University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business

The brand equity and reputation elevation for University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business is a story of going from great to greater.  The story has been published in the Journal of Education Advancement and Marketing, titled Elevating an Institution’s Reputation with a Meaningfully Distinct Brand Narrative.  Here’s an overview of the process employed and resulting performance outcomes.  

Brand management activities involve making decisions over time about the following: 

• What brand messages to deliver to stakeholders? 
• What brand experiences to deliver as stakeholders engage with their firm or institution? 
• How to improve the performance of the firm or institution? 

While best-in-class brand management frameworks have been widely employed in commercial industries, best-in-class brand management within the higher education industry is quite limited. Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business leveraged a new brand management framework that illuminated the institution's meaningfully distinct value proposition and activation paths to help elevate the institution's reputation and class profile. In January 2020, University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business introduced a new brand imperative, “Grow the Good in Business,” and has seen its reputation increase, now being ranked within the top 25 MBA programs by US News and World Report. 

This new methodology is referred to as the Brand Integrity (BI) framework. The BI framework employed both qualitative and quantitative research activities across multiple stakeholder groups to identify the salient University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business (MCOB) brand promises that would most resonate with several stakeholder groups, including prospective students, existing students, alumni, faculty, staff and advisory board members. Upon identification of the core brand promises for MCOB, the new brand narrative was powerfully activated and the implications on school popularity and enrollment have been significant. Since the activation of the new brand narrative, MCOB graduate programs have experienced increases in the number of applications, enrollment selectivity, total enrolled students, female students, and underrepresented  minority students.  

To learn more about the Brand Strategic Positioning and Messaging approach employed at University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business and to discuss the potential application of the framework to your firm or institution, please complete the contact us form to get started.