The document discusses building an effective brand for a college or university. It outlines three key steps: 1) clarify the institution's core values through internal and external research, 2) commit to a single brand positioning strategy through testing, and 3) convey the brand through internal communication and ensuring institutional behaviors align with the brand. An effective brand focuses on a specific appeal, is compelling to audiences, and is communicated and lived out over time to build awareness, acceptance, and advocacy.

1. Building a Brand That Matters
A Short Stack PPT Developed by the
Center for Strategic Change
at George Fox University
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2. The Center for Strategic Change
at George Fox University
The Center for Strategic Change at George Fox University has a simple mission: To help
college and university leaders succeed.
We will accomplish this mission by serving as both a platform and resource for strategic
innovation. As a platform, we will provide current practitioners an opportunity to present
their ideas and insights to the higher education community.
As a resource, we will provide content in the areas of leadership, visioning, strategic
planning and organizational design.
Questions about this short stack can be addressed to Bob Sevier at
rsevier@georgefox.edu.
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3. Brands Matter
• Research consistently shows that students prefer to attend a college or university that is
well-branded.
• We know, too, that brands:
 Save time in decision making
 Project a clear message
 Provide an identity
 Give permission
 Instill confidence
• In addition, colleges and universities with strong brands generate:
 More alumni support
 Positive word of mouth
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4. What is a Brand?
• But even as there is general agreement that brands matter, there is less agreement, even
confusion, over what exactly a brand is.
• More than a look or a logo, a brand is a compelling promise a college, university or
school makes to its most important audiences to meet a need or fulfill an expectation.
• Brands are often projected by images and symbols. However, it is what people think
when they view a symbol that is the brand, not the symbol itself.
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5. Indicators That You Have a Brand Problem
• Tuition revenue is flat or declining
• Prospective students and parents have
undue price sensitivity
• New programs languish
• You can’t describe in one sentence what
makes you compelling
• You cannot cite meaningful differences
between your institution and your top
competitors
• Alumni involvement and giving is flat or
declining
• First-year to second-year retention rate is
below norms
• Job ads fail to attract best candidates
• Giving is localized to alumni and historic
friends
• Pronounced negative word of mouth
• Negative or no media 5

6. Integrated Marketing Communication
• Brand marketing is one of the key elements of integrated marketing communication (IMC).
• IMC includes:
 Brand marketing – generate awareness
 Direct marketing – generate response (Do you want to attend? Give?)
 Internal communication
• The purpose of brand marketing is to set up the ask.
 For example, you project your brand to prospective students prior to recruiting and to
donors prior to solicitation
• Ideally, you want your brand plan to dovetail neatly with your recruiting and advancement plans
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7. What We Believe About Brands
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• Strong brands depend on: 1) current and comprehensive market research; 2) respect for your
school’s heritage; and 3) a clear and shared vision.
• A brand strategy will more likely involve the clarification of your institution’s current core
values rather than the creation of new core values.
• The goal of a brand strategy is to establish and hold a position of perceived and real value in
the minds of your most important internal and external audiences.
• In all cases, an effective brand strategy returns measurable value to the institution.
• The brand strategy should engage, equip and energize the campus community.

8. Unique, Distinctive and Compelling
• Too often, college and universities focus on what makes them unique or distinctive.
 This institutional-centric approach is almost always ill-fated because it relies on what
the institution values and not necessarily what is of interest to your audiences.
• Your goal, instead, is to build your brand around what makes you compelling to both
internal stakeholders and external audiences. Ideally, this brand position is not of interest
to your competitors.
• In other words, what do you care about, that your audiences also care about, that your
competitors don’t care about?
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9. Your point of
compelling
differentiation
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10. Expecteds
high in relevance,
low in differentiation
Neutrals
low in relevance,
low in
differentiation
Drivers
high in relevance, high
in differentiation
Fool’s gold
low in relevance,
high in
differentiation
Source: McKinseyQuarterly.com
Seeking Compelling Points of Differentiation
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11. Brand Focus
• Strong brands avoid the idea of “more.” Rather than seeking to serve everyone
everywhere, they focus on:
– A specific style/way of teaching Cornell College:One course at a time
– A specific learning environment Biola University: Christian worldview
– A specific academic area MIT: Technology
– A specific people BYU: Church of Jesus Christ/LDS
– A specific target geography Appalachian State: People of Appalachia
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12. Three Key Steps
• Building an effective brand is a three-step process:
 Clarify and confirm the stated and unstated institutional core values that will drive
your overall brand strategy.
 Settle on, or commit to, a single brand positioning strategy.
 Convey involves both communicating the brand and living out the brand.
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13. Step One: Clarify and Confirm
• Internally, you want to review your current vision and
your stated and unstated core values.
 Your goal is to identify those compelling distinctives
that will serve as the foundation for your brand.
• Externally, you want to review the brand positions of
your top competitors (you want to avoid competing for
positions that are already owned) as well as examine
perceptions and misperceptions among your target
audiences.
• The result of this twin assessment is two or more
testable brand promises (statements). 13

14. Step Two: Commit
• The second step begins with testing the brand promises you have identified in step one. This
test, usually delivered via the web, is directed at both internal stakeholders and external
audiences.
• As part of this test, ask your which of the potential brand promises is:
 Most important
 Most believable
 Most distinctive from your competitors (especially external audiences)
 Most emotionally engaging
• At the conclusion of the brand test you need commit to a final brand promise.
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15. 15
• Flows directly from your vision
• Makes a claim, takes a position and breaks through the competitive clutter
• Is understandable, important, believable, distinctive and emotionally engaging (that’s
what compelling is all about)
• Is credible and attainable
• Leaves out more than it leaves in (focus)
• Supports five or six key attributes and message points
A Good Brand Promise …

16. Brand
Rationale
Proof
Points
Brand
Attributes
Tagline
Elevator
Speech
Graphic
Identity
Creative
Boards
Brand
Attribute
Matrix
Single
Word
Institutional Brand Promise
(super-brand)
Sub-
Brands
The Brand Platform
• A fully developed brand
platform details the
essential elements of your
brand strategy so it can be
easily understood and
operationalized
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17. Step Three: Convey Your Promise
• Convey means to both communicate and live out.
• From a communication perspective, your goal is to establish awareness of your brand
position in the minds of your most important internal and external target audiences.
• Ultimately, you want messages that are:
 Relevant (understandable, important, believable, distinctive)
 Repeated
 Remembered
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18. Brand Communication Plan
• Mission and vision
• Singular brand promise and attributes
 Sub-brands
• Broad brand communication goals
• Prioritized target audiences (who we are talking to)
• Clarified target geography (where they live)
• Internal launch and maintenance strategy
• Brand action plans (How are we reaching our
target audiences?)
• Budget year one, two and three
• Calendar (by audience)
• Evaluation mechanisms and timeline
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19. Media Mix Options
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• Internal communication including brand launch (see next slide)
• Presentation in recruiting flow
• Presentation in fundraising flow
• Public relations
• Media relations
• Special events
• Publicity
• Traditional media (advertising) [print, broadcast, outdoor/transit, mall, et al.]
• Interactive/direct marketing/social media
• Environmental marketing (facilities, atmospherics, signage/vehicle ID)
• Merchandising
• Alliance marketing

20. Convey - continued
• In addition to communicating your brand, you most commit to living out your brand.
• Importantly, because your brand promise flows directly from your vision, this means:
 Identifying those institutional behaviors which are inconsistent with your core values
 Supporting and reinforcing those behaviors which are consistent with your core
values
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21. Internal Launch
• Before you roll out your brand to external audiences, you must undertake an internal
launch to:
 Celebrate the new brand (pump up the volume)
 Give internal audiences talking points
 Build support among internal audiences
 Educate people on the brand portfolio, especially the rationale
 Offer guidelines on how to communicate the brand
 Offer guidelines on how to live the brand
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Vision + Communication = Shared Purpose

22. Build Momentum
• Pick some low-hanging fruit
• Celebrate early wins
• Communicate at three stages:
 At the campaign launch
 Periodically (quarterly) throughout the campaign
 When the plan achieves short-term wins, intermediate goals or evidences other
indicators of success (especially successes related to resource gains)
• Show outcomes, not merely output
• Share the rewards
• Don’t blink
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23. Assimilation Takes Time
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Time
AmountofChange
Living it
Believing it
Hearing it
How do we get it in
their hearts?
How do we get it in
their heads?
How do we get it in
their hands?
Passionate advocacy
Cultural experience
Utilize and internalize
Personalize
Ready to promote
Ready to defend
Acceptance
Undertaking
Awareness
Contact
Source: Aaker, Prophet, modified

24. Monitor the Brand Experience
• To assess brand performance, you need to revisit key audiences and ask them: “How are
we doing?”
 Conduct internal assessments
 Evaluate retention, student satisfaction and outcome data
• Consider experience marketing:
 An organizational commitment to identifying and managing, to a specific end, the
key touch points that define an experience that a customer has with a product or
service
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25. Evaluate Progress
• Periodically, you need to repeat baseline research to determine whether or not your
overall campaign is effective.
 Invest in a research cycle
• Solid data that indicates progress is one means to legitimize the effort and gain political
and monetary support.
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26. Available from strategypublishing.com
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