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Branding in Higher Education
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Brands are big news. The term is regularly used in the media, in the workplace and even in your local pub. The City places a financial value on it and consumers make purchasing decisions based on it. Ask any organisation, be it a University or a multinational, if their brand is important and they'll say yes. But ask them, what is brand and why is it important and you're likely to get a confused, inaccurate response.
The simple truth is that most organisations do not understand the difference between brand and logo. For a Higher Education Institution, brand is a crucial factor in whether a prospective student decides to apply to study with you or not. In this article we hope to clearly explain the difference and illustrate how an understanding can enable you to use branding to support your organisation's objectives.
What We Mean By 'Brand'
Brand is much more than a logo, typeface or house style. While these can act as easily recognised shorthand for your brand they are more accurately described as your visual identity. Brand is the effect on the stakeholder of what you do and how you do it. It is built by the experience stakeholders have of your products and services and their interaction with your organisation. For your institution, how your courses and programmes are perceived by prospective students and the perceived quality of this offering are all aspects of your brand and will play a key part in influencing the student's decision; unlike your logo.
Brand Essence - A Statement Of How A Brand Is Defined
At the 'core' is the institution itself. Moving out, the institution is represented by a visual identity and a series of facts that underpin the institution's brand. These set out how the HEI wishes to present itself to the outside world (and also internally to its own staff and students), and can include, for instance, league tables or facts and figures on performance, some of which the institution may well prefer not to have presented.
Moving further out again, we have how the institution is perceived by the outside world - or the interpretation of the messages that have been sent out by it. These may include, public perceptions and stereotypes regarding the difference between 'traditional old' universities and 'new' universities, which often do not consider the current realities and may even be unfair.
The interpretation of these messages can be considered in terms of the rational and emotional aspects of that perception - everything from 'what this brand means to me' to 'if I was associated with it, how would it make me feel'.
Your brand can cover your organisation as a whole or separate products and services and helps your audience in their decision-making, creating a perceived knowledge of what they are going to receive or experience - before they commit.
Your audience, be they customers, students or stakeholders, will already have a view of your organisation and its offerings. Whether or not you treat it as such, this is your brand. Brand building simply means communicating your message to your audience more effectively so that they immediately associate your organisation with their requirements.
Managing Multiple Brands Within Organisations
Many organisations in the higher education and public sectors are umbrella organisations housing individual business units which may have little in common and target completely different audiences with separate requirements. This can create a complex relationship with many, seemingly unrelated brands.
For instance, the branding behind an eminent and established medical school will be very different from a fledgling ICT department. Understanding and mapping these relationships is essential if you are to assess the value or otherwise of the sub-brands to the organisational brand and vice versa.
The relationship between brands is referred to as the brand architecture. The architecture should define the different leagues of branding within the organisation; how the organisational brand and sub-brands relate to and support each other; and how the sub-brands reflect or reinforce the core purpose of the organisational brand to which they belong.
It is not uncommon to find Schools whose brands are better known and more established than their parent institutions, as well as the converse. Understanding these interrelationships and their subsequent impact upon one another is fundamental to managing the overall organisational brand and the overall message that an institution is wishing to project to its target audience and stakeholders.
Typically the relationships between brands fall into one of three categories:
1. A single brand across the organisation where one name is used for all activities and this name is how the organisation is referred to by all stakeholders, for example the Halifax;
2. An endorsed brand is where the parent brand adds credibility to the secondary brand. Think of the relationship between the model and make of your car; and
3. A house of brands where the individual sub-brands are presented to the stakeholders with little or no link to the parent brand such as Aquafresh toothpaste which is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Of these, the endorsed brand is on the rise. This is in part due to the public demand for transparency and a desire to know who they are ultimately dealing with.
The Benefits Of Understanding Your Brand
Your organisation may fit neatly into one of these options or you may find you are a hybrid of them. Nevertheless, understanding your brand and mapping your brand architecture are important and can bring tangible improvements, such as:
- Strengthening the brand experience for your audience and ensuring it reinforces and builds the parent brand;
- Providing a framework for the sub-brands and products to adapt their offerings and positioning to their individual markets;
- Providing a strategic framework to assess the product portfolio and inform decisions on the relevancy and benefits of sub-brands and products to the overall organisational offering;
- Identifying gaps or missed opportunities in the organisational offering;
- Identifying core brands throughout the organisation that should be high profile due to their potential to deliver on the primary organisational objective; and
- Supporting the organisation in providing a clear offering to its different markets and avoid misperceptions or confusion amongst your audience that can lead to lost business.
Above All Else - Don't Forget This...
I've referred to 'audience' many times in this article. Regardless of how you define them - students, local residents, community leaders, etc. - one truth is certain: you cannot understand your brand without talking to them and finding out what they understand your brand to be and what they want it to be. Reviewing your branding without consulting your audience is like reviewing a new car without turning the engine on and taking it for a drive - you can see it looks good but does it deliver on its looks?
If you have any questions about the subjects covered in this white paper or you would like to find out more about how Oakleigh Consulting could help your organisation, please contact us on 0161 835 4100 or email us.
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