Developing Brand Strategy for International University toward the business community

Abstract

Branding for universities is an emerging new concept that catches the attention of experts, scholars and of course universities’ board of management. Its importance has been proven by the success of big universities in the world such as Harvard , MIT, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge. In marketing terminology, those university adopt solid strategic brand management strategy which helps differentiate themselves from the competition, enhance their traditional values and adopts new attributes that make their brands even stronger. It can be seen that building up an effective brand strategy is not just an option or a potential plan but a key focus to success for those universities. However, it is essential to ask the question: who are the target audience that universities are branding to? The two most important stakeholders that universities should not miss are the potential students and the business community. While it is easy to understand why schools should initiate branding activities to high school students, it might not be the same case for the business community. It can be seen that most communication and branding efforts of universities focus mainly on the students; however this is just half of the equation as business can also be considered as an important customer that universities must take care of. Branding toward the business community will help a university raise its reputation and image as being a reliable and high quality training facility which would clearly add some advantages for its students when applying for jobs. Moreover, when partner up with companies, a university can ensure various career opportunities for its students which can be presented as a competitive advantage to attract potential students to enroll and study at the school. Besides, there are lots of other benefits such as long term partnership in research, managerial consulting and technology transfer that universities can propose to business if engage in branding activities As for that, the aim of this research is to discover insights that helps International University develop its winning brand strategy toward the business community.