Exploring rationales for branding a university: Should we be seeking to measure branding in UK universities?

Abstract

Although branding is now widespread among UK universities, the application of branding principles in the higher education sector is comparatively recent and may be controversial for internal audiences who question its suitability and efficiency.This paper seeks to investigate how and whether the effectiveness of branding activity in the higher education sector should be evaluated and measured, through exploratory interviews with those who often drive it; UK University marketing professionals.Conclusions suggest that university branding is inherently complex and therefore application of commercial approaches may be over simplistic. Whilst marketing professionals discuss challenges they do not necessarily have a consistent view of the objectives of branding activity although all were able to clearly articulate branding objectives for their university, including both qualitative and, to some extent, quantitative metrics. Some measures of the real value of branding activity are therefore suggested but a key debate is perhaps whether the objectives and role of branding in higher education needs to be clarified, and a more consistent view of appropriate metrics reached? Various challenges in implementing branding approaches are also highlighted.

Internal brand co-creation: The experiential brand meaning cycle in higher education

“…Due to increasing competition from domestic and international players, HE institutions recognize the need to differentiate themselves from other players in the market place (Chapleo, 2007(Chapleo, , 2011Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2010;Waeraas & Solbakk, 2008). Similar to most service industries, HE offerings include a series of intangible, heterogeneous and perishable characteristics, all of which highlight the role of employees in delivering the service brand experience to customers (Anctil, 2008;Mourad et al, 2011).…”

“…Thus, while HE institutions focus primarily on two key stakeholders; employees (academic and non-academic staff) and students, they should take an inside-out approach. An integrated internal brand cocreation strategy should provide effective and meaningful dialogues about brand values and brand identity to enable employees to actively engage in the co-creation of the HE institution's brand identity (Chapleo, 2011). Indeed, brand co-creation starts with dialogues between internal and external stakeholders (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), with the brand being a point of access to the inner working of the organization.…”

The added value of brand alliances in higher education

“…The rankings of the context and partner universities act as proxy signals of their respective brand equity and provide the assessment platform for the quality of the dual degree. Rankings have been shown to be the most reliable measure of a university's brand equity, as opposed to softer brand metrics (Bunzel, 2007;Chapleo, 2010b and2011). Brand alliances between high equity brands are more likely to be successful (e.g., Simonin and Ruth, 1998;Washburn et al, 2000 and, thus leading to the following hypotheses: H 1a : Perceptions of the added value of a dual degree initiated by a high ranked context university decline in line with the ranking of a lower rank partner university.…”

“…There are a number of reviews on the relevance, management and effectiveness of branding in higher education (e.g., Bennett and Ali-Choudhury, 2009;Chapleo, 2011;Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007;Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka, 2006;Khanna, Jacob and Yadav, 2014;Pinar et al, 2011). Although the growing importance of branding in HE is recognised (see special issue of Journal of Marketing for Higher Education 2014), the paucity of empirical evidence is notable.…”

Journal of Brand Management – Year end review 2016

“…For various reasons, including heightened competition, increased student mobility, and government-backed funding reductions, branding and brand management in Higher Education has been a burgeoning topic during the last decade or so (Balmer and Liao, 2007;Chapleo, 2011;Joseph et al, 2012;Melewar and Nguyen, 2014). Accordingly, while drawing on the selfconcept theory, Japutra et al (2016) investigate Brand Logos and develop a framework for achieving commitment through selfcongruence and brand logo benefit in the context of the Indonesian Higher Education services sector.…”