Michael Haupt

Higher education is facing a brand crisis hiding in plain sight. As tuition costs rise, program offerings multiply, and campus experiences begin to look increasingly similar, universities are competing harder than ever for the same prospective students while using the same messaging to reach them. For most universities, highlighting academic excellence is not enough to stand out from other institutions. In a commoditizing market, positioning against everything owns nothing. The institutions...

Our previous post examined a consumer brand that launched a campaign to promote their environmental commitments and an image of sustainability. Even though the campaign was mentioned often on social media, semantic network analysis showed that Sustainability existed as a separate narrative that was not a part of the brand’s core meaning. Worse, the word Sustainability was associated with words such as greenwashing and marketing claims. Knowing how your own brand is seen by social media users...

Our previous post walked through a brand concept test for Groundwork Coffee Co., a fake regional coffee chain evaluating three positioning directions. Using semantic network analysis, we identified which brand concept was the clear winner. However, choosing a winning brand platform is only the first step because you also have to figure out how to execute it. Every downstream choice (e.g., photography style, color palette, the way staff and customers are represented, the feel of a café...