Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta

There are a handful of operational specifics (geofencing to 13-14 contiguous Midwestern states, program-level Google text ads, A/B testing five taglines for a week) but the episode is heavily padded with throat-clearing, vague generalisations about TikTok and AI, and self-evident observations. The ratio of novel-to-obvious tips is low for a 28-minute runtime.

“we really can't necessarily sell our product to people in TikTok, but we can get them listening to us in general in a very organic way”

“Text ads in Google targeted for every single program that we offer. So if anyone, whatever age, is searching for anything that we have, they're going to see it.”

The messaging insight about SIU alumni self-selecting against the flagship ('Why would I go to U of I?') is a genuinely interesting brand positioning find, but the rest recycles well-worn higher-ed marketing tropes - TikTok is short-form, attribution is hard, AI is promising. No contrarian arguments or first-principles reasoning.

“People will ask them, did you go to U of I? You're from Illinois. Well, no, I didn't go to U of I went to SIU. Why would I go to U of I? And that came out over and over.”

“we're still working on that. I mean that has really been a little bit of a game changer figuring out that we understanding we really can't necessarily sell our product to people in TikTok”

Jeff Harmon is a genuine practitioner who has held CMO-level roles at multiple regional universities and has real attribution and rebranding experience; he is not a carousel thought-leader. However, he operates in a niche institutional context at a mid-tier school and the transcript reveals more aspiration than transformational scale.

“I've done a couple of one really big rebrand at Southeast Missouri State University, from new logos to the entire brand messaging platform”

“our enrollment's gone up the last two years. I think that's five semesters in a row as well with enrollment growth where we have really decreased over the last 10, 15 years very badly”

The episode includes some concrete data points - five consecutive semesters of enrollment growth, $100,000 scholarship surprises at high schools, 25 student call-centre workers, a five-tagline Google test run for one week - but many claims lack numbers, timelines, or causation, and key metrics (CPL, conversion rates, budget figures) are never shared.

“we did about five different which we voted and chose five, put them out there on Google for about a week and there was a clear winner”

“We've given scholarships to surprise them in their high school with $100,000”

The host's questions are pre-sent, largely predictable topic prompts ('How is higher education marketing changed in the last five years?', 'What role does traditional media play?'), and there is zero pushback on any claim. When Jeff says enrollment grew five semesters in a row, the host does not probe what specifically drove it; when Jeff admits 'I have no answer' on policy impacts, the host pivots with a platitude rather than pressing.

“So let's start with your journey and what are the AHA moments that have brought you to where you are now?”

“Well, I think you'd have a great crystal ball, but it's always hard to connect the dots moving forward, right?”