FIR on Higher Education #40: The State of Higher Education Branding

It is important to understand how our respective brands are perceived in the marketplace and then to potentially adapt accordingly. This will often times require doing a strategic brand review.

Xavier University Professor Tom Hayes is able to shed light on how to best do this. An expert on the marketing of higher education, Hayes was the lead author of a 2015 study entitled The State of Higher Education Branding, a survey of marketing professionals in leading brand strategy projects on their campuses. On episode 40 of FIR on Higher Education, Professor Hayes shares details about the survey findings and offer his own best practice advice on how to think through strategic brand reviews. Among the topics we discuss are:

– The best time to move forward with a brand strategy review and the duration it should take.

– How to get buy-in throughout the institution.

– Best practice advice on conducting research as part of a brand strategy review.

– Making sense of the data collected and building consensus on changes to implement.

– Ensuring branding is cascaded throughout an institution.

In our reports section, I share findings from a separate study on how Chief Marketing Officers are thinking about the future.

The analysis from these two studies and the tips from Professor Hayes will certainly provide inspiration and best practice on how to think through branding at your institution.

About Tom Hayes

Tom Hayes is Chair and Professor of Marketing at Xavier University where he has taught for the last 38 years. He has also previously served as Chair of the Department for 13 years and as the Director of Institutional Advancement. He is presently Vice-president and Partner of Simpson-Scarborough, a full service marketing consulting agency for institutions of higher education. He was the founder of the American Marketing Association’s Symposium on the Marketing of Higher Education and is editor of The Journal of Marketing for Higher Education. He had a book entitled Marketing Professional Services, co-authored with Philip Kotler, published in January 2001. He is a nationally recognized expert in services marketing, the marketing of higher education, and the development of ideas for new products and services, and consults in these areas on a national and international basis.

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