My take on this topic…brand experience is the next most important horizon for all brands. As marketers, we continue to refine and master the “channels” and the product positioning and the pitch — but, ugh, those darn actual brand experiences that real people have with our real enterprises, products and services. Those make or break moments of reality that are the ultimate differentiators. The article does a fine job making the point that people (their motivation, behaviors, passion, etc.) are important to brands. Certainly a point worth making. The question is what are the new models and approaches that are going to make this possible? I think there are ways to tackle this and some interesting new models are emerging. But we all have a long way to go before a real discipline evolves around this subject.

- Tim Westerbeck, Managing Director & Principal

This topic has had a lot of coverage for several years, starting even before Enron and other high-profile ethical messes. The global financial meltdown has given this issue even more steam. I just hope that this time the discussion evolves past “teaching ethics,” which is a questionable concept (adults learning to be ethical). I see a lot of business schools digging way deeper than new courses or experiences or requirements of some sort. They are looking at their entire cultures, the values that the institution stands for, the deeper ethic of the place and how the entire enterprise reflects that there is a lot more to sustainable business success than technical skills, hands on experience, global perspectives and the many other buzzwords nearly every business school today tries to use to differentiate its value in the marketplace. Beyond the fact that this is the right thing to do and will, if pursued seriously, perhaps up the esteem the world currently has for business education, it’s also a smart strategic step from a reputation building standpoint. I’ve studied many business schools and never seen one that doesn’t have at its core particular values and a related educational culture that really makes it unique. I see an era where great business school brands will be built on the character of institutions and how well they cultivate a new set of values in students. For further reading on the subject, I recommend this recent article in the Baylor Business Review.

- Tim Westerbeck, Managing Director & Principal

Why Character is Destiny for Business Schools – and the MBAs They Groom, in the new issue of the Baylor Business Review takes a look at the role issues of “character formation” play in the business school of the future.  In the article, I observe that this is not only important from a curriculum standpoint—and, we all hope, for the future of the global economy – but also regarding how schools will differentiate their brands in today’s hypercompetitive management education marketplace.

Marketing on a specific type of program attribute is ineffective, when so many business schools – or at least their marketing – look the same on nearly every level.  What each school owns that is unique is its values and culture, the basis of a distinctive brand.

- Tim Westerbeck, Managing Director & Principal

New legislation being considered by the U.S. Department of Education is squarely aimed at for-profit colleges, with the intent of linking a student’s debt with their post-graduate earnings.  Their concern is that students—lured by advertising—are investing in credentials or degrees that don’t actually deliver the earning power that the student expects, generating flotillas of “underwater” degrees that are as much a burden on American households as those unsupportable mortgages. (A recent New York Times article made waves around this issue—sourcing their critique primarily from a handful of disaffected students and former administrators of for-profit institutions.)

While one might argue about the philosophical underpinnings of this argument (is college really all about making more money?), my question is bigger: why stop with the nonprofit institutions? Make all higher ed institutions earmark their cost with the earning potential of their graduates.  I mean, the Ph.D. philosopher cab driver is a cliché because it actually happens, and next time you have a heavily-tattooed barista steam you a mocha skim latte, you could amuse yourself by asking if their MFA is in fine, performing, or written arts.

My point is simple: while there are, indeed, some suspicious players in the for-profit education sphere, the underlying tax status of an education provider does not predict whether or not a student derives value from the investment he or she makes.  Plenty of folks have walked out of nonprofit colleges and universities with a costly degree that doesn’t actually gain them much in the marketplace, and plenty of folks have walked out of for-profit providers and gotten decent jobs afterwards.  The issues that Congress should concern themselves with have to do with quality of programs, retention/graduation, accreditation, and the like.  We all know there are a lot of nonprofit institutions out there that generate income in excess of cost—it simply becomes a reserve fund or quasi endowment, rather than being paid out to shareholders.

And the bigger point may be that nonprofit education providers should perhaps spend their time developing more competitive offerings rather than worrying about the perceived advantages of the for-profit providers.  All of our research shows that students have a very strong brand preference for the nonprofits as opposed to the for-profits—so make the most of it.

- Rob Moore, Managing Partner

Upon reading the first article in a three-part Business Week series examining high-profile searches for new business school deans, it struck me that it is hard to overstate the importance of getting this process right. As with a corporate CEO position, the individual leading each of these institutions — or at any top business school — is brand ambassador number one, and will play a critical role in stewarding these global enterprises amidst the most highly competitive period in business school history.

Being a b-school dean today is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Each of these institutions will do well to select someone who not only has the hard credentials, but understands that these are also complex brands for which their leader must embody the brand promise with diverse and demanding constituents around the globe. Their most valuable asset, their reputation, is on the line.

- Tim Westerbeck, Managing Director & Principal

•    University of North Texas
•    Arcadia University
•    East Carolina University
•    Texas A&M (three pages worth! And they’ve been doing it for months.)

On top of that, this issue includes smaller ads by San Francisco State University, Western New England College, University of Houston, University of Scranton, University of South Florida, Vanderbilt (Peabody College), Metropolitan State College of Denver, and others.

What gives?

I know that the Chronicle is the paper of record in academe—no dispute there.  But the great majority of eyeballs that these institutions are buying with these image ads have nothing to do with the products or services that the ads purport to be selling.  What difference does it make that the academics who make up the bulk of Chronicle readership know the touching life story of a Bolivian student at UNT?  Why would these readers care about the new accelerated three-year baccalaureate program at Arcadia?  What new service would these readers be expected to buy from Texas A&M based on three pages of ads extolling their research contributions?

Even more puzzling is that some of the ads seem to be geared to the student recruitment market, and if I know anything about the teen reader, I know that they are not reading the Chronicle, unless it’s available by text and IM.

The only rationale I can gin up for these ads is that they are an attempt to influence the voters in the U.S. News and other rankings—but at nearly $16,000 a pop for a full-page, four-color ad, I’m not sure it’s money well spent.  Quick calculations suggest that Texas A&M has spent somewhere between $250,000-$300,000 this year alone on these ads, and we’re not even to the end of the first quarter.  Now, as a marketing guy, I am of course in favor of advertising: it’s one of the only ways you can get your message out in a way that you completely control.  But good advertising is about targeting—configuring your buy in such a fashion as to make sure that you’re able to reach your target audience with a message that will cause them to do what you want them to do.  But some of these ads just seem to me to miss the mark—or at least to aim at a mark that I don’t understand.

If I’m missing something, fill me in.

- Rob Moore, Managing Partner

The Real U represents the first book-length manuscript I’ve written since completing my doctoral program, which was largely focused on modern and contemporary American fiction.  And as I was finishing The Real U, I found myself contemplating one of the lasting questions of my doctoral work:  has the Great American Novel been written?  For those of you not part of this particular academic debate, the nature and presence of the GAN has been batted around like a shuttlecock by generations of literary critics, with the usual candidates being The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and other texts.

My argument in my comprehensive exams was that the GAN hadn’t been written because I hadn’t written it yet.  Writers are nothing if not arrogant.  Now, nearly twenty years later, with no more novels having clattered under my fingertips, I’ve revised my thesis.  The Great American Novel is not a novel, it’s a brand.  It’s a brand in that any novel purporting to carry the GAN label has to meet certain established criteria in order to qualify.  But on a whole other level, the Great American Story – which is what any qualifying tome attempts to relate – may not be a novel at all, but may be, instead, a brand.

Our nation has always been about ambition, about establishing something new and making it last.  From John Winthrop describing our “city upon a hill” to Charles Wilson declaring “what’s good for General Motors” to Ray Kroc and Walt Disney and Howard Shultz and Phil Knight and Steve Jobs creating iconic entities, there’s been a long and strong convergence between the essential enterprise of America and the effective force of market-driven organizations.  Our big brands – McDonald’s and Disney and Starbucks and Nike and Apple – contain the American story, with all its strengths and faults, in a way that few if any books have been able to accomplish.

And if you really think about it, America itself is a brand – carrying with it the promise of an experience that we as a people, as an entity, must fulfill if we’re to live up to our collective aspirations.  So buy The Real U, sit down with a venti latte, power up your Mac, and do a Google search for “top 10 brands.”  You’re living the quintessential American dream.

- Rob Moore, Managing Partner

Who made him the moderator of what causes are worthy?  And how did education and healthcare – two of the sectors he appears to believe are over-funded – become somehow disassociated from “the poor, people of color” etc.?  In fact, a good education and decent health are closely associated with upward socioeconomic mobility – with a bachelor’s degree worth nearly $1 million more in lifelong earnings than a high school diploma.  So, gee, maybe those “stingier” wealthy donors who are giving to “universities and colleges (and) medical organizations” actually understand something about opportunity, responsibility, and impact of giving that Mr. Eisenberg doesn’t.

While his critique of foundation practices is not entirely unfounded – even those who work in the sector know that greater flexibility and efficiencies would help them do their work – his proposed solutions are as naïve and generalized as the freshman compositions I used to correct.  You can’t simultaneously “simplify reporting” and “improve accountability” – not, at least, without adding a lot of staff who would make it even more difficult to dispense more dollars.  And the concluding notion that big donors will buy newspapers so they can serve a watchdog function is laughable – unless, of course, he has convinced Rupert Murdoch to turn the Wall Street Journal into an organ crusading on behalf of those people whom Mr. Eisenberg seems to feel are being underserved by foundations and private philanthropists.

If that happens, and the Journal begins to sound progressive and concerned about the plight of the oppressed and neglected, I’ll humbly apologize.  In the meantime, you have to wonder what the Journal’s agenda is in publishing this set of recommendations – all of which chip away at the validity of organizations that often pursue a “collectivist” agenda that Journal editors would oppose.  Has Mr. Eisenberg knowingly or unwittingly delivered more ammunition into the hands of those who would like to see the whole sector crippled – regardless of the effect on the populations that those organizations, however imperfectly, serve?

- Robert Moore, Ph.D., Managing Partner

One can debate whether or not this is the result of a generation of students who have simply become attuned to these concepts as part of their maturing years, or whether there is something deeper going on. Reasonable people can also debate the relative economic merit of such approaches to business. Regardless, the intent and interests of these students is real. I believe there is a legitimate question, however, as to whether business schools themselves should, in the name of being “market responsive,” spend so much time focusing often scarce resources on programs and courses that enable students to pursue the building of such businesses, rather than first renewing their focus on teaching the critical thinking, analytical and functional skills of business that will actually enable graduates to make their dreams come true.

I sometimes see what I think is a dangerous trend toward schools trying to “accommodate market demand” around social entrepreneurship concepts through this special program or another, perhaps to the detriment of applying resources to the more fundamental proficiencies required to succeed in business generally. To be clear, I am not arguing business schools should not continue their drive toward integrating corporate social responsibility concepts, such as ethics, sustainability, etc., into the curriculum and learning environment. I’m saying it is a matter of finding the right balance between the fundamental, core responsibility of business schools–which is to develop in individuals the complex suite of skills they need to succeed as business leaders and managers–and focusing resources chasing after concepts (however valid and important) that are secondary to their fundamental purpose.

-Tim Westerbeck, Managing Director & Principal

It wasn’t just that Princeton had found a new way to appeal to students; this particular offer helped reverse a strange decline in matriculation at elite colleges among a particular subset of the college-bound population: high-achieving students from low-income families. A growing body of research tells us that these students—even when they know on an intellectual level what they might go on to earn in their chosen fields—are averse to debt.

As a demographic group, these students are more diverse than the college-bound population as a whole, and are also more likely to be first-generation students. They are also rare among subsets of the college-bound population in that they are growing in number, while the overall college-bound population shrinks.

In the years that followed Princeton’s announcement, the rest of the Ivy League colleges and several other highly selective institutions followed suit. Since 2001, the number of colleges replacing loans with grants for low-income families or all families who qualify for aid has more than doubled every two years, reaching a total of 39  in 2009*. Even as the policy adds pressure to already stressed endowments, many schools report that delivering on the no-loan promise remains a high priority. We haven’t begun to see, much less measure, the total seismic shift in applicant and admitted student demographics this change has brought, but some early signals are interesting.

At Princeton, 60 percent of students in the incoming class of 2013 will receive financial aid. A total of 487 students from minority backgrounds represent 37.4 percent of the entering class. That’s a minority student headcount increase of 60 percent over nine years ago, when just 305 students were from minority backgrounds. At the same time, selectivity has increased since 2001.

Lipman Hearne’s 2009 report High Achieving Teens and the College Decision offers insight into the values and motivations that drive students to make the choices they do. Particularly in this climate of increasing economic pressure on both family savings and college endowments, how critical is financial aid to high-achieving students? What do students need to know from the colleges that want them, and how, finally, do they choose from among their options? We’re far from knowing all the answers, but we look forward to beginning a lively discussion—with you.

- Tom Abrahamson, Managing Director & Principal

*Excludes another 23 colleges that make this offer, but limit eligibility by residency or GPA.