Question 5678

What is Branding? Is it about Image? Is it about Reputation?

The terms branding, image, and reputation are used interchangeably. Let’s investigate in more detail what these terms mean in HED.

Branding has been defined in various ways. Here are several:

1. What marketers call a brand or market position is nothing more than a compelling identity that expresses the special qualities of that product in ways that motivate the interest and inspire the dreams of important constituencies. [From the article “ Know Thyself: 5 Strategies for Marketing a College (Links to an external site.) ”; April 30, 2004 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education by Richard A. Hesel.]

2. A brand is the promise of a certain experience. [From the article “ Even in Academia, Image is Everything (Links to an external site.) ”; May 1, 2006 issue of ABC News by Yvonne Lai]

3. A brand is an attitude, a core philosophy, what you stand for. [From a lecture given Rob Bridges, Vice President and Partner of Mad Genius, Inc.]

At issue here is the expectation of value. A brand is basically an expectation based on the information that has been provided. For example, Mississippi College’s literature speaks of its old age—founded in 1826. It also speaks of the residential population. Therefore, a prospective student visiting the campus would expect to find nice brick traditional buildings with nice residential halls, a quad with a lot of green grass, and a nice library with many books.

Mississippi College has traditionally hired an advertising agency and outsourced this function.

Please read the blog called Shaping University Reputation at  https://thebrandeducation.com/blog/shaping-university-reputation/ (Links to an external site.)  The idea of shaping the university brand is an integrate and complicated thing. A strong brand should support such activities as enrollment and fundraising.

Strong brands allows the logo of the institution to solicit a response. For example, Nike and its logo:

Name the product or place associated with the following logos:

No matter what the approach used for university branding, it is imperative that marketing research be done. A university brand is a valuable thing to be protected once established. Rob Bridges, Vice President and Partner of Mad Genius, Inc., cautions universities to have someone to “watchdog the brand.” He says that brands can be fractured when mixed messages are sent.

You can also see the enrollment visual--often called the funnel--that refers to the types of reputation-building and marketing pieces used to get students to apply and enroll.