In the competitive world of business, brands fight hard to present themselves as distinctive. Using propositions which derive from a point of difference, actual or perceptual. Think VW. Red Bull. Or more recently, Greggs.
Most of our universities do the exact opposite. They cling to their idea of a single generic ideal so fiercely you couldn’t slide a sheet of paper between them. If you don’t believe me, check out a few websites and play ‘Swap the Logo’.
Read MoreIf fatalism is the belief that everything in life is pre-determined and that we have no control over our own destiny, then free will is the belief that we have the power to choose our own actions and shape our own destiny. Which is why, as a marketer, I tend to be sceptical about people who argue that past trends determine future destiny – and that there’s nothing to be done about it.
Read MoreIn my former life as a Mad Man, Heinz was one of my most prized clients. Our advertising was always based on a strong emotional sell, there being no rational USP attached to one can of beans over another. Then one day, a new director of marketing was appointed, a man who’d spent his whole adult life in accountancy, a man who was intensely rational. He said he wanted us to base our beanz advertising on the least marginal point of difference that consumers could think of. That every bean was evenly coated in tomato sauce. Mad.
Read MoreThere’s not much worse for a VC than the prospect of having to close a subject. The internal repercussions together with external reputational damage can be horrendous. Some closures might be understandable, including the recent spate of modern universities dropping humanities courses. But others are the product of a failure of what we might call micro-marketing.
Read MoreOur government has an unfortunate habit of making decisions that have inadvertent and often damaging consequences. Back in 2012, when it introduced a £9,000 cap on UG student loans, it never expected the entire sector to price to the max.
Read MoreThe Russell Group has become a brand, a byword for excellence in UK higher education. Schools use it as a lazy measure of their success. Parents are told that it’s the next best thing to Oxbridge. Students are given to believe that outsiders are second-rate.
Read MoreBrand Russell Group has become a byword for overall excellence in UK higher education, when the truth is that it is a self-selecting university cartel whose members care more about research than they do about teaching.
Read MoreThe Russell Group is growing its UG market share because students, parents, teachers and employers have been falsely persuaded that its members offer a better education than the other 110.
Read MoreUniversity brand reputation may be the most critical factor in students’ minds, but they will then turn their attention to comparing programmes from their short-listed universities.
Read MoreIn the private sector, brands compete on their points of difference. Differences that might be substantial or marginal, real or perceptual, values-driven or benefits-driven.
Read MoreThe recent debacle over A-level grades presided over by Frank Spencer’s doppelgänger has led to thousands of students being able to enrol into a ‘better’ university.
Read MoreIn the private sector, successful companies involve their marketers early in the product development process, assessing the market opportunity, understanding the customer’s wants and needs, then developing a distinctive and competitive proposition.
Read MoreThree news items caught my eye over Christmas and New Year.
Read MoreIt doesn’t seem that long ago that going into Clearing was an admission of failure. Failure for the student, because they’d missed their grades. Failure for the university because it was an implicit confession of weakness.
How things have changed.
Read MoreUniversities are spending more than £1,000,000,000 every year on highly local campaigns with a too little, too late focus on teenagers
Read MoreAmongst the many analyses, insights and recommendations in the Augar report, the evidence of the sector’s failure to adopt professional marketing practice becomes all too clear.
Read MoreThe news today from UCAS that over a third of students in England, Wales & Northern Ireland received an unconditional offer in the last cycle reminds us how many universities are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of desperation tactics.
Read MoreThe truth is that their decline is completely reversible - because contrary to what the doom-mongers allege, the factors causing it are entirely within their control. Here are five steps which many other post-92 universities have taken with great success.
Read MoreMore than 20% of British Universities are slowly dying. They are post-92 institutions who have seen their recruitment numbers fall every year since 2011.
Read MoreThe transaction between prospective students and universities has always been unlike that of any other buyer/seller. Students chose their preferred universities and then universities chose the students they wanted…
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