Michelle Froah likes to think of herself as a chief change agent. When she was offered the role as global chief marketing and innovation officer of ETS, a global education and talent solutions organization, she was highly motivated to rebrand the company.
“I’m really passionate about building brands, especially those that need a transformation,” says Froah. “I’m a bit addicted to change and transformation and have lived my life that way. I’ve taken big opportunities to broaden my scope and viewpoints on bringing marketing and modern marketing capabilities to different industries beyond CPG, international, financial services and tech.”
The 75+ year-old ETS delivers products and solutions that help power human progress across the globe. ETS aims to advance the science of measurement to build the benchmarks for fair and valid skill assessment. They are committed to powering human progress by promoting skill proficiency, empowering upward mobility and unlocking more opportunities for everyone, everywhere. Their assessment products – including the TOEFL, TOEIC, GRE, and Praxis Assessments – as well as their innovative solutions and subsidiaries help 50 million people each year to clarify their strengths and find opportunities for growth in education, work and beyond. They operate around the world, with offices in 25 locations and operations in 200 countries and territories.
“We have a big portfolio of independent brands – from a brand standpoint, they’re all underpinned by this groundbreaking research that really helps advance science of measurement to power human progress, but also helps prove those valid and important outcomes in the world.”
Froah was attracted to the people and the mission at ETS. “I’ve always worked for purpose-driven brands across P&G, Kimberly-Clark, Samsung and even MetLife,” says Froah. “Working with a company that has a mission and a real drive to make a social impact in the world. I’ve been so thrilled to be part of that energy and make an even bigger social impact in the world.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Froah from her office in New York to talk rebranding, upskilling and how 86% of people have FOBO – fear of being obsolete. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about your vision in this role?
Our ambition has been to be a customer-obsessed community of glocal catalysts for sustainable growth and impact. Each one of those words were chosen very carefully. We really dig into those as an organization, being customer obsessed. You have to know everything about the customer, their needs, their desires – and sometimes even anticipate new ones.
We need to be a community that comes together, shares best practices, operates with high standards. Globalization is very important for that reason too. It’s intentional. It’s global and local together, really being a catalyst for a bigger vision at the global level, but striving for real impact at the local level.
What was the idea behind the recent rebrand?
We didn’t just do a rebrand. I wasn’t going to be the CMO that comes in and just changes the logo. We really had to reposition ourselves, and that started with our strategic vision and engaging not only our entire leadership group across ETS, but really every employee that works here.
Educational Testing Service, which is what ETS has historically stood for, is a leading organization. We’ve set the standards for standardized testing and measurement. Now we need to play in a bigger field, which we call future readiness, where we help people adapt and thrive in a changing world. Education doesn’t stop after formal schooling. We’re lifelong learners throughout our careers. We need to upskill and reskill. That is really a big space and more of a B2B play and one that we hadn’t really ventured into. Bringing our expertise – the science of measurement – into that space is the foundation of the brand relaunch and how we reposition ourselves.
Can you talk about ETS’ brand promise?
Our brand promise is advancing the science of measurement to power human progress. It’s a big portfolio. We have many customers, from investors and researchers to philanthropists that are very interested in our groundbreaking research. To B2B customers like, credentialing organizations and employers who are looking for their communities or employees to continue to grow, upskill and reskill and have a way to measure that proficiency.
What holds our whole portfolio together is that brand promise, and when we put all of our efforts against that, we make those human progress outcomes more impactful – unlocking opportunities for all, developing skill proficiency and enabling upward mobility across social, global and even economic dimensions.
Research is so important. It underpins everything we do. Our research is often cited across the industry as the standard benchmark, and we’re raising that from the footnotes with our symbol. It’s an eight-point asterisk with a slash that points up to help remind ourselves of the forward direction of human progress. We created more of a visual and a verbal expression to bring that piece to life.
What has come out of the new branding?
One of the most exciting ways that we brought the brand to life was through our Human Progress Report launched earlier this year, which has some interesting insights. We found that over 86% of people across the globe have FOBO – fear of being obsolete. The skills that they have today may not be the skills that they need for the future, or they don’t have a way to demonstrate their proficiency in skills that they do have. Assessments help them get the credentials they need.
In the long careers that we have, there are technical skills that we might need to upskill and reskill. There’s also what we call durable skills or human skills that are incredibly important to pair with those technical skills to be successful. These durable or human skills include collaboration, resiliency and creative thinking. Those are really hard to measure. You’re not going to measure that by multiple choice, necessarily. We use more situational assessments and we utilize AI to help us ensure that we’re really advancing that science of measurement in how we help people measure their proficiency – but also give them insights on how they could develop further.
Can you talk about how your background in other consumer facing categories helps you work on ETS’ massive portfolio?
When I was interviewing for this role, I shared my career story with our CEO, Amit Savak. I said, buckle up because there’s a lot of twists and turns on this one and it’s going to take a while. After I shared my story, Amit said, ‘Michelle, you’re the unicorn I was looking for.’
My background is in real business transformation. When you’re in CPG, you’re not just a marketer, you’re a business leader. You run the P&L. You orchestrate across many different functions. There was a huge opportunity to rebrand. It wasn’t just a few folks from my marketing team going in a corner and saying, “let’s go make a new brand.” It really was across my entire team working together to develop this, not just within our division, but across the organization. We collaborated with key stakeholders and employees across the whole business.
My experience at big brands like P&G and Samsung and especially Kimberly-Clark, where I was Asia Pacific’s regional CMO helped improve my global brand perspective. This is helpful as ETS is a big global brand. Consumers are not homogeneous. The competition is different across Asia even if you have the same brand or the same product that you’re launching. Having specific local launch plans is important and bringing that perspective to the ETS global brand relaunch was incredibly important as well.
