Engagement as a Brand Position in the Higher Education Marketplace

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine public engagement as a branding and public relations strategy at colleges and universities. Specifically, this paper posits the idea that engagement efforts require a focused and, if possible, centralized approach on the part of colleges and universities. Successful branding and marketing of engagement efforts require a similar approach—an alignment, if not centralization, of resources within the campus, led by the institution's president and focused on an integrated strategic message backed by research. As a result, this paper—through a case study of one large public university's efforts to brand engagement—suggests that successful branding and engagement are inter-related and, to a large, degree interdependent.