Brilliant content marketing from Stanford University

The world’s top universities are in fierce competition with each other to attract the best students, the brightest academics and the most generous philanthropists. That’s why major scientific breakthroughs are not only cherished for their intrinsic value, but also increasingly seen as an opportunity for a university to buttress its case to those three audiences.

Do just the former, and the university misses out on an opportunity to help secure its future. Do just the latter, and the university risks undermining itself by looking too commercial. Do both, and you’re on to a winner.

It’s that background which makes Stanford University’s recent video showing someone breaking the news to a professor that research has corroborated his invention of inflation* so brilliant. It’s a moving tribute to a brilliant scientist – and I love the way it is his wife who steps out to hug the bearer of good news whilst he’s stood there trying to take it all in – but it’s also a brilliant example of taking a story and turning it into digital friendly content that can spread online.

What could have been outside the specialist media outlets just a brief media story has instead become a widely shared piece of content, taking the message about Stanford’s academic credentials to a much wider audience.

What Stanford has done is similar to what NASA has been doing brilliantly for years, as my Blue Rubicon colleague Nick Keegan has pointed out in his piece for The Drum:

Back in 2006, NASA realised that the media focus on their organisation was largely on the ‘bad stuff’ such as the terrible tragedy of space disasters and the return on investment for the federal tax dollar. Like many organisations and brands before and since, NASA also realised that the stories they wanted to tell were unlikely to reach the public if they relied solely on news media. As a result, NASA began to use social media in its communications…

NASA isn’t a start-up with a ‘move fast and break things’ mentality. It’s a decades old government organisation with all the bureaucracy that entails. To evolve the way an established organisation communicates takes time and – often – structural change as the silos that house different marketing and communications teams need to be removed. It requires new tools such as social media monitoring software or content management systems as well as the skills and expertise to use them.

* He’s a scientist, not an economist, so this is a case of inventing inflation being good, not bad.