1. 3 stages of HE marketing
Positioning marketing in a customer-focused, brand-driven environment
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

2. Introduction
The creation of these diagrams was driven by the need to illustrate:
i) Universities now require their Marketing at a strategic level.
The CMO will be most effective operating at an Executive Board level.
ii) Tension between marketers and academics and other staff is often
a result of differing perceptions of the functions role and remit.
Perceived support role as simply ‘posters and promotion’, when the
Marketing Department sees a necessary remit to drive ‘strategy and
direction’.
The core premise of the three ages of HE marketing, and the need to move from promotion -
through branding - to institutional strategy was taken from the title and overview of a
conference presentation by Peter Slee (University of Huddersfield DVC).
I didn’t attend the conference, and have not seen any output of it, but wanted to acknowledge
where the notion originated.
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

3. Business activities:
Inside to out
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

4. Marketing activities:
Purely output focused
PROMOTION
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

5. Marketing activities:
More aligned, but only to drive better outputs…
BRANDING PROMOTION
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

6. Marketing activities:
More fully aligned as a core part of business strategy
INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY BRANDING PROMOTION
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

7. Marketing activities:
Move inwards to better move things forward
!
W here ere ! ere !
w e! Wh Wh
! we ! we !
need re…! ere…
!
to be…! a w
INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY BRANDING PROMOTION
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

8. Top-level strategic marketing joins the inside-out and outside-in…
BRAND-DRIVEN
(INSIDE–OUT)
CUSTOMER-FOCUSED
(OUTSIDE–IN)
…shaping a business strategy that is stronger and more effective.

9. Drives better business through each stage
BRAND-DRIVEN AS BRAND-DRIVEN AS BRAND-DRIVEN AS
STRATEGIC DIRECTION POSITIONING AND PROMISE DESIGN AND IDENTITY
INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY BRANDING PROMOTION
VISION STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
CUSTOMER-FOCUS AS CUSTOMER-FOCUS AS CUSTOMER-FOCUS AS
STRATEGIC INSIGHT MARKET UNDERSTANDING TARGETING
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist

10. I hope you found this useful
and interesting…
Please feel free to comment
and/or get in touch.
www.twitter.com/stewartaitken
Stewart Aitken
HE brand and marketing specialist