WHAT DOES THE GSB STAND FOR? Since you are reading this magazine,
chances are you know the school and its attributes. But outside
the GSB community and in the M.B.A. marketplace, where reputation
really counts, we’ve found that our brand isn’t as clearly defined
as we would like it to be.
I believe we are a great school with a peerless faculty offering
a powerful, practical education, but I also believe that not enough
people know that. To borrow a term from finance, you might say
that the Graduate School of Business is an undervalued asset.
This is in part because, in the Chicago tradition, we quietly
focused on building on our strengths rather than loudly proclaiming
them to the world. In today’s competitive M.B.A. environment,
we can no longer assume that excellence will speak for itself.
In the last few years we have spent a lot of time thinking about
who we are, what makes us unique, and how we can do a better job
of clearly articulating the essence of this school to the world.
I asked members of our advisory council who are experts in marketing
to form a task force to help us: Carl Stern, president and CEO,
Boston Consulting Group Inc.; Bill Lynch, president and CEO, Liam
Holdings L.L.C., and former chairman, Leo Burnett; James Kilts,
’74, president and CEO, Nabisco Inc.; Judson Green Jr., ’76, chairman,
Walt Disney Attractions; Mark McGrath, ’69, director, McKinsey
& Co. Inc.; and Gary Singer, ’78, of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles,
formerly of Leo Burnett.
Among their recommendations was to hire a chief marketing officer
whose first task would be to lead in the development of a positioning
statement for the school. We teach marketing, so why shouldn’t
we practice it properly? Extensive research was designed to find
out what key audiences thought of us. We surveyed potential M.B.A.
students, asking them what they looked for in a good school, what
they wanted from an M.B.A. degree, and what they thought of several
top-ranked schools besides ours. We also conducted qualitative
interviews with prospective and current students, alumni, and
faculty. With plenty of input from alumni with marketing expertise,
we were able to shape the findings into a market positioning that
will help us establish a strong brand recognized around the world,
one that identifies who we are and presents it in an appealing,
relevant way. We then began our implementation strategy this summer,
and if you haven’t yet seen evidence of these efforts, you soon
will. We began with four key initiatives:
• Implementing corporate identity–a clear, coherent, consistent
visual identity that reflects the school’s strengths. We’re doing
that now (click here for details).
• Implementing our positioning statement–our verbal message of
what we stand for–in a clear, coherent, consistent manner in all
of our schoolwide advertisements and brochures (click here for
details).
• Restructuring our Web site to make it more user friendly and
to include features that will market the GSB’s assets to external
audiences, especially among prospective students. The revamped
portion of the site will be launched this winter.
• Developing a recruiting video that uses the words and experiences
of students, alumni, and faculty to tell the GSB story. The video
answers the question, Why choose the GSB? and it should be a clear
articulation of what the brand represents.
These are the foundation blocks of a comprehensive marketing effort,
chosen because they touch on our primary audiences: prospective
and current students, faculty, alumni, and the corporate community.
With this foundation in place, we can build on it and follow it
with more initiatives in the future.
Robert S. Hamada
Dean and Edward Eagle Brown Distinguished Service Professor of
Finance
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