Fifty-nine percent of Americans believe they can judge a company’s values by its online presence. That’s according to a new study by MS&L and reported in Brandweek. So, first, what’s your online presence (and we’re talking about more than just your Web site) say about your school’s values?

The study, which polled 6,000 consumers worldwide, also found that consumers are increasingly driven to identify leading companies as those that are “innovative, financially secure, ethical and possess the biggest market share.” This means traditional notions of competitive advantage are shifting, and that means how you communicate your values must shift as well:

The findings underscore the need for marketers to shift their business focus from being “driven by a coherent set of core values” to one that emphasizes how those “values [can] be communicated effectively at every touch point or companies risk undermining both their relationships with their customers and their long-term success,” said Mark Hass, CEO of MS&L Worldwide, a brand communications and consultancy network headquartered in New York.

Schools too often take their values as a given. After all, information about those Spring Break service trips are posted in the news archive and that page with the mission statement has been on the Web site for years. But the fact is, the values that an institution projects are generally (to extend Donald Rumsfeld’s epistemological categories) “unknown knowns.” That is, they’re things we don’t know we know because we’re too close to them. When we spend the bulk of our time talking to people who are equally invested in and knowledgeable of the institution’s values, we take it for granted that those values are apparent to everyone. However, what you say your brand values are and the values you project can be radically different. (And, at any rate, as this study indicates, consumers aren’t interested in what you say your values are; they’re inferring your values based on what they see or experience.) Take the example of the campus tour: How many schools tout their individualized approach to education–to large groups of prospective students and their families? Think prospects who are looking at everything with a critical eye–and who are hyper-aware of propaganda–don’t spot the disconnect?

Other findings:

72% of U.S. respondents believe that companies can have values just like the public does.

75% of Americans said companies have both a “higher purpose” and want to be financially successful, with honesty being a core component of that success.

56% of Americans said it is crucial for them to know about the values of the companies they do business with, while 33% said this was somewhat important.

Respondents polled in the survey also rated a company’s competition in the marketplace (87%) to be as important as environmental responsibility (82%).

While price and quality may be the primary purchase influencers in tough times, in the long run, it’s values that matter the most. 77% of consumers in the U.S. said they either strongly agree or somewhat agreed with that statement.

David Armano of Logic + Emotion lays out a conceptual framework for online community building in an article in AdAge.  Everyone wants engagement with their brand.  The problem is that most companies believe that viral strategies are the only (or at least the best) way to do this.  Armano makes the case that community building offers a more achievable goal:

[U]nlike viral, community requires a different set of objectives, strategy and tactics around measurement. Yet, intuitively, brands realize there is value to them. That’s because if we take our bright and shiny marketing hats off for a moment, we realize that it’s likely we are part of them. … People who use social networks also feel like they’re part of a larger community of people they relate to.

Regardless of whether you’re considering starting an online community, Armano provides a concise framework for any online presence—and for any brand initiative for that matter:

Content
When considering community initiatives, there are three questions to ask: Where will the content come from? Does it provide indisputable value? Can a regular flow of quality content be maintained?

Context
Context means understanding how to meet people where they are and serving them the right experience at the right time. Well-designed applications and functionality have great opportunities to deliver on context.

Connectivity
… It’s not about mass communications but more about the micro-interactions …. Designing experiences that support thousands of micro-interactions means you are making a commitment vs. trying to produce a one-hit wonder. …

Continuity
Communities … need to be flexible to evolve while still providing a valuable and consistent user experience which can be sustained.

Read the full article here.

I stumbled across this paper by Iqbal Mohammed that raises some interesting questions about how we understand branding in the digital age. Mohammed applies Chris Anderson’s Long Tail idea to brand building and argues that when it comes to branding, most organizations are still operating on the same old “a few big hits” model that media producers and manufacturers have traditionally relied on. Branding has (typically) been focussed on finding one big idea that will resonate with the broadest audience and then orienting everything around that idea. But, Mohammed argues, this approach is obsolete: digital media and the ability to segment messages to more and more niche audiences cheaply and easily means we can build a brand around any number of ideas. One or two of these ideas will appeal to a broad audience, but the rest should be allowed to find their own audiences. Even if they appeal to only a few individuals, as the Long Tail idea shows us, those small groups add up to sizable potential markets.

I don’t agree with Mohammed’s criticisms of building a brand on a single core idea, but his argument and his paper are provocative and definitely worth reading for anyone thinking about how to take branding into new media.

On a similar note, check out this discussion of branding versus “edgework” (which seems to be getting at something akin to what Mohammed is talking about).

Ypulse just wrapped up another Youth Marketing Mashup, and here are some of the highlights:

Youth consume local news online, too.

…They want news that impacts them, which is why I think more young people tune in or search for local stories. Sites other than MySpace and Facebook mentioned by our panel as favorites were: Colbert Nation, College Board, New York Times, CNN, MSN, Veoh, Hulu, Twitter, Wired, Reddit, Digg, Delicious, Lifehacker and Gizmodo. The college students were much more like “early adopters” in their tastes than the high school students (some big socio-economic differences as well).

There are still “Tech Nots”
With all of our talk about Totally Wired youth, we forget that there are some teens who choose to not participate or unplug. We had one of these high school students on our panel. She barely used the internet for anything outside of school work. She also was one of the teens who spent the most time reading books for pleasure. She’s not on MySpace or Facebook and did not text. We also had another high school student who did not own a cell phone. I wasn’t sure if that was her preference or for financial reasons. My guess was the latter.

Communication Tools Are About Efficiency
Youth are in developmental phase in their lives where socializing with peers is what’s most important. They are also incredibly busy. When I asked the young people on our panel how they stay in touch with each other, what I heard were the usual response (IM, textbook, Facebook and some email, mostly to communicate with adults), but I also heard the repeated need to blast or communicate with “all my friends at once.” Phones are still being primarily used for voice and text, though some of these teens text more than talk (200+ text messages a day). That said, two of our college students had iPhones with data plans and one student had a music phone. As PDAs become more widespread among youth and if the price of data plans drops, I think we’ll see more young people surfing, gaming and even watching video via phone.

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HBO a hit…with youth?
When I asked how they watch TV - some still watched the old fashioned way, but I also heard HBO on demand, YouTube, Colbert Nation, SNL videos (online), and “Lost” on ABC.com.

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Still downloading…
Most of our panel downloads free music or movies from sites like Bit Torrent and Limewire, except for one of the college students who was busted by the RIAA (ouch). The other college students download from home (not school) for that very reason.

Ypulse is a great resource for teen and tween culture. For more highlights on their mashup, click here.