Branding Institutions

Perfect competition works best in a market if the demand-supply dynamics is driven by players of equal strength and competence. People have better options and choices and the pace of shift is swifter. The ideal condition of a perfect competition exists if the products are fast moving or mass consumed and need consistent replacements. The demand for such commodities is continuous and not seasonal or cyclical in nature. Contrasted against this are the market for services, and most pointedly the market of services having an ethical string attached to it like education and health care etc. People expect educational institutions and hospitals to function not only as profit making businesses but as service institutions. Hence it gets difficult on the part of entrepreneurs in these fields to blend commercial objectives with social expectations. But it is not difficult. What the players in these fields must keep in mind that it also offers them an opportunity to forge a bond with the people that can outlast their business relationship and go a long way in a sustaining their goodwill and trust . People are prone to share their experiences and a positive perception about your brand is discussed and talked across a number of forums. It expands the horizon of your target base and increases the number of your potential clients. Staying competitive in these sectors requires attention to the changing need profile of the people and your preparedness to attend to them. Differentiations in deliverables have become mandatory due to the near homogenization of products and services. What is more important is to communicate persuasively to the masses about your distinctiveness. This requires smart communication planning. Educational institutions invest much of their capital in building infrastructures, rightly so because those are critical for the operation of the institutions and have functional usefulness. At the same time their competitors are also building the same strengths. The scope of differentiation is getting narrower by the day in terms of deliverables. For example the difference in the quality of facilities like buildings, labs, hostels, technical support and even faculty members is declining. Accessibility which was an advantage for some institutions has lost its edge due to the proliferation of institutions across the state. Besides concentration of institutions in a few clusters have made faster access to them easier due to better connectivity. So what we see that these features can’t be leveraged to produce a unique advantage for any one institution as these are shared by their competitors too. That necessitates creating a distinct identity through uncommon differentiators that shows your institution’s uniqueness which is unclonable and with proprietary properties. Even though it is difficult to find out that distinguishing feature, yet a perception could be generated showing your institution as having that unmatchable characteristic. This is done through a sequence of communication campaigns which progressively makes the message a part of his thought and spins an image around it. Your projected difference can be the foundation of your brand making you strikingly unique. The communication campaigns need to be fuelled by powerful content and indisputable market research data. Even common features could be creatively presented lending them the appearance of a distinguished attribute.. All these activities need careful planning, right media strategy, creative concept development, market research and Public relation campaign, cumulative output of which could be seen as a distinct brand image.