OXFORD, Miss. – Even if you’ve never heard of Jim Ebel, chances are you know his work.
He’s one reason drivers associate stability and control with Bridgestone Tires and kids clamor for Paintastic Paintbrush Pens from Elmer’s. In fact, Ebel has used his marketing prowess to catapult more than 160 products and brands to success.
With more than 25 years of marketing experience, Ebel has his sights set on making the University of Mississippi one of the most recognized and respected brands in higher education.
“This brand – Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi – is an incredibly rich brand, but it is underdeveloped,” said Ebel, UM’s new executive director of marketing communications. “People say you have to experience it to ‘get it.’ But I want people to get it without having to experience it. That’s the sign of a well-developed brand.”
Ebel has helped develop many well-known brands, including Hasbro, Clorox, Heinz and Anheuser-Busch. Yet this will be Ebel’s first foray into branding a university, which is part of the reason he was chosen for the job. He’s expected to bring fresh ideas and new strategies into crafting messages that resonate and are memorable.
“It’s rare to find someone with success in both business and in higher education, but Jim blends these two together well,” said Ken Cyree, dean of the UM School of Business Administration and a member of the selection committee that hired Ebel. “His expertise in branding, along with the rich traditions and success of Ole Miss, will provide a wonderful opportunity to get the message out about the great things going on here.”
After building a successful career in corporate marketing at Kimberly-Clark, Bristol-Myers Squib, Rhone-Poulenc-Rorer and the Iams Co., Ebel established CenterBrain Partners in 1991.
“I realized I was naturally creative, and the companies I worked for provided tremendous strategic training,” Ebel said. “There was a need for simultaneous application of these two skills. That became my trademark and the differential advantage for my company. CenterBrain blends the two. It’s focused on making marketing messages simple, compelling and connective to the consumer.”
His leadership has resulted in more than $3.2 billion in incremental sales for brands that compete in categories from tuna to tires, power tools to pregnancy test kits, insoles to insulin monitors and a wide range of products in between.
“Jim has an extreme talent for branding and positioning,” said Tom Marchese, vice president of restaurant marketing for Bob Evans Restaurants. “Branding is at the heart of all marketing. People have choices, and at the heart of getting them to choose your product or service is finding the differentiation that communicates with them in a meaningful way. Jim has a natural gift for that.”
When Marchese was VP of marketing at KFC, he hired Ebel to help position Kentucky Grilled Chicken.
“We’d tested the product several times, but we were focusing on the fact that it was slow-cooked, therefore, it must be good,” Marchese said. “Jim helped refocus the branding for grilled chicken back on the taste – that it measures up to the great taste you expect from KFC. It’s why the commercials feature people talking about how delicious the chicken is. Jim played a big part in developing that strategy.”
Ebel applied his talent and skills to higher education when he got involved with his alma mater, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. At the time, UTC and its acclaimed business school were overshadowed by the main University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, said Richard Becherer, the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Business & Entrepreneurship at UTC.
“Our business school is bit of an unknown gem,” Becherer said. “Students not only get a good education, they get a practical orientation they can use in the real world. In our marketing efforts, we’d talk about our accreditation, our research and our job placement success – all of it good stuff, but it didn’t really resonate with people.”
Ebel conducted focus groups in Atlanta, Nashville, Chattanooga and other cities, looking for a simple, powerful and compelling way to position UTC’s College of Business. The result: “Academically Prepared and Business World Ready.”
“Now, that resonated with people,” Becherer said. “We’re beginning to communicate that story. We’re adding layers to that principle and publicizing the layers that are already there. It’s even embedded in the way we teach our classes.”
The positioning helped boost UTC’s visibility, including a ranking among the top 100 business schools by BusinessWeek magazine. “Jim didn’t try to make us into something we weren’t,” Becherer said. “He helped us see what was always there and package it in the best way. He’s the real deal.”
Yet for all his accomplishments, Ebel takes the greatest pride in his work as executive-in-residence at UTC’s College of Business. That’s where Ebel whet his appetite for teaching and developing a “passion for positioning” among his pupils.
“I love it when I see the light bulb pop on in my students’ heads – when they see and understand what positioning and branding really is,” Ebel said. “I enjoy seeing others engage the passion that I have for branding and positioning. It helps them enter their careers not just academically prepared but also work-world ready.”
Aside from his work at UTC, the bulk of Ebel’s experience is outside of higher education, and that’s part of the reason he was selected for the job, said retiring UM Chancellor Robert Khayat.
“The University of Mississippi is a nationally renowned comprehensive university engaged in the highest quality teaching, research and service,” Khayat said. “To assure a better understanding of the remarkable strengths of Ole Miss, we happily announce that Jim Ebel has joined us to lead our marketing and communications efforts. His track record outside of higher education shows that he knows how to strike a chord with people, and his expertise will help write new and exciting chapters in Ole Miss’ history.”
Though Ebel built CenterBrain into a successful consulting business with his creativity and strategic thinking, another instinct drove him to consider coming to UM: fatherhood. His work often kept him on the road, traveling from Oak Ridge, Tenn., and away from his wife and seven children, including two young sons.
“I was convinced my family needed to see more of me,” Ebel said. “Oxford is very much like Oak Ridge, in that it’s small, culturally rich and interested in the education of children. This community is a great place to raise men.”
Ebel, who reports directly to new UM Chancellor Dan Jones, oversees the departments of Media and Public Relations, Publications, Media Productions and the new Department of Brand Marketing. Collectively, the units create written content, design a variety of printed publications and produce audio and video reports.
Ebel aims to harness those efforts to develop a clear brand that resonates with the public at large. Marchese expects him to succeed.
“The art of branding is universal, whether it’s a restaurant, a kid’s toy or a university, and Jim has a natural gift for it,” Marchese said. “If I were a talking to a student at Ole Miss, I’d even tell him to listen to Jim to learn how to position himself in such a tough job market. He’s that good.”
It’s a sentiment that Becherer echoes.
“I’m excited that Ole Miss had enough foresight to see they need a guy like Jim,” he said. “Ole Miss apparently wants to stand out from the crowd, and you need somebody like Jim leading that effort.”