Dive Brief:

• Generic mission and vision statements coupled with unrelated outcome reporting in marketing makes it hard to distinguish one college’s brand from another’s.
• Gallup, following up on research and polling, recommends re-thinking the institutional purpose — the reason for being and the value proposition in the larger world.
• Next comes aligning the brand to new guiding principles and creating an engaged campus culture that supports that identity.

Dive Insight:

Students have a lot of choice when it comes to the current higher education marketplace. They consistently report that they make decisions about what school to attend based on rankings like those provided by US News & World Report, and international students especially have little else to rely on when forming their opinions about American schools. But Gallup believes differentiation can help break through that fog. Creating outcome-focused values is half the battle, setting institutions up for marketing their unique contributions to prospective students and faculty.