Edison's E2: Don't promise miracles this time

If there's one thing Edison Schools has learned in its checkered history, it's that clients take sales pitches literally. And this isn't a one-shot purchase — a baldness cure or a miracle weight-loss treatment that you unload on the client and then never look back. Edison presumably has an ongoing relationship with the customer and has to face the music if it doesn't deliver what it promised.

Seems like a no-brainer that Edison was a bit slow to learn.

Edison's E2 Design Sketch — its $15 million planned makeover — also, interestingly, calls the company's current ad campaign "risky in that regard." We aren't familiar with the current ad campaign, but that's an eye-catching admission.

Excerpts from the Design Sketch (which we've learned was produced in May 2007):

... the marketing campaign ... must also be exceedingly careful not to contain any implicit promises that we might not meet. The current advertising campaign is risky in that regard.

... we must be vigilant at all times about the promises, both implicit and explicit, that we make to all parties and about our ability, realistically, to execute consistently on these promises. Our credo in the E2 group must be to under-promise and over-deliver. We have learned how our enthusiastic talk is taken literally by customers and stakeholders and interpreted as a commitment. Our constant caution to make commitments wil be greatly admired by stakeholders — far more so than audacious claims and promises. ...restoration of trust with the opinion leaders in the school reform movement is our goal. That's why we have to be so very careful about what we commit to and the claims we advance. Anything that seems reckless, disingenuous, or arrogant undermines all the hard work we are and will continue to do to build trust.

The Design Sketch proposes a celebrity-endorsement campaign and emulation of another KIPP strategy, paid salespeople who curry relationships with press and community leaders.

We may want to consider signing accomplished, famous people who resonate with our targeted student population as Edison role models, linking their brand to our brand: famous intellectuals, artists, scientists, and civic leaders. Their influence could be deployed though personal appearances at Edison schools, videos, print media, desktop streamed video, student enrollment campaigns, and more. ...

E2 should have highly entrepreneurial and agile missionaries in each region — KIPP appropriately titles them "trailblazers" — who work with the E2 fellows [this seems to be a fancy name for school administrators] to establish roots and support in communities targeted for E2 schools. These trailblazers would recruit competent board members — civic leaders, educators, and so on; build relationships with education writers at the local dailies; cultivate local civic, business, and educational organizations; and get to know the local culture and its sensitivities.