Despite strides made in higher education marketing, “branding” is still often considered a dirty word on many campuses. As this article on museums and branding shows, it’s a perception problem not unique to higher education. Nevertheless, writer Robert Jones makes a strong case for branding as a tool that helps organizations solidify what they stand for and how they can communicate that more clearly. “The fundamental role of brand in museums is not to dumb down,” Jones writes, “but to help scholarship reach more people.”
David Perlmutter’s article Your College Needs a Brand. Help Create It. in the Chronicle of Higher Education echoes many of the same sentiments. He acknowledges some of the valid criticisms often lobbed at branding—selling a dignified educational experience like a product, reducing something complex into simplistic slogans or images, making unrealistic claims, taking money away from other areas that might be seen as more important—but argues for branding as a something “not only useful but necessary for our survival” when families are asking tough questions about cost and value. Smart branding—good branding—he says, is not about inflated, false or overly simplistic claims, but rather about discovering and communicating your brand truth.
