MadMen Meet Teachers: The birth of a new brand!
Humphrey Jones, a teacher-blogger from Ireland, suggests that we relabel “teachers.” What would happen if we hired a Madison Avenue firm to “rebrand” our profession? (Now that the elections are over and the economy slow, they could probably use the business!) As Jones says, we need to “relabel the term ‘teacher’ and replace it with a word that more accurately describes the multi-faceted nature of our role.” Over the years, I have read facetious job descriptions of teachers as a combination of parent, psychologist, cheerleader, health aide, trash collector, and much more. This one was quite popular via email. But these exercises do nothing more than cheer those in the faculty room drinking cold swigs of this morning’s coffee as they grade papers at 4:30 pm. We need a real branding effort.
A brand is much deeper than a label. It is
… what your company stands for and what it is known for. “Look at yourself in the mirror
and ask yourself what you stand for. Go around the room with your leadership and ask them what the company stands for. Settle on one or two brand pillars and build your brand around them. (A Practical Guide to Branding, Business Week, June 9, 2008)
or, as this article says in a nutshell, your brand is:
The Promise You Make to the World
Interestingly, promise is exactly what teachers bring to the world. We seek it out, nourish it, praise it, polish it, revere it, stretch it, describe it, measure it, mold it, let it grow, prune it, savor it, sing it, respect it, help it recognize itself, and turn it loose to be responsible for itself. We are promisers of promise. That could be the start of our brand as teachers.
Oh, rats. Somebody already named a margarine after us. I guess we need to keep working on this brand thing. Any MadMen volunteers out there want to take on several million teachers as clients?
Thanks for linking tommy short post. I personally believe that teachers (and associated unions and groups) do little to promote the complexities of our profession. We are seen by the general public as lazy, working short hours and taking long holidays. We do need to reveals and promote our profession. We need teacher representative groups to stand up for what we do and show that all that teachers do in schools make our education system work.
Thanks for
Comment by Humphrey Jones — November 3, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
This is a wonderfully fresh idea! Re-branding teachers will enable teachers to understand their role better and others to understand how important a role teacher play in their lives.
Comment by ILEAD India — November 9, 2010 @ 8:51 am