ABSTRACT
Higher education has become a complex and global market. As part of this marketization, branding seems to be a necessary competitive tool for universities to stand out from the crowd and attract the attention and retention of key stakeholders. This chapter introduces education sector contemporary challenges and the impact of the increasing competition on both stakeholders’ perceptions and universities’ strategies. In re-affirming the growing need for differentiation and branding as a crucial part of corporate strategy to remain competitive, recommendations coming from extant literature and real-life examples are presented. In particular, with the aim of illustrating how higher education institutions organize and manage their competitive strategy, the chapter uses international business schools’ branding, with a special focus on ESCP Europe, as these institutions experience higher market pressure and as, by teaching a lot of strategy and branding, they should be better equipped to walk the talk and brand themselves successfully.
