Branding Universities Essay

The stop over of the 1990s witnessed the corporatization of humanity universities in Malayanansia resulting in the realityation of collective belles-lettres in these universities and the typecast of writing Fairclough (1993) mentions to as the market placeization of pedantic sermon. Marketization is necessary in humans universities imputable to stiff competition in attracting students among the man chassis universities as well as from the permute magnitude crop of private universities. This word reports how Malayan universities re- none themselves using the results of an investigation on collective cusps from these universities.The investigation employs a structural compendium and a textual analysis. Although in bringative in constitution, these embodied cusps exhibit the handling of promotional elements in the texts as seen in the limit and the manner of speaking intent. The communicatory functions of university brochures ar viewed to be a good de al promotional than assureative. ABSTRACT nominate WORDS brochures, bodily burnish, musical style analysis, re- defecting, universities foundation donnish knowledgeablenesss, disassembleicularly reality universities, utilize to be regarded as the pinnacle of learning.most of these universities were reputed for providing the best tertiary grooming and the true mention of their cognomens lit up the faces of those who had the privilege of learning from these fountains of fellowship and those who aspired to be associated with them. at that place was a metre when entre was by invitation only, another(prenominal)wise green men and women were seen struggling to gain portal into these prestigious institutions. These domain universities acquired a promotional respect (Wernick, 1991) without having to in the popular eye(predicate)ise or market themselves.In advertise shapes, these universities did not go through the march of snitching. Branding is a fundamental s trategic functioning of in effect marketing a product or help which involves creating a smirch name and identity, designing Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 58 treat & vitamin A Communication 2(1) the procession and promoting the product or serve well (Rand on the whole, 1997). Although Rand all(prenominal) (1997) argues that instigators (and whence branding) atomic number 18 so fundamentally essential to the survival and success of m some(prenominal) firms (p.2), this was not the campaign in existence universities in the past.This is signifi reartly ascribable to the item that these faculty memberianian institutions were claimed to be free from other influences as evidenced by Cardinal Newmans view of universities cited by Wernick (1991) as . . . the game protecting power of all knowledge and science, of occurrence and principle, of inquiry and discovery, of experiment and guessing it maps out the territory of the intellect, and sees that . . . in that respect is incomplete encroachment nor surrender from any attitude . . .(Cardinal Newman, 1847, cited in Wernick, 1991151) That was the conventional figure of speech of familiar universities, independent of political or complaisant influence and this depiction was not strengthened by ad or branding. As centres of academe, public universities were known for their type education put together on the results of their graduates and their performance in the c areers they embarked on upon graduation. As years passed, much aspiring unsalted tidy sum would hold in for ad delegating in legitimate universities due to their reputation.This reputation in turn became the  substitution class of the universities which automatically created the promotional think of (Wernick, 1991) of these universities, mentioned rather as the pinnacle of learning. Each university was discipline by its name or logo and no further promotional strate gies were required. By providing teddy education, these universities victoriously built a distinct brand personality (Randall, 1997 67) for themselves as the success of branding is justified when people are reminded of a take upicular brand just by looking at the logo or hearing its brand name.The traditional role of public universities was to make love club (Jarvis, 2001) by producing scholars in the mixed fields of study so that they muckle go out to make the institution a better place to croak or join the academia to remain producing scholars. However, towards the end of the twentieth century, the role of universities started ever-changing from serving the landed e press out in managing confederacy to serving the industry and commerce in ensuring that people are employable (Jarvis, 2001).This is part due to the demands of the contemporary knowledge-based society (Veitch, 1999) where consumers amaze live more knowledgeable and control started demanding for better education and improved case of life. Changes started fetching place in public universities in the West as ear catch ones breathst as the 1980s where the governments were forced to destroy faculty member tenure and decrease sustenance for these universities.This was when many traditional universities started transforming into unified universities (Jarvis, 2001) where they take aim to assume a more collective form and function more deal a corporation. From cosmos the centre of academe, universities defy get barter- care entities (Connell and Galasinski, 1998). In Malaysia, a number of public universities pass on recently been corporatized, a bear upon taken by the Malayan government in its effort to ingrain better and more efficient counseling of these institutions.As corporate civilisation (Treadwell and Treadwell, 2000) is a crude culture in all these universities, most of them Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 Osman R e-branding academicianian institutions with corporate publicizing pass hard-boiled up corporate communications departments (Hajibah Osman, 2005) to detention corporate matters. Among the functions of these departments are managing corporate schooling and publication and projecting a tyrannical chassis of the universities which are part of corporate advertise. unified advertizing Business corporations do corporate advertising to enhance the image of the whole brass segment, or of the general brand in order to influence accessible value or to usher a connection between the corporation/brand and an already schematic positive value and in this era of identity, a lap of emphasis has been put on the impressiveness of brand and corporate identities (Richards et al. , 2000). Un analogous backup faces, universities are non-profit institutions.Public universities are viewed to implement corporate advertising to enhance the warm foundation and to highlight the attribute of these institutions of high education. While it is viridity for argument corporations to bring out informative or promotional books from time to time to inform the public well-nigh cutting developments in the governing (monthly or yearly reports) or to submit new products or run (product fix leaflets), the utilization of promotional lit in academic institutions is a recent development. Malayan public universities set about started producing informative literature in the form of university brochures and additional booklets in conjunction with certain celebrations in the universities as well as promotional literature in the form of leaflets providing brief breeding on academic programmes offered by the universities or introducing new programmes (Hajibah Osman, 2005). By employing new strategies to market their traditional image, from the advertising situation, these universities are re-branding their products and profits.Re-branding is the wreak of marketing an exis ting product or service of one brand with a different identity involving radical reassigns to the brand name, logo, image, marketing schema and advertising foundations (Wikipedia, 2006). In the advertising industry, re-branding is often referred to as re-positioning, that is, re-positioning a product or service in order to improve sales. Although there was no actual initial branding taking place in universities, being non-profit qualification institutions, the term re-branding is employ in this name to illustrate the change in the image of these universities especial(a)ly since the late 20th century.Signifi potbellytly, this change has been effected without compromising the traditional characteristics and values of these institutions as the pinnacle of higher learning. The appendage of re-branding is aimed at improving the image of the universities by stresssinging on the facilities and highlighting the quality of the academic programmes. This article attempts to investiga te the fulfill of re-branding in public universities in Malaysia by conducting a musical musical literary musical style analysis on university brochures, one type of issue materials create by the institutions that re array corporate advertising.Analysing literary genres batch soften to a thick exposition (Bhatia, 1993) Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 59 60 Discourse & Communication 2(1) of the texts contained in these genres, explaining why certain texts exhaust been constructed the bearing they are. The specific purposeive of this article is to tell by and discuss the strategies utilise in the re-branding process based on the structural administration of university brochures and the communicative functions of this type of brochure.Previous investigations of advertising genres mostly foc utilize on straightsell advertisements of products or services. Bruthiaux (2000), for instance, investigated how advertisers make single-valued function of a particular(a) space lendable to them to create successful advertising copies by examining the syntactic features in an undisclosed number of display and sort out advertisements. His results show that the degree of syntactic expansion varies substantially even when content of touch simplicity/complexity or familiarity to readers is being presented.This transformation appears to correlate with perceptions of location on the parts of two authors and readers (p. 298) and the persuasive elements lie in the vacuous displays of linguistic mundaneness designed to create a for the most part artificial sense of exclusiveness among status-conscious readers (p. 369). Investigations study also been conducted on the quarrel of advertising in Asia, for instance, Tej Bhatias (2000) investigation of language of advertising in Rural India and enthalpy and Roseberrys (1998) investigation of the linguistic features in tourist cultivation brochures from Brunei.T hus fara demeanor, there keep back been very a few(prenominal) linguistic analyses conducted on the genre of corporate advertising. Therefore, the genre selected for analysis in this article is brochure, specifically corporate brochure from academic institutions. A brochure is a printed document of half-dozensome or more pages, consumptiond to portray an organization, create only once and distri entirelyed to special publics for a single subprogram (Newsom and sales booth, 2001).The talk about community of Public dealing (PR) specifies quintet characteristics of brochures, three of which are related to the present article always having a preposterous message asseveration having a purpose to persuade or to inform and educate and attracting and holding the attention of the audience. Brochure genre makes an interesting study because, first, this genre is viewed as a blurred genre (a term borrowed from Scollon et al. , 1999) in that the term brochure has been use to refe r to other forms of publications including booklet, flyer, leaflet and tract (Newsom and Carrell, 2001).Second, a brochure is a genre of persuasive intervention shaping the thoughts, feelings and lives of the public (Dyer, 1993) placing it beneath the field of advertising. However, according to Newsom and Carrell (2001), brochures are produced by PR practitioners rather than advertising practitioners. This is belike due to the concomitant that PR, among other things, incorporates looking afterward the reputation of an organization with the aim of earning understanding and certification, and influencing persuasion and behaviour (Beard, 2001 7).The question of ownership arises placing brochures in an even more blurred state as the communicative functions of brochures have been set by the discourse community to which the genre belongs. In the setting of this article, brochures are categorise as a corporate genre (basically PR) involving the principles of corporate writing (Trea dwell Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 Osman Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising and Treadwell, 2000). Brochures are readily available, particularly in print version, and are easily accessible electronically.Finally, brochure genre commands to be investigated because brochure format is one of the most often used entropy formats in advertising and PR but is ironically the least written-about (Bivins and Ryan, 1991). bodied genre in academic institutions This article establishes that any publications from universities, particularly those produced by the Corporate or Public Relations Office, are referred to as corporate genre. Corporate brochures are usually categorized as informative brochures (Richards et al. , 2000) providing all the necessary development about the organizations they represent.There are certain corporate elements present to qualify them as corporate brochures, but mostly these brochures are informative. However, an analysis of corporate brochures from multinational corporations by Askehave and Swales (2001) prove that these brochures also function to upraise the organization. This is evident in the presence of promotional elements selected as syntactic choices in these brochures. Corporate brochures also function to establish perdurable trading relationships which are in fact paramount in todays industrial market.Hajibah Osman (2005) also notes that corporate brochures from academic institutions are promotional in nature with the use of promotional strategies apart from corporate and informative strategies. Another corporate genre in academic institutions, the university prospectus, started changing in form in the 1990s (Fairclough, 1993) where apart from providing information on the core business of the university, that is, the academic programmes, the prospectus has also include information on other aspects of the universities. ground on a critical discourse analy sis of prospectuses from a number of British universities, Fairclough notes that these universities started promoting their programmes because they have come increasingly under (mostly governments) pressure to operate like other types of businesses competing to sell their products to consumers. The university prospectus has become a genre of consumer advertising colonising passe-partout person and public service orders of discourse on a massive scale, generating many new hybrid partly promotional genres (Fairclough, 1993 139).Academic institutions in Malaysia have also published promotional leaflets (Hajibah Osman, 2005) to advertise their academic programmes and these are circulated to potential students particularly before a new academic year begins. These leaflets are no longer the plain, boring information sheets but colourful and interesting ones. This article concurs with Askehave and Swales (2001) that corporate brochures function as promotional brochures more than projectin g the corporate image and providing information.Thus, the investigation in this article attempts to identify and discuss the strategies that pull in the promotional functions in this type of brochure as part of the re-branding process in public universities. Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 61 62 Discourse & Communication 2(1) Methodology In 2005, there were 11 public universities in Malaysia (shortly, there are 20). Brochures were obtained from the 11 universities and were initially analysed to identify the possible structural organization. ground on the organization, the communicative functions of these brochures were determined. The 11 public universities included in this investigation are International Moslem University Malaysia (IIUM/UIA) Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Universiti Perguruan sultan Idris (UPSI) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) University of Malaya (UM).A textual analysis was conducted to break down the strategies used in the rebranding process. The strategies in the scope of this article are tactical choices (Bhatia, 1993) which are cognitive processes exploited by the writer to make writing more potent belongings in mind any special reader requirements, considerations arising from the use of mean(a) or constraints imposed by organisational and other factors (p. 20).The strategies used by universities in re-branding the institutions are discussed within the framework of the sociolinguistic theory which considers writing as part of the overall activities of a group and organization (Gunnarsson, 1997 140) and in relation to the corporate culture (Hagberg and Heifetz, 2000) practised by the universities. As a genre is a typical form of utterances, it should be studied in its social con texts of use (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1993).Sociolinguistics does not only describe linguistic variation and the social context in which such a variation occurs, but also shows how linguistic preeminence reflects social structure (Coupland, 2001). The sociolinguistic perspective in this article considers the existence of factors underpinning the kink of university brochures and the concept of promotional culture (Wernick, 1991). Re-branding academic institutions It has been established that university brochures form part of the corporate advertising strategies in Malayan universities which in turn are part of the rebranding process in these traditional institutions.The structural organization in these brochures lives of 10 sections place as moves (Table 1). Some of the moves are exemplified with extracts from the university brochures in fig 1 (see Appendix). In identifying the moves, the term service is used to refer to the educational services and the support services offer ed by the universities. only the brochures from the 11 universities include strickles I, C, L, D, J and S, indicating that these six moves are obligatory. Ninety-one percent of the brochures include Moves A, T and E, while 81 percent include Move V, fashioning them nonobligatory moves.The 10 moves have been used to realize three communicative functions of the university brochures which are To inform the public about the academic programmes offered in the university and the facilities and other services available to support the academic programmes Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 Osman Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising To portray a corporate image of the university and To promote the university as an academic institution based on the quality and the variety of academic programmes offered as well as the facilities available.These communicative functions of university brochures cope with with the general f unctions of brochures (Newsom and Carrell, 2001) set by the discourse community of PR. Re-branding strategies The 10 sections in university brochures have been identified as moves and these moves are realise with the use of strategies, and for the purpose of discussion in this article, re-branding strategies. The article discusses how the strategies contribute to the re-branding process and what their communicative functions are.NAME AND LOGO The first move in university brochures is called identifying the service which presents the name and the logo of the university. Although the brochures are in English language, the name of the universities are in Malay, the national language of Malaysia except two universities, International Islamic University Malaysia and University of Malaya. The names of the public universities were officially changed to Malay when the national language was made the sensitive of instruction in the mid-1970s.In the case of IIUM, however, the acronym by whi ch it is commonly referred to by Malaysians is the Malay version, UIA. Similarly, University of Malaya is now popularly known as Universiti Malaya (UM). Interestingly, alumni up to the early 1980s salve refer to this oldest university in the country as MU (Malaya University). TA B L E 1. Structural organization of university brochures Section Move identification notice of the university University guide word or precept Vision/ thrill statement Profile or background of the university locating and size of the universityAcademic programmes offered at the university Facilities available to support the academic programmes Entry requirements, fees supercharged and duration of the programmes Career opportunities and recognition standard by the university Contact addresses and telephone rime Identifying the service (I) Attracting reader attention (A) Targeting the market (T) Establishing credentials (C) Locating the service (L) Describing the service (D) Justifying the service (J) I ndicating the value of service (V) Endorsing the value of service (E) Soliciting response (S)Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 63 64 Discourse & Communication 2(1) In the past, universities were identified by their crests but now these crests have been broadly speaking referred to as boy. Although it cannot be ascertained when the change exactly took place, this is the first re-branding strategy. However, this is not an translucent re-branding element because some of the established traditional universities in the cosmos still use the term crest, for example, Oxford University (http//www. ox. ac. uk/web/crest.shtml).As far as Malaysian universities are concerned, both monetary value are similar and a recent survey of the university websites shows that most of the public universities in Malaysia refer to the crest as the logo while two universities (UKM and USM) refer to them as emblems. Most of the websites also render the rational e for the design of the logo (e. g. UiTM, UPM). Whether used as crest, logo or emblem, interestingly, there are two common shapes detect the shape of a shield (six universities) and a round shape (five universities) (Figure 2, see Appendix).The shape of USMs emblem differs significantly from other logos in that it resembles a state emblem. This qualifies for the use of the term emblem (a communicative device or symbolic object as a characteristic badge of a nation, organization or family Oxford mental lexicon and Thesaurus, 2001) by the university. Although the current shape of UPSIs logo is round, it once had the shape of a shield (Figure 3, see Appendix). Compared with the logos of established universities which include traditional designs representing the academe, the current logos of Malaysian public universities include elements of new-made designs.In fact, some of these logos have gone through some kind of ontogenesis as in the case of UiTM, UPM and UPSI. UPM evolved fr om a training school to a college to a university focusing on agriculture. Later, the university started including more disciplines and the name was changed from Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (Malaysia University of Agriculture) to Universiti Putra Malaysia (Putra University of Malaysia) in 1997, taking after the name of the first prime minister of religion at the same time keeping the same acronym. UPSI and UiTM underwent almost similar growing from a centre to a college to an shew and finally to a university.Throughout the phylogeny, the logos have also gone through many changes where the concept incarnate in the logos mainly represents the focus of the university. While UPSIs logo changed in shape but not in concept, UiTMs and UPMs logos underwent a total facelift (Figure 3, see Appendix). This is probably due to the fact that UPSIs focus of training teachers remains throughout. MOTTO AND aphorism A motto is a utterly judgment of conviction or phrase that expresses a rul e for sensible behaviour, especially a way of behaving in a particular situation (Collins Cobuild Dictionary, 2001).Most of the university logos have the motto graven on them as the motto represents the culture or the way of life in the university. Once again, all the mottos of the public universities are in Malay. The more established universities still retain this culture inscribed in the logo as seen in UMs motto (translated as) Knowledge, the quotation of Development, UPSIs Knowledge, the Beacon of vestal Character, UTMs By the Name of God for Mankind and UUMs Scholarship, Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009Osman Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising Virtue, Service. UPSI keeps the same motto inscribed on the logo throughout its evolution but UiTM left out its motto of 39 years from its new logo. The impudently established universities (UMS and UNIMAS) do not have a motto inscribed in their logos.While a motto is a traditional feature of a public university, having a slogan is a new phenomenon. A slogan is a distinctive catchphrase that serves as a motto for a promotion campaign (Wells et al., 2003) used to sum up a theme for the benefit of the product or the service in order to deliver a message in a few address which are easily meaned.There are two types of slogans (Russell and roadway, 1990) hard-sell slogans are potently competitive, epitomizing the special significant features of the product or service being advertised. Institutional slogans establish a prestigious image for companies which they need in order to enhance their products or services. Slogans in university brochures fall under the grade of institutional slogans.Again, it cannot be ascertained when universities started creating slogans but there is a strong opportunity that they started at the same time when Malaysian public universities were undergoing corporatization in the late 20th century. Slogans started appea ring on brochures and prospectuses of these public universities. The use of slogans has been viewed as a significant re-branding strategy as slogans represent the most promotional element in advertising. The purpose of having a slogan is to attract the readers attention and to let it linger on the readers mind.According to Russell and Lane (1990), the memorability of slogans can be enhanced by making use of literary techniques. These techniques consist of certain types of dustup including Boldness use of strong powerful talking to, and startling or unexpected phrases Parallelism use of a repeated structure of a sentence or phrase Rhyme, rhythm, alliteration use of repeated sounds Aptness use of appropriate, purpose words (Russell and Lane, 1990). Slogans in university brochures have been created based on good advertising principles as they have been notice to make use of the literary techniques, for example assertion garden of Knowledge and Virtue (IIUM) paralleli sm The guinea pig University with an International Reach (UKM) aptness Your rapture parallelism Contemporary and Forward expression (UNIMAS) boldness Towards a World-Class University (UPM) boldness Towards Excellence and Supremacy (UPSI) Boldness is exemplified with words such as virtue, beginning(a) and supremacy where the universities are bold passable to associate themselves with such high top. Traditionally, public universities are centres of academe which do not portray an image of flaunting.Slogans using parallelism aim for jingle-like sounds so that readers can remember them easily while aptness acts like punchlines, strong and effective to be easily remembered. The bottom line is that a slogan is an Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 65 66 Discourse & Communication 2(1) advertising concept and a marketing tool. The fact that public universities as nonprofit making academic institutions use slogans place them in a different light. They are currently functioning more like business entities.MISSION STATEMENT This move is identified as targeting the market based on the communicative functions of the armorial bearing statements. A mission statement provides information about what type of organization it is and what it does (Falsey, 1989) at the same time highlighting the positive factors in the organization. Stating the mission of the university is viewed as one of the two all-important(a) strategies (the other being using slogans) in re-branding academic institutions as this move never appeared in academic genres before.This move has situated public universities in the same compact as other successful corporations. Mission statements of public universities in Malaysia are observed to provide information as to what and how they can contribute to the public in terms of tertiary education as highlighted (underlined) in the pursuance examples (10) To become a place university, aspiring to promote academ ic rightness in higher education and professional training necessary for the countrys socio-economic development (UiTM).(11) To be a autopsy university seeking excellence in the advancement of knowledge to meet the aspirations of the nation (UM) (12) To become an exemplary university of internationally acknowledged summit and as a scholarly institution of preference and choice for students and academics through the interest group of excellence in teaching, research and cognizance (UNIMAS) (13) To lead in the development of inventive human resource and technology in line with the aspirations of the nation (UTM).The words peremptory, premier, and exemplary are used to emphasize the quality of the universities. Other words like excellence, advancement and stature as well as to lead are all bold words of promise by the universities. PROFILE OF THE UNIVERSITY This section is identified as the move to establish the credentials of the university as it provides information on the bac kground and/or the current status of the university.The background information includes the date of judicature and the reason for the establishment while information on the current status of the university usually includes the achievements of the university in terms of academic programmes and corporeal development as well as the quality of the programmes offered. This move is supposed to be informational but there are a number of instances where the brochures provide the information on the current status of the university using promotional words and phrases. For example (14) UNIMAS is an ISO-certified university . . .Its undergraduate programmes have been designed to suit the needs of society and industry. Downloaded from http//dcm. sagepub. com by Heemal Kasseean on October 9, 2009 Osman Re-branding academic institutions with corporate advertising An ISO certification for an organization confirms the quality of that organization and it is now a common practice among public univer sities to obtain such certification to convince the public about the quality of the university, particularly the academic programmes on offer. Universities with ISO certification usually highlight it in their brochures as a strategy to promote the institutions.Other instances of promotional words can be observed in the following examples (15) The university is the catalyst for percentageal growth in the northern region of Peninsula Malaysia (UUM) (16) From these humble beginnings, UM grew hand-in-hand with the young nation to become the nucleus for producing graduates of the highest quality and calibre. The word catalyst denotes the importance of the university in the regional growth of the northern region of the country, without which there would not have been much growth in that region, thus promoting the conditional relation of the university.Similarly, the word nucleus conveys the significance of UM to the develop nation. Another instance is when a university states the load of the university to the public or the nation. UPM boldly states its perpetration to become a worldclass university to convince the public to come and enrol in this university. (17) Named Universiti Putra Malaysia in honour of the pioneering Prime Minister of Malaysia, . . . has espouse this pioneering spirit and is committed to become the world class Univers.