BRANDING FOR SCHOOLS: A CO-CREATIVE APPROACH

By Indranil Gupta, Founder Director & CEO, BrandNEW Associates

It is a commonly held view that if you have indulged in branding (the act of making a mark or giving a name to a product/ service/ entity), you have created a brand. Nothing could be further from the truth! Mere creation or launch of a brand name and logo (more appropriately termed identity) is not the automatic passport to becoming a brand. There is much work to be done!

A brand must be a dynamic source of influence that registers credibility and attraction within the minds of its target group.  However, this is easier said than done… all this takes strategy planning and process.

A brand’s performance and sustainability primarily rests with the inner core of those who represent it – its champions from the internal organization. The criticality of brand internalization – the process of infusing belief in the culture that the brand stands for – cannot be over-emphasized. It is fundamental that brand internalization happens for good measure as preparation before external communication is undertaken, as mismatch of brand promise with brand experience can be disastrous. In a school system, where the touch points with the external audience are many, good ambassadors carry far more weight by word of mouth than the power of advertising or PR or event marketing.

The process of branding is therefore essentially one of institutionalizing a culture. Defining what you stand for, how you are relevant to your audience, and different from other options… which is about your school’s positioning, supplemented by its brand architecture (vision, mission, values...)  form the mandatory pillars of your existence. Beyond spelling these out, they have to also be lived up to on a day-to-day basis, fortifying the belief among all stakeholders concerned. Your school may have a name and a logo, a vision, mission, values and a slogan, but it qualifies to become a brand only through the distinctive and compelling experience that your stakeholders come to expect.

The greater the involvement of the key ambassadors of the brand in the conception and/ or delivery of a brand’s culture, the more the likelihood of a brand’s long term success. It has been seen time and again that personal contributions and co-creative energies help instill ownership of a mission, and thereby generates added impetus to a cause. When brand transformation or culture change is being targeted, it is an opportune time to activate some of the most passionate minds (irrespective of hierarchy) in articulating the new pathway, whether it is for fresh creation, improvement or overhaul.

While the opportunities and vehicles for marketing communications are many, the process of branding must be undertaken only upon enunciating a very clear statement about what problem exactly the school wishes to solve. This will help sharp focus the intent and agenda, and prevent wasteful expenditure of undertaking a laundry list of activities that do not synergize with each other or produce desired results.

What should old and established educational institutions do when new schools (offering glamorous buildings and modern equipment, or new age learning methods) take away the limelight? How should brand-new schools profile themselves to take the best steps forward?

Strategies differ depending on the prevalent circumstances. Older heritage schools pursue ways to leverage their history through their well-established network and consider ways to present their propositions afresh in a new way, including contemporizing their brand identity or slogan. More recent entrants attempt to leverage their record of achievements in a short span of time to register their story with impact. Standalone new schools concoct new age benefits for the new age student in an attempt to dazzle the new age parents. Franchisee schools attempt to utilize brand familiarity from another location to stretch success in new territories. And so the story goes on.

Not many schools have the resources or deep pockets to pursue a high voltage advertising campaign. While newspapers and their special educational supplements as well as billboards do show up a fair degree of communication activity around admission time, at other times schools tend to stay linked to their community of focus through non-intrusive but subtle reminders of their existence and activities. Schools in the past have tended to stay away from what they perceive as the commercial and competitive frame of branding. Education is too ‘pure’ a field, they would say, to resort to such tactics. The changes in the environment have led to an alteration in that thinking.

Today there are intelligent, cost-effective ways to strengthen a school’s reputation, using methodologies that don’t necessarily require major expenditure. Sure, there is the power of PR (often misinterpreted as Press Releases), of Customer Contact Programs, Education Roadshows, Social Media Advertising, Electronic and Print Media Campaigns, et al. However, nothing comes close to the intrinsic value of a brand in action that spells value for its customers.

Structuring a strong set of brand identity guidelines, perfectly coordinated visibility materials, communication messages that are credible and well-integrated, and a code of behavior that spells harmony, generates recall and likeability… these reinforce positive experience for all those who come in touch with the brand. And with every successive and successful interaction, users become loyalists, and loyalists become ambassadors. Referrals provide the most powerful brand persuasion… much more than push advertising.

Indigo Airlines is a prized brand because you know that you will get single-mindedly on-time performance, a squeaky-clean, nice-smelling aircraft with comfortable seating, pleasant-looking and smartly-attired stewardesses, branding and advertising that is playful, engaging and totally integrated, etc. etc. Even if the airline goes on a wobble, its goodwill serves as a magnet disallowing the loyal frequent flyers from straying too far.

In summary, good branding is about designing cultures. Cultures are usually created by icons, who invent new codes, who show the way for others to follow. A school’s Vision, Mission and Purpose must be a well-articulated set of engines for your organizational journey. Cultures are built on a strong foundation of Values, and these Values if coherently chosen and practiced, always converge on a well-understood Brand Essence. The Essence is the foundation for Positioning… the one promise that the brand stands for. For example, Nike stands for Adventure, Raymond for Perfection, Mother Teresa for Hope, Indian Express for Fearlessness… What do you stand for? What values should your school offering stand for? Your alumni should be a good reflection of such values as a body. Else, you are prone to biting the dust after merely achieving the transient glory of announcement, without succeeding to build the true glory of achievement.