ABSTRACT
The recent blossoming of interest in “experiential marketing” has produced strong evidence, in the form of various promotional communications, that the experiential view has caught on with the business community. However, we must question whether this widely touted concept fits all situations in general or the special case of academia in particular. In this connection, recalling the wisdom of Dwight D. Eisenhower, several dangers result from running the university like a business. Anecdotal illustrations – bolstered by a more detailed example that involves the branding of the author’s own business school – suggest painful analogies between the commercialization of education and the selling of toothpaste or the glorification of the shopping mall. One lesson to be learned is that the advisability of promoting a school as “Hot Hot Hot” comes across as “Not Not Not”.
