Chief Marketing Officer Doug Gruse Talks Creativity Culture

This excerpt is taken from “A Deep Dive With Doug Gruse.” Read the full story.

Doug Gruse spends his days overseeing marketing strategy for Empire State University. As chief marketing officer, he works with his team of 17 to create meaningful campaigns that resonate with potential students.

But for Gruse, the job goes beyond enrollment numbers. At the core of his passion for marketing is the desire to make the field a more honest and creative one—a philosophy that guides each decision the team makes. For the last three years, he has worked to make the university’s image embody its mission, centering the authenticity and uniqueness that characterize SUNY Empire learners.

In Saratoga Springs, Gruse sits at his office desk, almost in line with the far corner of the room. He sports square-shaped tortoiseshell glasses, a plaid stone-gray suit jacket over a charcoal-colored shirt, and a two-tone grey bowtie.

What was your upbringing like?

Gruse: When I really think about the heart of my family, my mom was from Northern Michigan—a little resort town—and her family had a restaurant there. In my childhood, we would go every summer and spend most of it with my grandparents. A lot of that centered on the restaurant.

I was in the kitchen helping my grandfather—it was probably more annoying than helpful, but it was exciting for me. My grandmother was a nurse. She would go to work all day, and then come back and still do work at the restaurant. We’d have our family meals there. It was such a big part of our identity that it’s what I think about when it comes to family.

When I was in kindergarten, my dad was a news reporter. There was a local zoo that he had featured in some stories, and a tiger at the zoo had a litter of cubs that she had rejected. The zoo director took one of the cubs in, somebody else took in another, and my family fostered the third one for six months. I named her Ginger, which was my favorite character on Gilligan’s Island, because in my head there was a point where she wore a tiger-striped dress. Somehow, in kindergarten it just made sense. I had the best show-and-tell experience of any kid.

Ginger grew fast. She was big by the time we had to give her up. It was really sad. After the foster period, my mom was contemplating keeping her, maybe building a large enclosure, but my dad said no.

Let’s fast forward to college. If I’m not mistaken, I think you went to school for journalism.

Gruse: I did. I was in the journalism school at Louisiana State University, and my focus was in advertising.

Did you work as a journalist at some point?

Gruse: Yes. It’s funny. My dad was a newspaper editor, and I spent a lot of time with him in his office. I swore I would never work for a newspaper. Then when I moved to Philadelphia, a job opened up at a newspaper and I thought, OK, I guess I’ll do that for a while. I ended up working in newspapers for 16 years and in fact moved up here following a job in journalism.

What was your beat?

Gruse: I covered arts and entertainment and features, and then ultimately became the online editor because I saw technology was changing. Throughout my career, I call myself a slasher—not in the sense of Freddy Krueger, but I’ve had a lot of different jobs. I’ve found that I’m a writer slash editor, slash designer, slash marketer. The industry has changed so much, and I’ve jumped around.There’s so many different things that I’ve had to be, and I like that. I think that actually fits my personality really well. I get bored.

How do you think your journalism background informs your work as a marketer?
Gruse: Everything for me really is storytelling. Whether it’s doing visual art or working as a writer, I’ve always liked telling other people’s stories. And I think good marketing today focuses on that. It’s what our campaigns here at the university focus on. We’re telling our students’ stories and why we make sense for our students and letting them drive that narrative authentically. It’s so moving. It’s exciting. It never gets boring. I love talking to our students. I love hearing how we’ve changed their lives in ways that they never thought would be possible. That’s the great thing. I’ve always believed in higher ed. Knowing that higher education can be accessible to everyone at SUNY Empire and seeing that every day is very meaningful to me.

How do you define marketing and how is it an effective tool for the university?

Gruse: When I was in college, marketing was thought of as selling. It had this very manipulative, corporate feel. That was one thing I never loved about it. I always wanted something that was honest, and I think it’s evolved a lot because consumers are savvier. Marketers have had to realize they need to be authentic to optimize their messaging.

For me, marketing today is communication and matching people to the products and services that they would value. That’s the great thing about my job here—I feel good about the product that we’re marketing. It’s something I really believe in. We’re very honest in our messaging. We help the people who need us the most make a decision to get where they need to go for that next step in their lives.

What have previous experiences taught you about what makes a good team?

Gruse: When I think about what I value in a team, it’s seeing everyone’s perspective and bringing it all together. I’ve tried to build a team that’s diverse. I want them to really understand our students, which are themselves very diverse and eclectic. I want each of them to have an authentic voice.

We have a brand, and we have to adhere to brand standards, certainly, but I want to know how everyone on the team fits within that brand. I want us to always try to push boundaries a bit, and sometimes you have to rein it in. However, for creatives, it’s important that work doesn’t become routine and that they feel like there’s an opportunity to grow. I always try to encourage that.

We have one last question for you, and it’s kind of a silly one. We’ve noticed that you’re always wearing a bow tie. Why?

Gruse: One of my bosses had a policy that proper men wore ties to work if they wanted to be respected. I thought it was ridiculous. I went and bought ties, and they drove me crazy because they’re long. I’d catch them in the car door or my desk drawer. I thought, why do I have this weird fabric just hanging here from my neck? It seemed so weird, especially for work. So I thought, I’m going to wear that tie that you’re demanding, but I’m going to wear a bow tie. Having come from the South, bow ties are sort of proper culture. So it was a little bit of sticking it to the man to wear one. And there’s a little bit of irony to it.

What do you look for in a bow tie?

Gruse: So, it has to be one that I can tie myself; pretied bow ties are a no. So that would be the first thing. And second, I like patterns. That’s important to me, and I want them to be playful in some way, ideally. And I really like to mix and match patterns in general. So, like a plaid jacket, a funky bow tie, a striped shirt.  I think it’s funny. You’ve got to have a quirk, right?