Topor Consulting Group International -- "U.S. firm hired to beef up image"

Reprinted with permission from The Calgary Herald, April 12, 1996
University of Calgary U.S. firm hired to beef up image
Andy Marshall Calgary Herald The University of Calgary has gone south for suggestions on how to beef up its image. In the ever fiercer competition for new students, officials are pinning their hopes on Topor and Associates of southern California to help them define better what the university is good at and then sell that more aggressively to the student market. "Universities in Canada traditionally have not done much promotion - students were expected to just line up." said public affairs director Rod Chapman. With increasingly consumer-wise students shopping around for the best educational choices and new technologies allowing a host of universities to deliver their wares to the Calgary market, the U of C decided it was time for action. The key for the university was Topor's specialty expertise in helping dozens of universities in the U.S. and throughout the world with similar	The Issue: Competition for new students. What's new: University of Calgary seeks help from a California firm. What's next: More aggressive marketing.	more favorably than it is, but decentralized efforts by 16 faculties to promote themselves mean marketing is not being done as well as it should. He dismissed as foolish some criticisms in the Calgary marketing community over the decision to hire outside Canada. "Higher education and the way it's delivered is universal and world-wide," said Topor. The cost of the contract has not been revealed, but it is believed to be less than $40,000. Topor has already spent several days on the campus reviewing the university's communications strategies. Meanwhile, a Calgary company, TAG research, has been conducting extensive interviews with current students and the local community to see how they view the university. The reviews are part of a wider initiative at the U of C, launched by retiring president Murray Frasser, to examine all its activities in the next year. Topor will complete his report by early next month.
	projects. "Canada is at a disadvantage - we're at an early stage in developing this expertise," said Chapman. Another factor for the university committee which picked Topor was its ability to objectively review how the university is currently marketing itself. "We couldn't get that from a local firm," said Chapman. The company's owner, Bob Topor, said the U of C is his first Canadian client, but he warned many eastern Canadian universities are preparing to adopt a far more aggressive approach. The issue of growing competition for students among post-secondary institutions is "sweeping the world," he said in an interview from his Mountain View, Calif., office. He said the U of C should be viewed

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