Ten With Ken (audio)

When maverick university marketers create a brilliant brand, but campus stakeholders feel uncomfortable about potential sexist or racist implications, what do you do? In the “Wild West” of higher ed branding, the University of Wyoming charged ahead with its new slogan, “The World Needs More Cowboys” – and noted higher ed brand strategist Ken Steele thinks they were right to do so. The $1.5 million campaign, launched in July 2018, was based on months of solid research that showed the word “cowboy” offered a real opportunity to differentiate uWyo from its competitors. As president Laurie Nichols emphasizes, the brand campaign “redefines what it means to be a cowboy in this day and age” by juxtaposing the word, with its white male settler connotations, with images of diverse students, faculty, researchers and alumni. Objections from faculty and others are an “undeserved rough ride”. This campaign is bold, memorable, and aspirational. The marketers knew they were “bucking” political correctness, since they built