Excerpt from The Real U

 

The advantages of a strong, focused, and valued brand are hard to overstate. In the commercial world, brand value is readily calculated: If Coca-Cola or McDonald’s suddenly decided to go out of business, cash out its hard assets (inventory, factories, bottling plants, patty-making machinery, etc.) and kill off its product lines, the difference between its fire sale income and its current market capitalization is the value of the brand.

As an equation:

Brand value = market capitalization – asset value

And that’s not even new math.

In higher education, brand value is harder to calculate, though no less real. A strong academic brand can help stimulate inquiries and applications, improve yield, lower the discount rate, increase alumni pride and support, provide a reputational context for grant applications and research proposals, provide legislative cover, increase the effectiveness of advocacy efforts, generate media interest, reassure and encourage volunteer leadership, aid in faculty recruitment, and enhance student retention and graduation rates.

Strong brands are magnetic: They attract adherents.

Strong brands are directional: They focus attention toward a specific mission or purpose and invite engagement with that mission.

Strong brands are enlightening: They illuminate key aspects of a college or university and create, through an intellectual chiaroscuro, a clear and dimensional portrait of the institution.

Strong brands are motivating: They encourage or compel action.

But what the heck are they?

Brand as Story
There are as many definitions of brand as there are brand experts, each of whom feels compelled to derive his or her singular definition. In the mind of the beholder, though, a brand is simply a believable and compelling narrative.

Why brand as narrative? Because stories touch something deep in our lives, going back to the days when we hunkered around that communal fire recounting and repeating the overlapping threads of narrative that defined us as a family, a tribe, a people. . .

In this book, you’ll learn how to understand your brand story; shape it to meet the interests, values, and needs of your stakeholders; and project it into the marketplace in powerful, compelling, and effective ways.