In Higher Ed, Culture Carries Brands Farther Than Campaigns

Last summer, I took my daughter, a high school junior, on a visit to Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. I was familiar with the brand. (Full disclosure, my wife is an alum.) But I did not fully appreciate how deeply the brand is woven into the culture of the place.

What struck me was not a slogan or a campaign. It was the consistency. The repetition. The shared ownership.

It made me think about what it really takes to embed a brand across an institution.

A Simple Story, Repeated Intentionally

Colgate’s origin story is simple and accessible:

“In 1817, 13 men met in the frontier settlement of Hamilton, N.Y., to found the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York. They are said to have backed up their experiment in education with 13 dollars and 13 prayers, which is why 13 is considered a lucky number at Colgate.”

Many institutions have compelling founding stories. Fewer operationalize them.

The power here is not just the story. It is the disciplined decision to lean into it.

13 as Institutional Thread

During our campus tour, our student guide intentionally highlighted the significance of the number 13. It was not mentioned casually. It was framed as a shared point of pride. A piece of identity.

Colgate Day is celebrated worldwide on every Friday the 13th. Alumni gather, wear maroon, post on social media and reaffirm their connection. The institution has transformed a historical detail into a recurring engagement strategy.

That repetition matters. It connects prospective students and families to history in a way that feels participatory rather than distant.

Then you begin to see it everywhere.

This spring, I was watching a basketball game in Cotterell Court and noticed an icon with the number 13 embedded on the floor.

Mail from the university carries the address 13 Oak Drive. When you drive up Oak Drive, the speed limit signs read 13 miles per hour. Our tour guide shared that the president personally advocated at a village meeting to adjust those campus speed limits.

Even the retail operation reinforced the institutional story. In the bookstore, you can purchase a sticker of the 13-miles-per-hour sign. During our visit, the store was advertising an additional 13 percent discount, and many prices ended in .13 instead of .99.

These are not marketing gimmicks; they are institutional choices. When symbols are reinforced by behavior, they become culture. And when culture is aligned, reputation follows. Campaigns amplify what already exists. They cannot manufacture it.

This Does Not Happen by Accident

I have seen this phenomenon elsewhere. At Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. (full disclosure, my son is a student there), the institutional rallying cry is Cur Non? or “Why Not?” The phrase traces its roots to the college’s namesake, the Marquis de Lafayette, who embraced the philosophy so deeply that he eventually had its Latin translation emblazoned on his family crest. Today, Cur Non? appears throughout the institution. It is referenced in admissions presentations, incorporated into scholarship programs, featured in publications, woven into presidential remarks and often echoed by students and alumni. What began as a personal philosophy has become an institutional mindset.

Students encounter Cur Non? from their first admissions visit through graduation and beyond, creating a shared language that connects aspiration, achievement and community.

No marketing office can pull this off alone.

The fact that 13 and Cur Non? show up consistently across admissions tours, advancement events, athletics facilities, campus signage, presidential advocacy, alumni engagement and retail merchandise demonstrates collaboration across divisions.

It requires facilities teams willing to integrate identity into physical space. It requires advancement teams to align programming around a shared theme. It requires athletics to reinforce the story visually. It requires presidents who understand the symbolic power of small decisions. And it requires consistency across administrations.

When a brand becomes part of how an institution behaves rather than just how it markets, it compounds.

What Leaders Can Learn

The Colgate and Lafayette examples illustrate three broader lessons for higher education leaders:

• Culture carries the brand farther than campaigns.
• A founding story told once is trivia. A founding story embedded everywhere becomes institutional identity.
• Symbols matter when leadership backs them.

A president advocating for a 13-miles-per-hour speed limit or regularly reinforcing the institution’s Cur Non? philosophy may seem like a small thing, but it signals institutional commitment.

Alignment across divisions builds momentum.

In higher education, we often ask marketing teams to elevate reputation. But reputation is shaped daily by decisions made far beyond the marketing office. Brand strength emerges when admissions, advancement, athletics, facilities and presidential leadership move in concert.

Colgate’s embrace of 13 and Lafayette’s embrace of Cur Non? remind us that the strongest institutional brands are not built through a single campaign. They are built through years of intentional choices, reinforced by culture and embraced across the institution.

When everyone understands the story and sees their role in reinforcing it, brand becomes less about messaging and more about meaning. And meaning, when shared across an institution, is what carries a brand farther than any campaign ever could.