Keywords

Introduction

Globally, higher education is currently characterised by increasing competition in the marketplace (Langa 2010; Stabile 2007; Langa 2006; Bok 2003). Like corporations and companies, higher education institutions (HEIs) have to attract potential stakeholders in order to guarantee their survival in the marketplace. HEIs compete with each other for financial and human resources, including the best students, professors and researchers, symbolic and intellectual resources (Zemsky et al. 2001; Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2010). The growth in student numbers, the decrease or constraints in government higher education funding, the introduction of performance-based government funding and the opening up of higher education to private funding are some of the factors responsible for the emergence of a competitive higher education environment (Altbatch et al. 2009; Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2010). These factors are linked to the scarcity of financial resources, the most important of all resources for the survival of universities. In the context of a diversity of higher education suppliers, HEIs are forced to pursue strategies to survive and position themselves within the marketplace (Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2010; Beneke 2011).

Branding becomes one of the strategies used by HEIs to attract potential stakeholders. As Chapleo (2004) and Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana (2007) indicate, in order to face national and international competition , universities all over the world search for ways to define their identity, to differentiate themselves and attract the best students and academic staff. Given this context, a number of scholars have examined the mechanisms used by HEIs to position and differentiate themselves in the marketplace (Mortimer 1997; Klassen 2000; Waerras and Solbakk 2009; Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2006).

According to Waerras and Solbakk (2009), studies on branding in organisations are often conducted in light of two analytical approaches. One approach focuses on how organisations build their image internally, before conveying it to external stakeholders; another investigates the ways in which brands are externally communicated to target particular groups. The former focuses on strategies used to communicate the brand to external audiences, through advertising and promotion; the latter carries out in-depth analysis to understand how organisations build their image internally before selling it externally.

In this chapter, we discuss how Mozambican HEIs, in order to position and differentiate themselves within the increasingly competitive field of higher education , communicate their brands externally through the use of websites . We build on the previous studies, as we borrow the branding meta-language from the field of corporate marketing . However, we distinguish our analysis from other approaches, and extend the current state of research in the field in two ways: (a) theoretically and (b) methodologically.

Theoretically, we decided to combine the business marketing concepts with the Bourdieu’s sociological approach (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Langa 2006; Langa 2011).

Our understanding of branding in higher education is more sociological, and it distinguishes itself from the ‘strictly’ business marketing perspective and concept of branding . By broadening the business marketing perspective and combining with the sociological view, we intend to capture the relational dimension of branding in the field of Mozambican higher education . The quest for brands and branding is, in our view, a response to the relational and sociological presence of the ‘other’, that is competing HEIs suppliers in a developing field (Zemsky et al. 2001; Langa 2006; Langa 2011). Therefore, higher education institutions, as competitors in the ‘business’ of providing higher education services in the Mozambican context, need to demarcate each other through building particular branding identity.

Methodologically, we examined verbal and non-verbal elements of websites , since no attempt has previously been made to combine both elements of branding present in the institutional websites or Internet webpages. Websites can represent one of the most powerful windows used by HEIs to convey their image to the outside world. According to the Hanover Research (HR), university website can be used as the ultimate brand statement. A homepage can be a key component in the student experience and can make or break decisions about whether to attend or not a programme. A university’s homepage became the hub of its web presence and in attempting to appeal to a diverse range of visitors; the challenge is staying intuitive and organised. If visitors have to go back to your homepage every time to find the content they are seeking, they are not likely to stay on your site very long. Website navigation represents an integral component of overall site architecture from which all content can flow from (HR 2014).

Universities develop websites to identify and differentiate themselves from their competitors and to convey positive perceptions and associations in the minds of potential clients. However, despite recurrent use of websites as branding strategies, only limited research on branding in higher education has focused on websites (Chapleo et al. 2011). Waerras and Solbakk (2009) indicate that most of the literature on building an image in academia is concerned with how HEIs communicate their image or brand externally to attract potential stakeholders, rather than on how they build their identity internally (Klassen 2000; Opoku et al. 2006, 2008; Hemsely-Brown and Oplatka 2006; Tang 2011; Chapleo et al. 2011; Drori et al. 2013).

This literature highlights the fact that the external promotion of a university brand can be done in different ways, such as emblems, seals, building architecture, web pages, newspapers, sports mascot, formal dressing and so forth.

We also found four recently published papers on how websites are used in different countries to promote universities’ brands (Opoku et al. 2006, 2008; Chapleo et al. 2011; Tang 2011).

Our analysis of this literature reveals four prevailing features or trends. First, the study of websites as university branding strategy is often done by scholars working in the field of business marketing (Opoku et al. 2006, 2008; Chapleo et al. 2011). Higher education is not their main discipline or theoretical field of study; it is their empirical field of study. Second, and consequently, this literature fundamentally uses the conceptual, theoretical and methodological meta-language of corporate marketing. Third, this literature studies the ways in which websites as university branding strategies are used in different countries (Opoku et al. 2006, for South African universities; Opoku et al. 2008, for Swedish universities; Chapleo et al. 2011, for British universities; Tang 2011, for American and Chinese universities).

Fourth, there is a difference on the kind of variables studied on websites: some scholars study the non-verbal elements (Tang 2011), and others study the verbal elements (Chapleo et al. 2011). The image—that is, the brand—trademark and other non-verbal and verbal elements that universities display on their websites are used to convey a message of distinctiveness, uniqueness and appeal to certain constituencies, such as students, parents, funders and the public in general.

In the following sections, we discuss the notion of brand and branding in a brief literature review. Second, we confer the theoretical and methodological concerns of branding in higher education . Third, we utilise some Mozambican HEIs to illustrate how branding is used strategically in this sector. Then, we present the findings and some interpretative discussion of these branding strategies in the context of our theoretical framework. Finally, we present some concluding remarks.

Literature Review

Brand and branding are typically business marketing concepts used to examine specific phenomena taking place in the field of higher education (Waeraas and Solbakk 2009). In management, the word ‘brand’ refers to the “image that a specific product or a service represents in the mind of its customers, and to the position it occupies within the marketplace vis-à-vis its potential competitors” (Aaker 1991, p. 7). The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, symbol, design or a combination of these items intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (Beneke 2011, p. 33). This concept highlights the fact that a brand is a symbol (verbal or non-verbal) which identifies a product or a service and, at the same time, differentiates it from other similar products available on the market.

A brand is different from the product or service itself. A brand is the sum of associations, perceptions and feelings that consumers have in relation to the product (Achenbaum 1993). Customers usually have associations and perceptions about the product both before and after its consumption. Prior to consumption, customers have indirect and non-experiential perceptions of the product. Their previous associations are usually based on secondary sources, and are conveyed through communication strategies or images provided by the seller of the product or through feedback from other customers. On the contrary, experiential perceptions about the product are made after the consumption of the product. But both may be different from the intrinsic value of the offering itself: associations linked to the product may underestimate or overestimate its intrinsic value (Anchenbaum 1993; Siguaw 1999).

A brand is, therefore, the way in which a product is portrayed. A brand is built to be meaningful to an organisation’s internal audience, as well as to speak to external audiences (Shampeny 2003). A brand is closely linked to an organisation’s mission statement, and it is composed of: (i) promise—the single compelling idea that defines the offering; (ii) uniqueness—the attributes that capture its spirit and differentiate it in the market; and (iii) performance—the tangible deliverables that support the brand’s offering and against which it can be measured by end users (Heist 2004).

Keller (2008 quoted in Beneke 2011) suggests that brands are useful for producers in a variety of ways. Brands are (i) a means of identifying products and organisations in the marketplace; (ii) a means of legally protecting unique features; (iii) an indicator to satisfied customers of a certain level of quality level; (iv) a means of endowing products or organisations with a unique association; (v) a source of competitive advantage; and (vi) a source of financial returns.

While brand is the image of the product and all the associations that are linked to it, branding is the process of building such an image. According to Balmer (2001, p. 281), branding means to “make known the attributes of the organisation’s identity in the form of clearly defined branding proposition”. The branding process entails four essential ingredients (Berry 2000).

  • Relevance—What makes the institution’s offerings relevant to key audiences?

  • Awareness—If few people are aware of an institution’s existence, then brand-building is even more crucial.

  • Positioning and Differentiation—Why is the institution distinct in the eyes of the customer? What sets it apart from others within the peer or competitor set?

  • Consistency—A brand can only be developed through the delivery of a consistent set of messages, ideas and interactions over time.

The literature on branding (Chapleo 2004; Ind 2004) identifies five steps in the process of building an organisation’s brand: (i) the definition of its mission and vision; (ii) the understanding of the market and of potential stakeholders’ needs and expectation; (iii) the identification of the attributes differentiating the organisation’s products and services from peers’; (iv) the definition of the brand promise, the involvement of internal audiences in developing the brand strategy; and (v) the delivery of the brand promise to potential stakeholders.

Branding in Higher Education

Branding in higher education , in contrast to that in corporations, is shaped by the nature its offerings. HEIs mainly offer services, as opposed to manufactured goods produced by companies. As Van Vught (quoted in Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2010, p. 123) notes, higher education offers ‘experience goods’: clients of universities are only able to judge the relevance and the quality of the outputs of higher education when they are able to experience them. To choose a specific higher education institution in a context of several peer-competitors, potential clients face the market failure of imperfect information or asymmetry. Wangenge-Ouma and Langa (2010) suggest that this specificity of HEIs lead them to represent themselves in the best possible ways, often (over-) emphasising their qualities and image to convince clients.

Anchenbaum (1993) and Siguaw (1999) refer to two kinds of perceptions that customers may have about any organisation or product, depending on whether or not they have already experienced the organisation’s offering. Prior to consumption, customers have non-experiential-based perceptions and, after consumption, experiential-based perceptions. Non-experience-based perceptions are usually based on secondary sources, and conveyed through communication strategies or images provided by the seller or through other customers’ information.

The dilemma of branding in higher education is that effective branding should be experienced-based (Beneke 2011). The only way for clients to have experiential perceptions of higher education offering is through consuming it. But, in order to consume higher education services, in a context of competition , clients need to have been convinced on the quality of the services being offered. Convincing a potential customer of this quality is often done through secondary sources, such as images and brand promises provided by the higher education institution or through other clients’ information. This dilemma makes the process of branding in higher education a complex phenomenon worth studying.

Websites as Higher Education Branding Strategies

The literature on websites as a branding strategy encompasses four features. First, it is often done by scholars working in the field of business marketing (Opoku et al. 2008, 2006; Chapleo et al. 2011). These scholars are primarily concerned with how corporations use websites as their branding strategies, and they study HEIs as one kind of organisation, among others, that use websites to convey their brands. In other words, higher education is not their main discipline or theoretical field of study, since their core discipline is business marketing; higher education is (occasionally) their empirical field of study.

The second feature of the literature on websites as a branding strategy in higher education is a consequence of the first trend: it fundamentally uses the conceptual and methodological meta-language of corporate marketing . For example, Opoku et al. (2006), through the concept of brand personality and through multistage methodology, measured the way South African business schools use websites to position and differentiate themselves in the crowded MBA education marketplace. A similar study was undertaken by Opoku et al. (2008) in relation to Swedish universities. Another study (Chapleo et al. 2011) used the concepts of functional and emotional value of a brand promise and a multistage methodology, to study the way UK universities effectively communicate their brands through websites .

The third feature of the literature is the trend of studying the ways websites are used differently by different countries. As indicated above, Opoku et al. (2006) studied the South Africa business schools; Opoku et al. (2008) explored Swedish universities; Chapleo et al. (2011) studied the UK universities. All these studies are based on only one country. Tang (2011) represents one of the rare cross-country studies, by comparing the visual elements of university websites in the USA and China to determine whether culture might play a role in a university’s branding strategies.

Tang (2011)’s findings show that US and Chinese universities use different visual elements in their websites to sell themselves. These findings enable us to state the hypothesis that different cultural contexts may influence the way websites are designed and used as branding strategies.

The fourth feature of the literature is the difference between the kind of variables analysed on websites: some scholars study the visual and non-verbal elements, and others study the verbal elements (messages) contained in the websites . Tang (2011) studied the visual elements of universities conveyed through websites: the author’s findings demonstrated that US universities’ websites often contain, as visual elements, single person or small groups of people, whereas Chinese universities’ websites often contain buildings, campus views and university gates. From these findings, Tang (2011) concludes that US universities tend to sell themselves from a perspective of “who they have”, while Chinese universities tend to sell “what they have”.

Chapleo et al. (2011), with the view of understanding the way UK universities communicate their brand through websites effectively, analysed the brand promise’s messages within their websites. They compared the weight of, and place occupied by, functional variables (teaching, research, management, innovation) and emotional variables (international projection and social responsibility) within the UK universities’ websites .

In summary, the literature on the use of websites as university branding strategy is mostly undertaken by scholars of the field of business marketing . It uses the conceptual and methodological approaches of the business marketing field and tends to study the ways websites are utilised as a branding strategy by universities operating in different countries. The literature suggests that contextual differences are relevant in explaining branding strategies and tend to analyse separately non-verbal and verbal elements.

Theory

Our theoretical framework differs from that of previous studies. While adopting the meta-language of branding developed within the field of business marketing , we use Bourdieu’s sociological concepts of field and capital to interpret the explicit verbal or non-verbal symbols used by HEIs to promote themselves through websites . Bourdieu’s sociological approach enables us to highlight the relational dimension of the branding process in higher education as a feature of a competitive emerging and dynamic field. We conceived the field of higher education in Mozambique as a “space of play and competition in which social agents and institutions possess the determinate quantity of specific capital (political, economic and cultural in particular) […] confront one another in strategies aimed at preserving or transforming this balance of forces” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 76).

In Mozambique , HEIs began to use branding more recurrently as a survival mechanism in response to increasing presence of competitive peers operating in the same social space. Branding became an important tool for HEIs to differentiate themselves from one another. We are concerned with how, through websites , Mozambican HEIs communicate their brands to position and differentiate themselves within the field of higher education . Since the mid-1990s, higher education in Mozambique has experienced a rapid process of expansion, differentiation and diversification (Beverwijk 2005; Langa 2006). The number of institutions increased from one in 1962, in the colonial period, to three in the mid-1980s, following the country’s independence. From 1995 onwards, as a consequence of the liberalisation of the economy, the number of HEIs expanded rapidly and by 2012 there were more than 44 HEIs, of which 17 were public and 27 private (DICES 2012).

The expansion in the number of HEIs was accompanied by an increase in student enrolment. In the mid-1990s the number of university students was less than 4000. By 2012 there were almost 130,000 students across the country. The expansion and diversification of higher education suppliers, combined with the inadequate funding of public universities and over-reliance of private HEIs on student fees, created and intensified the competition among institutions (Mário et al. 2003; Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2010). In Mozambique , as elsewhere, HEIs compete mainly for students, financial resources, and intellectual and symbolic resources (including prestige, academic staff and research).

Bourdieu’s approach has been used before to analyse branding issues in higher education . For example, Naidoo et al. (2014) used Bourdieu’s framework at two English business schools to analyse the way different stakeholders (academics, management, professional staff and students) view branding as a mechanism to enhance the institution’s reputation, and engage themselves in the construction, communication and control of their organisation’s brand image. The findings reveal tensions in the way these groups view their institution’s brand and reputation as well as the way in which they engage in the institution’s branding .

Our chapter focuses on how universities convey their brands to external audiences to distinguish themselves from their peers and competitors. While Naidoo et al. (2014) used empirical data based on perceptions and experiences from the different stakeholders concerning their institution’s brand, we retrieved our empirical data from universities’ websites and we did not analyse how these websites are perceived by different internal university stakeholders. However, we consider that their insights are relevant for our future research. We also take a different methodological approach from that of previous studies. As referred to above, despite the fact that the concept of brand involves both verbal and non-verbal elements, no studies as far as we knew have been examined both non-verbal and verbal branding elements contained in universities’ websites . We attempt to combine these two elements, as described next.

Methodology

Since this study focuses on the use of websites as a branding strategy, we excluded from the sample those HEIs without a website, as well as those institutions whose websites were out-of-service between August 2012 and July 2014. We have chosen to focus on websites because they represent one of the powerful windows through which HEIs convey their image to the external public.

Tables 6.1a and 6.1b below show the sample of websites we visited. We attempted to visit the websites of 41 institutions. In case the main website was not accessible, we looked at alternative sites or other social network service available online, mainly Facebook. Of the 41 institutional websites visited, 26 websites were accessible (63, 4%) and 15 inaccessible (36, 6%), at least during the period we browsed them. 12 of the 26 accessible websites were from public institutions and 14 from private; 23 of the 26 accessible websites were the institutions’ main websites , and only three (Dom Bosco, ISMMA and ESEG) were Facebook. From the 15 inaccessible websites, five were from public institutions and ten from private.

Table 6.1a Sample of visited websites of public HEIs and year of establishment
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Table 6.1b Sample of visited websites of private HEIs and year of establishment
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To retrieve elements from the accessible websites , we used the concept of brand as a verbal and non-verbal symbol or a combination of both, to identify a product or a service and, at same time, to differentiate it from its peers in the market (Beneke 2011, p. 33). Despite the fact that this concept of brand involves both verbal or non-verbal elements, as our literature review reveals, no previous research studied both non-verbal and verbal branding elements contained in the universities’ websites. Some studies only focused on non-verbal elements (Tang 2011). Other studies focused only on verbal elements (Chapleo et al. 2011). Thus, our attempt was to retrieve and analyse both verbal and non-verbal elements contained in Mozambican universities’ websites .

Methods Used to Analyse Non-verbal and Visual Elements

To retrieve non-verbal (visual) elements, we used Tang (2011)’s model. Tang (2011) retrieved and analysed pictures contained in American and Chinese universities’ websites from two perspectives: pictures of buildings (“what they-have” pictures) and pictures of people (“who they- have” pictures). Concerning “what-they-have” pictures, we analysed all pictures of buildings, including pictures of facilities and services offered by each institution, such as laboratories, libraries and ICT room facilities. However, regarding the “who-they-have” pictures, we extended and adapted Tang’s concept to the Mozambican context. By the “who-they-have” concept, Tang meant mainly the academic staff, whose profile is used by American universities to promote the institution’s reputation.

Initially, we had decided to use the same category, but in the Mozambican context, universities rarely sell themselves visually by pictures and CVs of their academic staff; rather, they often include in their websites pictures of students and professors in graduation clothing (gowns), pictures of managers of the institution, as well as pictures of prominent national and sometimes international personalities: some institutions select heroic celebrities (see UEM, ISAP in Table 6.2 in the discussion section), others choose political figures (ISRI, AM) and religious leaders (USTM). Therefore, we also decided to analyse pictures of personalities with whom each institution identifies itself.

Table 6.2 Analysing brand and HEIs differentiation through names, symbol or combination of these items in institutional websites
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Besides the “who-they-have” and “what-they-have” pictures from Tang (2011)’s model, we have also decided to analyse “what-they-do’” pictures. This decision is based on the fact that, after analysing all the websites , we concluded that some institution sell themselves visually through the kind of activities they do both in and outside campus, such as academic conferences, military parades, rectors and managers visiting different faculties, and the academic community undertaking fieldwork and providing services to society.

Analysing Websites’ Verbal Elements

Apart from non-verbal elements, we also retrieved and analysed verbal elements contained in websites . Though we were inspired by Chapleo et al. (2011)’s paper, we did not use their approach directly. These scholars analysed the promise in brand messages within UK university websites by comparing the weight of and place occupied by functional variables (teaching, research, management, innovation) and emotional variables (international projection and social responsibility). Instead, we analysed positioning statements viz. the mission statements, values, catch-phrases, and slogans about the quality of the facilities and services provided by HEIs.

Our decision to do this was based on the fact that the definition of mission and values of an organisation is mentioned by relevant literature (Chapleo 2004; Ind 2004; Gray et al. 2003) as one of the essential steps in the process of building an institutional brand. We decided to analyse catch-phrases and slogans because, as Mcknight and Paugh (1999, p. 50) point out, “universities use slogans as a strategy of matching their philosophy and culture to potential student-customer”. We have also decided to analyse the facilities and services offered by each higher education institution.

In order to retrieve and analyse the mission statement, values, catch-phrases and slogans, we accessed the main website of each institution to verify, copy and analyse each of these elements. Some institutions do not include their mission statement and values in their main web page, but in their alternative web pages. In this case, we searched mission statements and values in the alternative web page. As Table 6.2 (in the findings section) shows, some institutions do not have or do not include their mission statement and values in their main or alternative websites .

Mozambican HEIs with catch-phrases and slogans always put them in their main websites. The absence of a catch-phrase or slogan in any institution’s main websites often means that the institution does not have a catch-phrase or slogan. Finally, to retrieve and analyse the range of facilities and services offered by each higher education institution, we used both visual and textual elements. Some institutions do not describe textually the kind of facilities they offer, but they do it visually, through pictures; others do not provide pictures, but describe textually their facilities.

Findings and Discussion

Table 6.2 summarises the findings of non-verbal and verbal elements retrieved and analysed from the 26 websites of Mozambican HEIs to which we have access. From our analysis, several institutions differentiate themselves using photographs, slogans or catch-phrases, values and mission statements, facilities and services they provided. Based on these items, Table 6.2 depicts the positioning statements of HEIs to differentiate themselves in the field. These items include the year in which the institution was established (showing endurance and tradition). For instance, UEM and ISUTC state in their websites that: “Although the university is still young, it is the first and oldest in the country and that for many years was the sole institution” (UEM, Table 6.2). ISUTC states that it is: “the 8 th to be established in the country and that is a school essentially devoted to training engineers, but also offers management studies” (ISUTC, Table 6.2). The specific area to which the institution is devoted is used as a distinctive marker: UP is dedicated to Teacher Training; ISUTC to engineering and ISRI to training of diplomats. In highlighting their areas of expertise the institutions are sending a message to their ‘clients’—they are the ‘best’. The services/facilities provided (nearly all private higher education included in this sample), its values (USTM, UCM, A-Politécnica), or its pedagogical approach (A-Politécnica), represent an asset—a social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital which the institutions display to demark its position in a growing competitive field.

HEIs in Mozambique use brands not only to identify themselves, but also to highlight their difference vis-à-vis other competitors with regards to longevity, experience and tradition (UEM), expertise in a specialised area (UP, ISUTC, ISRI), facilities/services, their pedagogical approach and even their association with prestigious personalities in the political and religious arenas. We argued that, through branding , HEIs seek to obtain the resources and capital necessary to exist and survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

When UEM claims that it is “the best brand of higher education in Mozambique ” and that it is the “Prime higher education in Mozambique” (Table 6.2), it is positioning itself in a competitive social space through branding. UEM, in this case, is not simply stating what could be regarded as a true or false claim, but it is sending a message to its peers and targeting certain constituencies by highlighting its brand and uniqueness.

Confronted with the presence of competitors offering the same services, HEIs feel the need to distinguish themselves by establishing a niche, an area of expertise or excellence and by defining a brand. ISRI, for instance, states in its website that it is “a Leading institution in International Relations and Diplomacy” (Table 6.2). Apart from this claim, ISRI depicts in its website pictures of the Head of State and Prime Minister, to show its uniqueness.

In Table 6.2 we have presented most of the positioning statements, both verbal and non-verbal of the HEIs, demarcating their position in the field and distinguishing themselves through branding .

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, we argued that branding is one of the strategies used by HEIs to survive in the increasingly competitive field of higher education in Mozambique . HEIs build their name and image and promote it as a brand to mobilise financial, symbolic and intellectual resources by attracting prospective students, government, donors and corporations that guarantee their survival in a growing competitive field of higher education providers.

We examined how HEIs use websites to portrait and represent their image so as to differentiate themselves from their competitors. We identified four ways in which HEIs distinguish themselves from their competitors: years of (establishment) existence; area of specialisation; services/facilities provided; pedagogical approach; and images of personalities on their websites .

Our argument was reinforced by the evidence that HEIs tend to use brands to compete for the scarce resources available in the field. Institutions use brands to promote their identity, difference and uniqueness to motivate potential clients to ‘buy’ their products and services. Further questions may be raised regarding the use of brands in higher education: How do potential clients perceive these brands? Do they really feel attracted to the institution? This is a sensible way forward for further research.