presented By
• Randall H. Duckett and Sandra Nicholls
• June 26, 2008

2
What Will We Do Today?

• Talk about messaging for Ford PAS
• Quiz you on your knowledge of brand messages
• Conduct an exercise to create a message matrix
  for Ford PAS constituencies
• Answer your questions

3
Who We Are

• Randall Duckett, President, A3 Creative Group,
  LLC
• Full-service marketing communications firm
  specializing in education communications
• Key clients
• Ford PAS and NGLC
• Project Lead The Way (PLTW)
• Texas Education Agency
• National Action Council for Minorities in
  Engineering (NACME)
• Georgia Professional Standards Commission (GaPSC)
• National Geographic Society
• Pennsylvania Department of Education/CTE
• Colorado Community College System/CTE

4
Who We Are

• Sandra Nicholls, retired
• Marketing oversight
• Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS)
  and Ford Next Generation Learning Communities
  (Ford NGLC)

5
The Importance of Messaging

• Good marketing is good messaging
• Messages define a product, service, or
  organization
• Messages make up your brand
• Every brand needs a core message
• But it also needs to tailor messages to different
  audiences
• Educators and employers, for example, talk very
  different languages

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The Basics of Branding
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What Is a Brand?

• A name for your product, service, or program
• Shorthand for the attributes you wish to be
  associated with
• e. g., luxury, quality, hipness, value, fun, sex
• A tone setter
• A message about who you are
• An image

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How Do You Build Brand Awareness?

• Own a word or phrasea core message
• Advertising
• Free media
• Big events
• Presentations, meetings, conferences
• Guerilla marketing/viral marketing
• Word of mouth
• Repetition, repetition, repetition

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Name That Vehicle

• Luxury
• Safe
• Value
• Fun
• Tough
• Patriotic
• Adventure

• Inexpensive
• Muscle
• Green
• Quality
• Sexy

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How Do You Know When Branding Has Succeeded?

• Your target audience(s) knows your name, symbol,
  and slogan
• Your audience has adopted the attitude you want
• You get more of the action you want
• Purchasing
• Movement (go to the store, call, go online)
• Votes
• Support
• Beliefs
• Enrollment

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Name That Brand
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Ford PASs Core Message
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What Is Next Generation Learning?

• The next generation of educational practice
• Windows Vista vs Windows XP
• Education 3.0
• Active, hands-on, project- and problem-based
• Instilling 21st century skills
• A step forward in how we educate our children
• for the next generations of American students

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Targeting Audiences

• Once you have established a core message for your
  brand, then you should create tailored messages
  for target audiences
• What messages resonate best with each audience?
• Which audience is most important and which ones
  are of lesser importance?
• Against what audience(s) do you want to spend
  your resources?
• How much is it going to cost to have an impact on
  the audience(s)?
• Can you really move the needle?
• What are the barriers in your way?
• And how do you remove or get around them?

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Making a Message Matrix

• Ford PAS has multiple constituencies
• We have a compelling overall messageNext
  Generation Learning
• But we must also have effective targeted messages
• An educator, for example, does not care about the
  same things as an employer
• To keep messaging straight, develop a message
  matrix and distribute it to spokespeople, sales
  force, leaders

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Exercise Building a Message Matrix for Ford PAS
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Audiences

• Group brainstorm
• Who are the audiences we must reach?
• What is their order of importance?

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Messages

• Table breakouts
• What messages work best for each audience?
• What is the no. 1 message for each audience?

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Channels

• Table breakouts
• What channels are best to reach each audience?
• Be as specific as possible
• Who do they listen to?
• Could we have a spokesperson?
• What channel will work the best?

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Barriers/Solutions

• Table breakouts
• What are the primary barriers to reaching each
  audience?
• Which one is most difficult to overcome?
• What are the effective strategies for getting
  around, over, through those barriers?

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The Result

• You have created a rough message matrix for Ford
  PAS
• We will refine it and post it on the websites for
  download and distribution
• Congratulations!

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Thank You!

• Randall Duckett, President, A3 Creative Group
• 437 Country Run Circle, Powell, TN 37849
• 865-405-3785
• Randall_at_A3CreativeGroup.com
• www.A3CreativeGroup.com

• Sandra Nicholls,Ford PAS
• c/o Millie Mitchell One American Road, WHQ
  210-E4Dearborn, MI 41826
• 248-797-4147
• Sanicholls_at_comcast.net