On Branding

We live in a society soaked in 'branding' almost all the goods and services we consume carry the mark of their maker or provider. Some subtly, others more overtly. Our experience  and those of our friends and neighbours, of these goods and services, lead us to associate particular qualities with the mark. This association constitutes the brand. In a complex world, in which we are constantly being required to make difficult decisions, brands provide a shortcut. For the most part, and obviously only to the extent that our impressions of the brand are accurate, they are a useful tool.

Higher education is a particularly difficult thing to make decisions about. What we value as 'consumers' are many different overlapping, partially inconsistent properties that are difficult to assess and that must exist in a creative balance with each other. A brand provides a summation of this, a set of impressions and associations that can be used to characterise an educational offering. Branding is thus of particular importance in education. Furthermore, our primary audience are young people who are particularly aware of, and sensitive to, brands and the ways in which they are used. I do not want to express any opinion about whether this is a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing', it just is.

Of course, education is also, in significant part, and whether we like it or not, a 'status good'. We want what we believe other people value, represented by and integrated in reputation or standing. Interest in this in higher education has prompted much concern with university league tables that attempt to reflect the smallest shifts in global reputation. There is clearly a circular component to reputation in which institutions with a strong reputation gain more, because what is valued is reputation itself, a classic virtuous circle. The same operates, of course, in reverse. Each circle is reinforced by flows of funding. The brand of a university has become principally a carrier of its reputation.

You can do quite a lot about brand. Through marketing you can reinforce the positive associations made with your mark or attempt disrupt negative associations. You can perhaps reshape the discourse around your mark so as to appropriate certain kinds of associations. If however, you are not truthful in the way you represent yourself you risk losing trust and with it any ability to project yourself. Because brands are a heuristic device, a confused brand precisely cancels out the very purpose the brand is intended to serve.

Branding in universities has gained a bad reputation. This is partly because branding has its roots in business and in fast-moving consumer goods and services. The language of branding, and marketing more generally, plays poorly in higher education. This is not however, the main problem. The problem at root is that many universities expect their brand to do much more than it is capable of doing. A brand is a blunt tool because it is essentially universal, it cannot readily transmit different messages to different groups or segments without risk of confusion. It is thus necessary for universities to be clear about what they want their brand to say and to whom. The brand must also be 'authentic'. This can be uncomfortable because the truthfulness and clarity that must underpin the brand sometimes are uncomfortable.

Given the importance of branding and the extent to which it influences the shape of the higher education sector, we badly need a grown up discussion about it. Making jokes about overpaid logo designers is not a grown up discussion. Branding cannot be confined to a corporate communications function. Nor can it be confined, in fact, solely to management because the brand speaks to values and associations that need to be collectively recognised and 'owned'. We need simultaneously to accept branding as part of what we do, devote time to it, and be ready to move beyond it, perhaps to subvert it.