A Brand Promise Statement?

In higher ed, there’s a tendency to substitute mission statements for brand promises. By this I mean creating a shortened version of your mission statement to fit the required one-sentence format of a brand promise. The result is what’s now being called a brand promise statement. Here’s why that’s not a good idea.

Mission statements are statements of purpose. They are long term in nature and serve to remind employees why the organization exists.

A brand promise is not a statement of purpose, but a promise made to the customer. Whereas a mission statement focuses on what you are, a brand promise focuses on what you offer in a way that matters to students.

Mission statements don’t differentiate much. In fact, most colleges can swap mission statements with schools in their market category since they all share the same purpose of providing higher education. And that’s the problem with substituting a mission statement for a brand promise. The purpose of a brand promise is to differentiate.

Another problem with substituting missions statements for brand promises is that mission statements rarely, if ever, change. A brand promise can change often in the course of a college’s history. That’s what we mean by re-branding. We don’t mean changing the mission statement (although that can happen). We mean changing the brand promise. That’s because brand promises are customer-centric, whereas mission statements are org-centric.

When you substitute your mission statement for your brand promise, you become focused on what you are rather than what you offer, and you don’t differentiate your school.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

SO AND SO COLLEGE, in the Catholic Dominican tradition, develops goal-oriented students who can achieve their full intellectual and personal potential in a supportive community committed to inspire the passion to succeed.

We enrich lives by creating opportunities and
fostering innovative expression that shapes
the culture of our times.

SO AND SO COLLEGE is an intellectually-energized, intimate college environment for inquisitive students who want to join a legacy of leaders, thinkers and global citizens.

Our brand is a promise that we live by – to offer a relevant engineering and business education in a supportive environment for career success.

SO AND SO COLLEGE promises students high quality educational programs, small classes and opportunities to interact directly with professors who are passionate about teaching.

The learning and discovery that take place at SO AND SO COLLEGE makes a difference in the lives of people on a global scale. 

The SO AND SO COLLEGE brand promise suggests that people here have opportunities to lead, create, build and learn.  They have opportunities that they would not have otherwise in other places.  In coming here, they are seeking their future and a chance to be a better person with opportunities to do more, be more engaged and make a difference.

I could list many more, but the point is that these brand promises are statements of purpose that are interchangeable with other schools. A solid brand promise has three basic components. It must say what it is, who it’s for and why it’s different. Sometimes a mission statement can accomplish the first two components. But the third component, the key component, requires you to differentiate. And mission statements don’t do that well enough.