Brand positioning is being able to state succinctly why students should choose you over another institution. The University of Calgary needed to understand why students were or were not choosing them. Academica worked with the marketing and branding team at uCalgary to design a research plan that would identify a compelling and differentiated position that fit with uCalgary’s strategic objectives.
To start, Academica conducted a high-level analysis of competitors across top Canadian universities, including key provincial competitors. The survey focused on brand position, points of distinction and how these distinctions are communicated to key stakeholder audiences. Academica was able to put uCalgary’s branding in context alongside 15 other top Canadian universities. This made it easy to see where uCalgary was different and, in turn, begin to focus on communicating those differences effectively.
Academica delivered a written report that uCalgary used to implement a new branding and marketing platform, which resulted in uCalgary leadership being able to make better decisions about marketing, recruitment and advertising.
