The Best University Reputation Ideas Come From Outside the Sector
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Show notes
Higher education is very good at learning from itself, which is also why so many strategies look alike. I draw on hospitality, consumer brands, sport and technology to show where fresher reputation ideas are hiding.
- Borrow hospitality's habit of continuous listening, with clear ownership for responding.
- Pick three things you want to be known for and repeat them.
- Ask each leader to bring one outside idea to your next away day.
Read the article: The best reputation ideas for universities aren't coming from universities
Full transcript
Hello, and welcome to Marketing Greats in Higher Education. I'm Jonathan Sabarre, your host, and this is where we explore the ideas shaping how universities are seen, chosen and trusted around the world. Everything I share on this show is my own personal view.
Before I worked in a university, I spent years running marketing for a hotel group operating Hilton, Marriott and IHG properties. Moving into higher education, I expected the sector to be ahead of me on brand. In some ways it was. In others, institutions were wrestling with problems hospitality had solved a decade earlier. It convinced me that some of the best reputation ideas for universities aren't coming from universities at all!
Higher education is very good at learning from itself. Conferences, benchmarking clubs and sector bodies mean ideas travel fast. The downside is the same ideas, executed in slightly different colours. If you want a reputation strategy that truly stands apart, look further afield, to the industries that have lived with these problems far longer than we have.
Hospitality taught me the most. In hotels, reputation is measured daily. Every review on every platform is read, scored and answered, usually within hours. Satisfaction is tracked by property, by department and even by shift, and tied directly to how teams are recognised. When we rebuilt our approach at the Cairn Group, we managed more than a hundred social channels and treated every one as part of the brand. Nobody saw a review as somebody else's problem.
Compare that with most universities. Perception gets checked once or twice a year, through a survey or a rankings release, and by the time the data arrives, the moment has gone. Borrow the hospitality habit of continuous listening, with clear ownership for responding, and you'll spot problems and fix them while people are still paying attention.
Consumer brands teach discipline. The best decide on a small number of messages, what they want to be known for, and repeat them for years. Universities understandably want to celebrate everything: every school, every discovery, every award. The result is a brand that says a great deal and is remembered for very little. So choose. Pick three things you want the world to associate with you, and make sure every campaign, press release and academic profile reinforces at least one.
Then there's sport, which has mastered a sense of belonging that lasts a lifetime. Clubs build it through rituals, storytelling and behind the scenes access, and by giving fans a genuine role in the story. Universities have the raw ingredients, from graduation day to alumni networks, yet we rarely use them with the same confidence. Think of the loyalty a club inspires in people who've never set foot on its pitch. Our graduates spent years with us.
And then, quietly, there's technology. Social listening, customer data platforms, review management, AI-assisted content and real-time dashboards are standard in retail and travel. Universities often buy one in isolation, then wonder why so little changes. Outside the sector, the technology is connected to a clear process and to someone accountable for acting on what it shows. Without that, even the best platform is another login nobody uses.
None of this needs a major programme. Ask each member of your marketing and communications leadership team to bring one idea from outside higher education to your next away day, with a view on how you'd adapt it. Some won't fit, and that's fine. A few will be far better than anything you'd find at a sector conference.
The most valuable question in any reputation strategy session is a simple one: who outside our sector does this brilliantly, and what would they do in our position? I'll be putting it to guests throughout this season. The ideas that will move our sector forward are already out there, in a hotel lobby, on a stadium terrace, inside the brands we use every day. We just have to be curious enough to go and look!
Thank you for spending this time with me. If this episode sparked something for you, hit subscribe, so you never miss the next one. And our full season, with guests from leading universities around the world, is coming very soon. Head to Jonathan Sabarre dot com and sign up, so you're the first to know when it launches. Until next time, keep building something great.