The Two-Year Brand Project Is Over: EducationDynamics Launches Process That Puts New Brand in Market in 90 Days

New process lets CMOs build a brand that drives enrollment, retention, fundraising and reputation, launching new marketing in 90 days while the campus helps shape the brand over time

Lenexa, KS, November 3, 2026 - EducationDynamics (EDDY), the 40-year higher education growth partner, today launched a new way for colleges and universities to build their brands. It is designed around a simple standard: a brand should be judged by what it does for the institution's growth, not by whether the campus likes the logo. That means who enrolls, who stays, who gives, and how the institution is seen by the press, rankings, employers, and the AI tools students now use to compare schools. The process brings new brand work to market within 90 days, measures it against those goals from day one, and uses the evidence to refine and expand the campus' broader brand development the nine months following launch.

The launch takes direct aim at the traditional higher education brand project, which can run two years from the first budget conversation to the first piece of new creative and is typically judged at a single reveal rather than by its effect on enrollment, retention, giving, or reputation.

The market those projects were built for has changed. The number of U.S. high school graduates peaked in 2025, while the number of students studying exclusively online has more than doubled since 2012 to over 5.3 million. Institutions now recruit a high school senior, a working parent and a graduate professional at the same time, and each chooses differently.

Students also choose faster and earlier. EDDY's 2026 Modern Learner Report, a survey of more than 3,000 traditional, nontraditional, and graduate students, found that AI use among prospective students jumped from 68% to 88% in one year, and that 74% trust AI-generated summaries when evaluating schools. Most students have a shortlist before they ever contact an institution, and 72% enroll at the first one that admits them.

That leaves no room for a two-year brand project. While the work moves through research and committee review, the institution keeps recruiting with a brand that may no longer reflect who it is, through every recruitment cycle, every giving day and, for online programs, several enrollment starts a year. CMOs have been forced to choose between speed and campus buy-in, with little evidence to bring to the cabinet or the board.

"CMOs already know they own growth. What they haven't had is a brand process that lets them drive it," said Brent Ramdin, CEO of EducationDynamics. "Brand is the one asset that touches every growth lever an institution has: who enrolls, who stays, who gives, and how the institution is ranked and talked about. Yet it's still built on a two-year timeline and judged at a reveal. We built this process so CMOs can pull that lever in the first quarter, then walk into the cabinet and the board with results, not a mood board. The growth formula keeps changing, and brand and reputation are the currency that drives it."

EDDY's process runs a sprint and a marathon at the same time, so speed and buy-in stop being a tradeoff. In the sprint, EDDY spends the first six weeks examining how AI tools and search engines describe the institution, how the current brand performs across channels, where competitors are positioned, what campus leaders believe, and what the enrollment data shows. That produces a positioning hypothesis built to be tested. By day 90, new messaging and creative are live and measured against clear growth goals.

"In most brand projects, the creative sits in a drawer until every approval is done, and by then the market has already moved," said Charlie Penrose, Head of Creative and Brand at EducationDynamics. "Students are making decisions this cycle, not next year. Getting work live in the first 90 days means we learn from how real students respond instead of guessing, and the creative that launches with the full brand has already earned its place."

In the marathon, over the next nine months, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and donors help shape the institution's story, creative direction, and visual identity through working sessions and a cross-campus advisory group, with regular reports on where their ideas landed. Results from the sprint show which messages move students, donors, and the market, and that evidence feeds the marathon as it happens. By launch, the brand is backed by nine months of real market performance.

Goals cover the full growth picture: inquiries and enrollment, student retention, fundraising and alumni engagement, and reputation, including earned media, share of voice, rankings inputs, and how AI tools describe the institution. At month three, the institution reviews early results and chooses to keep the sprint work as a standalone campaign or continue into the full brand. Nothing is repeated either way.

"EDDY has helped us better understand what our students want to accomplish and what they need from Post along the way," said John (JC) Hopkins, Vice President of Marketing & Brand Strategy at Post University. "That research gives our creative and content a clear purpose: showing students how our personal approach can help them move forward. We value having a partner who can connect that understanding to the stories we tell and the way we reach prospective students,"

EDDY can run both tracks at once, and measure them across every outcome, because the capabilities sit under one roof: Modern Learner research, brand strategy and creative, enrollment marketing and media to get sprint work live and measured, reputation services to build earned media and market standing, AI visibility expertise for how tools like ChatGPT and Google describe institutions, and strategic communications to keep the campus engaged throughout. In a traditional brand project, that work is often split across separate brand, media, PR, and enrollment partners, which slows the move to market and makes results hard to trace back to the brand. Together with Net Natives, which EDDY acquired in June, the company serves more than 400 institutional clients across more than 50 countries.

"The best CMOs know a brand built without the campus won't last, and they've paid for that with longer timelines," said Renee Daly, Vice President of Brand Strategy at EducationDynamics. "We let campus voices shape the brand while the market tells us which messages actually work. By launch, faculty and staff recognize themselves in it, and the data says it performs."

EDDY will introduce the process at the 2026 AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, Nov. 8-11 at the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora, Colo., where institution leaders can meet with the EDDY brand team. To learn more or schedule a conversation, visit educationdynamics.com.

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Media Contact: 
Stephanie Marquis
Vice President of Strategic Communications, EducationDynamics
[email protected] | 608.577.5203