Ideas for the people who build university reputations.
Articles on higher education marketing, reputation, AI and institutional performance. New pieces arrive in the weekly email alongside each podcast episode.
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One recommended article for each topic.
- Reputation & rankingsReputation is a performance metric. Manage it like one.
- AIAI search is already writing your university's reputation
- Leadership & governanceThe marketing director belongs in the room where strategy is made
- Strategy & global reachThe best reputation ideas for universities aren't coming from universities
- Marketing & channelsLinkedIn has passed 1.4 billion members. Most universities still leave their people's presence there to chance.
- Public trust & impactA third of the public in England say a degree isn't worth it. They still value universities. That gap is the sector's biggest opportunity.
- Policy & crisisPolicy is now a reputation event
- Graduates & employersEmployers are the audience universities forget
I present my podcast as a digital twin. Here's where universities should draw the line.
Young audiences are comfortable with AI but deeply sceptical of being misled by it, and advertisers are badly misreading them. For universities, whose marketing rests on evidence of real students and real outcomes, the line matters more than for most brands.
28 October 2026 · 2 min read
LinkedIn has passed 1.4 billion members. Most universities still leave their people's presence there to chance.
The academics and employers who shape a university's reputation trust people far more than institutions, and many of them spend their working lives on LinkedIn. Supporting your leaders and academics to be visible is the cheapest reputation channel you have.
27 October 2026 · 2 min read
Your most persuasive marketers don't work for you
Applicants have always trusted students more than universities, and student creator schemes are booming as a result. Most are either scripted until nobody believes them or so loose they become a risk. The ASA's updated influencer guide is a good moment to fix that.
26 October 2026 · 2 min read
UK universities announced cuts equivalent to more than 15,000 jobs in a year. How you let people go is now part of your brand.
Restructuring is the hardest test of the idea that reputation belongs to everyone, because the people who carry a university's story are the ones being affected. How a university behaves in its hardest year will be remembered long after the savings are banked.
25 October 2026 · 2 min read
England's 18-year-old population peaks around 2030. The university brands that survive the decline are being built now.
After a decade of growth, England's 18-year-old population starts a long decline in the 2030s, and America's has already peaked. In a shrinking market, recruitment becomes a contest of reputation, and brand building takes years to pay back.
24 October 2026 · 2 min read
A third of English universities are in deficit. Your brand architecture is about to be tested.
Mergers, groups and shared services are moving from boardroom contingency to reality. Each one is a brand decision as much as a financial one, and most universities haven't prepared for it.
23 October 2026 · 3 min read
Graduate job adverts have nearly halved. Universities can't sell the degree as a ticket anymore.
Advertised graduate vacancies fell by almost half in a year, and employers now receive 141 applications for every graduate role. For universities, that puts every promise their marketing has made about where a degree leads under scrutiny.
23 October 2026 · 3 min read
Nearly half of applicants now ask AI to help choose a university. One in five has crossed a name off because of the answer.
Applicants are building shortlists from AI answers before they ever visit a university website, and some institutions are being ruled out without knowing it. Most of our measurement starts too late to see it.
23 October 2026 · 3 min read
A third of the public in England say a degree isn't worth it. They still value universities. That gap is the sector's biggest opportunity.
Confidence in the degree as a personal investment has collapsed since 2005, but goodwill towards universities as institutions has held. The sector keeps defending the price of the product when the public is telling us it values the institution.
22 October 2026 · 2 min read
95% of students now use AI. Protecting the value of the degree is now a reputation job.
Almost every undergraduate now uses AI, and the share pasting AI-written text straight into assessed work has quadrupled in two years. If employers start to doubt the grade, they'll doubt the name on the certificate.
21 October 2026 · 3 min read
Why I'm bringing Marketing Greats back
Season 2 of Marketing Greats in Higher Education is live. Here's what's changed, what's coming, and why now.
16 October 2026 · 2 min read
Policy is now a reputation event
Visa rules, enrolment caps and funding settlements used to be a matter for the planning office. Today they shape how universities are seen around the world, often before the institution has said a word.
15 October 2026 · 3 min read
Reputation is a performance metric. Manage it like one.
Universities track applications, income and research output to the decimal point. Reputation, which shapes all three, is still too often treated as a matter of opinion.
14 October 2026 · 2 min read
The best reputation ideas for universities aren't coming from universities
Hospitality, consumer brands and sport solved many of higher education's reputation problems years ago. Universities would move faster if they looked outside the sector more often.
13 October 2026 · 3 min read
Reputation belongs to everyone in a university, not just the comms team
A university's reputation is built in thousands of daily moments by academics, professional services colleagues and students. The institutions that understand this build it deliberately.
12 October 2026 · 3 min read
AI search is already writing your university's reputation
Prospective students and partners increasingly ask an AI assistant before they visit your website. What it says about you is fast becoming one of the most important reputation channels you have.
11 October 2026 · 3 min read
Rankings are a mirror, not a strategy
Rankings reflect what a university has already become. The institutions that improve most use them to diagnose, then build a strategy around their mission rather than the methodology.
10 October 2026 · 2 min read
Designing the AI-enabled marketing team
Buying AI tools is the easy part. The teams getting real value have redesigned how work flows, starting with the jobs nobody enjoys.
9 October 2026 · 2 min read
Five reputation numbers every university board should see
Governing bodies scrutinise finances, risk and student outcomes in detail. Reputation, which affects all three, deserves a place on the same agenda, with numbers to match.
8 October 2026 · 2 min read
In a cost-cutting year, don't switch off the lighthouse
When finances tighten, marketing and communications are often the first budgets to go. The evidence, and my own experience, says that's exactly when reputation needs protecting most.
7 October 2026 · 3 min read
Your international partners are your reputation abroad
Branch campuses, joint degrees and transnational partnerships are growing fast. In many markets they're the first, and sometimes only, experience people have of your university.
6 October 2026 · 2 min read
The civic story is your strongest reputation asset, and the least told
Universities transform their cities and regions every day, yet the story rarely reaches the people whose support they need most. In a tougher political climate, that's a risk no institution can afford.
5 October 2026 · 2 min read
Every university will face a crisis this year. Few will have rehearsed it.
Campus protests, data breaches, financial headlines and viral social posts now unfold in minutes. The institutions that come through well are the ones that practised before they needed to.
4 October 2026 · 2 min read
Sustainability claims are becoming the sector's next reputation risk
Students, staff and regulators are increasingly sceptical of green claims. Universities that can't evidence what they say risk turning a strength into a liability.
3 October 2026 · 2 min read
Universities are data rich and insight poor. Here's how to fix it.
Most institutions hold more data than ever about their students, markets and reputation. Very little of it reaches the decisions that matter. The gap is about culture as much as technology.
2 October 2026 · 2 min read
Employers are the audience universities forget
Graduate outcomes now shape student choice, government policy and global rankings. Yet employer reputation is rarely managed with the same care as student recruitment.
1 October 2026 · 3 min read
The marketing director belongs in the room where strategy is made
Too many universities still treat marketing as a service that executes decisions made elsewhere. The institutions that perform best give reputation a seat at the executive table.
30 September 2026 · 3 min read