Brand Personality in Higher Education: Anthropomorphized University Marketing Communications

This paper was in response to a call for exploratory research into the marketing communications of higher education institutions. The universities prospectuses were analysed through a brand personality lens. The initial research objectives and data collection and analysis was carried out by myself and Fiona Lettice, and John Nadeau was invited as a co-author to help interpret the findings.

Rutter, R. Lettice, F & Nadeau J (2016) Brand Personality in Higher Education: Anthropomorphized University Marketing Communications. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education. Download PDF

Introduction – When considering a differentiated marketing strategy, an organisation is encouraged to find and promote its USP (unique selling point). As universities fight to engage the interest of prospective students amid increasingly heavy competition, they are faced with the task of making their ‘product’ different while essentially offering the same degrees and courses as their competitors. This has led to universities employing a range of tactics to uniquely position themselves in order to attract students. While Higher Education Institution (HEI) league tables or campus location can be used by students to narrow their choices, they are increasingly likely to differentiate on brand, such as the brand personality projected by individual universities. This has led to increased use of brand management techniques borrowed from the corporate sector being used to differentiate institutions.

student-choice

HEI brand characteristics – To determine what differentiation exists between the top ten universities in the United Kingdom, a process wherein distinct characteristics are ascribed to certain words was utilised, allowing frequency of reference to brand personality dimensions in HEIs’ texts to be analysed. The perception of an institution as having a personality or behavioural characteristics effectively anthropomorphises it, legitimising its description in terms usually reserved for people. Following the model proposed by Aaker, five core personality dimensions were considered: competence, excitement, ruggedness, sincerity and sophistication, allowing each university’s brand image to be expressed as one or a combination of these dimensions. Some examples of the words relating to each characteristic are shown in Table 1.

Brand Dimensions Synonyms
Competence outstanding, staunch, thorough
Excitement fresh, inventive, young
Ruggedness challenge, difficult, unrestrained
Sincerity compassion, decent, modest
Sophistication charismatic, graceful, magnificent

Table 1: Example of synonyms related to each brand personality dimension

Through measurement of the frequency of occurrence of the brand personality dimensions and a range of similarly assigned words (synonyms) within those pages of the HEIs’ prospectuses, the respective positions of each HEI were plotted diagrammatically, shown in the Figure 1 below.

ca-map-hei-pro

Figure 1: the positions of the top 10 HEIs

Differentiating the HEIs – By their positions in relation to the axes, juxtapositions were observed between excitement and sophistication and between competence and ruggedness, meaning that for all ten universities excitement can be seen to diminish as sophistication increases and similarly competence overpowers ruggedness. Sincerity, however, is an underlying characteristic for the entire sample and, therefore, of no use as a tool to distinguish one from another. The HEIs fell into three categories defined by their most prominent brand personality dimension within the graph:

  1. Sophistication and Ruggedness: Imperial College London and Cambridge, while both possessing strong brand personalities, differed inasmuch as Imperial communicated a high level of sophistication, with a strong specialization in engineering enabling it to establish links with commerce, and Cambridge, in describing its courses in terms of being demanding or challenging, had many more markers for ruggedness.
  2. Competence and Excitement: Manchester, Warwick, York and University College London, were the four most closely identified as possessing competence, having all used similar ‘competence’ words, such as describing themselves as being ‘at the forefront’. To a lesser degree, these four were similar to both Oxford and Essex, although these were more strongly perceived as possessing an air of excitement, both having literally described themselves as ‘exciting’ in their promotional literature, as well as using a range of ‘excitement’ words.
  3. Sincerity: The London School of Economics (LSE) and Edinburgh held a more central, and therefore neutral, position and were very strongly associated with sincerity, a characteristic taking a secondary position in the brand personalities of the other eight universities, with Edinburgh describing their staff as ‘down-to-earth’ and LSE insisting the learning experience would prove ‘beneficial’. Both HEIs stressed the friendliness of their establishments.

Conclusions – The findings of this study have ramifications for future efforts to project brand personalities in the higher education sector, having demonstrated the effectiveness of word use and selection by HEIs as a powerful tool of differentiation. Between the message inherent in university-specific literature, emphasis of particular aspects of the curriculum and extra-curricular strengths and a clear understanding of how the features of the location appeal to the key demographic, any university can project a strong enough brand personality to constitute a unique selling point.

Social Media Interaction, the University Brand and Recruitment Performance

This paper was in response to a call for research to explore brand identity, meaning, image, and reputation (BIMIR) in higher education in the Journal of Business Research. The paper was written in collaboration with Stuart Roper and Fiona Lettice. The study set out to determine whether use of social media platforms would raise the value of universities’ brands by increasing demand for places. If social media use were found to improve brand performance, the study would then determine which aspects of social media would be of the greatest value.

Rutter, R., Roper, S. and Lettice, F., 2016. Social media interaction, the university brand and recruitment performance. Journal of Business Research69(8), pp.3096-3104. Download PDF

Figure 1: Example of a Tweet aimed at prospective students by the University of East Anglia (UEA)

Introduction – While many effective methods exist for enhancing brand image, use of social media is increasingly becoming the most common across all sectors, as it allows almost universal access.  Although considered controversial in some quarters, Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) have begun communicating in the tone of the marketplace in order to attract students, their de facto customer base, amid inbuilt inequities in both material assets and reputation. Universities with a well-established history of excellence, such as those in the Russell Group, have a significant advantage over newer HEIs or those which are smaller or have restricted access to funding, but the relatively low cost-to-engagement ratio of social media enables all HEIs to embrace it. The research question being: can institutions with lower reputational capital compete for students by increasing their brand presence?

The hypotheses – four possibilities were considered:

  1. The level of HEI initiated social media activity on Twitter and Facebook positively and significantly relates to student recruitment performance –  the first hypothesis would be shown to be correct if a clear connection could be demonstrated between those institutions which initiated a greater amount of social media activity and those which experienced an increase in student recruitment.
  2. ‘The level of HEI social media validation on Twitter and Facebook positively and significantly relates to student recruitment performance – for the second hypothesis, the connection would need to be made between success in recruitment and numbers of followers on Twitter or likes for HEIs’ Facebook pages and posts.
  3. The type of tweets, direct user interaction and website links will significantly moderate the relationship between social media followers and student recruitment performance – placing intrinsic value on type rather than amount of engagements, could be shown to be correct through analysis of whether potential students were finding answers to questions, using links supplied via social media and demonstrating satisfaction with their interactions.
  4. The level of social media use, direct user interactions, website links on Twitter and Facebook Talking About will be significantly different between Russell Group and non-Russell Group HEIs – a difference would have to be shown between the numbers of tweets and/or Facebook Talking About (FTA) relating to those HEIs in the Russell Group when compared to the non-Russell Group, as well as numbers of weblinks and levels of user engagement.

Methodology – Data in the form of Facebook likes, FTA and Twitter followers was manually collected and the Twitter archive of each of the 56 HEIs in the study was harvested using web scraping software. The number and type of each kind of interaction was analysed and the data distribution plotted to show any relevant trends; the information was then examined using structural equation modelling, confirming the consistency of the trends. In order to determine how these results impacted on the hypotheses, the researchers garnered information from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (UCAS) showing the number of applications to each HEI per available place. Plotting the recruitment figures from UCAS against the analysis of the HEIs’ social media performance allowed any relationship between the two factors to be observed at distinct points in time and conclusions to be drawn. Figure 2 highlights the scraping process and platforms used in this research.

method

Figure 2: showing the scraping process and platforms used in the research

Findings – The study shows that high numbers of Twitter followers, Facebook likes and FTA are strong indicators of recruitment performance, with Twitter followers being the most relevant factor. While a greater number of tweets does not predict greater success in recruitment, the type and quality of Twitter interaction is important; as prospective students often engage with HEIs on social media to find answers to specific questions, a swift response is more likely to create a relationship between the HEI and the individual, thereby encouraging recruitment. The amount and type of weblinks posted on social media has no discernible effect on recruitment performance. Hypothesis 4 was only partially correct, as Russell Group universities were neither making a significantly different number of tweets to non-Russell Group universities nor experiencing a higher amount of FTA. Russell Group HEIs were, however, involved in a higher average number of interactions and posted more weblinks, almost exclusively to their own sites, unlike non-Russell Group universities. Figure 3 below summarises how social media can be used to achieve the highest level of UCAS demand.

social-media-funnel-process

Figure 3: the social media student recruitment funnel

Conclusion – By engaging with those prospective students who have endorsed the HEI via Facebook likes or by following it on Twitter and making those engagements fast and accurate, social media can become one of the most effective tools at a university’s disposal. Regardless of status, those HEIs that create a strong social media presence can improve their brand image and increase student recruitment.

University Branding Within The Higher Education Sector

Over the last few decades, the formerly cloistered environment of the university has been forced to adapt to a more commercialised world. With an increasing number of institutions competing for student and faculty talent, every potential advantage counts. This is particularly true as the effects of globalisation are felt in the academic sector, with UK universities no longer competing simply with one another, but with higher education institutions from across the world.

Given this context, it might appear obvious that effective, clear and coherent branding is vital for any university wishing to prosper in the modern world. The only way in which an academic institution can attract sufficient research funding to succeed in comparison to its competition, as well as persuading the best students and academics in the field to take advantage of that funding, is to build a reputation which differentiates it from other universities. Rather than relying on chance, those universities with an effective brand can be confident of continued recruitment and funding success.

Despite this, many academics are extremely resistant to the concept of branding. It is often viewed as seeking to reduce a complex institution, built on the interplay of many differing ideologies and viewpoints, into a few trite words. The ‘smoke and mirrors’ of branding, it is argued, cannot possibly encapsulate the multi-layered reality of any academic institution. For many academics, who are understandably not familiar with the theory of branding or its complexities, the concept is only applicable to soft drinks or trainers. An intellectual ‘product’, in their view, cannot be appropriately branded without reducing academic freedom and closing off avenues of thought.

Rejecting branding as a viable approach for the university sector, however, is actually to ignore the history of academic institutions in the Western world, and particularly within the United Kingdom. It is simply not correct to assert that, until recently, universities did not have to worry about branding themselves or appealing to prospective students and faculty members. It is true, of course, that historically there have been less players within the academic marketplace, but this certainly does not mean that competition was not fierce in previous decades. Differentiation of academic institutions has a long and proud history, and is precisely the method by which the primacy of today’s premier universities was established.

Perhaps the best example of branding within the university sector has been the University of Oxford. The name of the institution conjures up images of the dreaming spires, the Bodleian Library, and rowing on the Isis. The association of particular images and values with an institution is precisely what is meant by branding, and the achievement of Oxford over the centuries has been to integrate its name with ideals of academic excellence, independence of thought, and top quality research. Of course, this has not been done simply by adopting a ‘brand’ in the simplest sense of the term. Until recently, there has been no concerted effort to encapsulate the values which Oxford represents into a comprehensive strategy. Nonetheless, the university has long recognised that the best way in which it can promote itself and maintain primacy in the sector is to offer a particular experience, and to associate itself with particular ideals held by its students and academics.

Across the Atlantic, Harvard University has achieved a similar primacy through branding, although its strategy has been more conscious and more overt than Oxford’s. As with many American universities, the design of specific merchandise, the integration of logos into products and the promotion of particular values within all aspects of the university experience has transformed Harvard into a globally recognised brand. As with Oxford and other world renowned university brands, this has had the effect of forming a virtuous circle. The success of Harvard’s brand has allowed it to attract the best academics, students and research funding, which in turn has allowed it to reinforce its reputation for excellence and further promote its brand.

As can be seen, the process of designing and promoting a university’s brand is significantly more complex than that involved with a simple product. It cannot, and should not, simply involve a few focus group meetings which attempt to encapsulate the essence of the university in a pithy phrase. Instead, it needs to be a long-term project, which orientates itself to the wider strategy of the academic institution which it seeks to serve. An excellent recent example is that of Loughborough University. Its brand in the popular consciousness is now firmly established, with the institution being viewed as one of the best sports science universities in the world. The establishment of this brand, given a foundation by strategic decisions over a number of years, has allowed Loughborough to attract substantial funding for its work in this area. In a similar experience to that of Oxford and Harvard, it has created a virtuous circle, in which an established brand helps to increase the institution’s real excellence in an area of research.

It is that virtuous circle which explains the very real importance of an effective branding strategy for any higher education institution which intends to preserve academic freedom and independence of thought in the 21st century. Far from being a threat to high quality research and the traditions of university life, the construction of an effective brand can become a vital part of preserving those things. Universities which make no effort to market themselves will soon find the best students and staff going elsewhere, and will begin to see their funding being reduced as a result. A failure to adequately explain the work going on within an academic institution is not simply a betrayal of the purpose of the work, but also puts at risk its continued existence. Branding does not have to be a simplistic or reductive exercise, but it is absolutely necessary to any university that wishes to remain relevant in the globalised economy. Far from consisting of ‘smoke and mirrors’, effective branding seeks to present a coherent picture of academic research to the wider world.