inality take, its motivation, the basis for its reinvention and projection into the open economic and social world of the 21st century?
Before we imagine this, however, it is prudent to remember what is at issue: the branding process is part of an ambitious revitalisation programme for the ‘poorest town in France’, to quote the words of its dynamic mayor, who was referring to the average amount of local tax paid per inhabitant. It is also a town with a high rate of immigration and therefore of unemployment. It was therefore a question of making it attractive once again, with the stated aim of revitalising its old, preserved town centre, which had been deserted, rather than recreating it in the suburbs, as has been done in so many other towns. Therefore it was necessary to develop in parallel a cultural offer, a demand for public spaces, and a renewed commercial offer. To do so, Roubaix needed brands and companies. What identity would contribute to this goal nowadays?
The first question in any work on branding is to rediscover the design, the brand’s DNA.
What appears to be the design of this northern French town? The town’s genetic patrimony provides the key components. It was always a textile town. During the period when it did not belong to France, in 1469, it was one of the first free trade zones created, thereby affirming its destiny as a great merchant town, which had also been granted the right to weave fabrics. Roubaix is asso- ciated with the spirit of enterprise. All the big families in textiles, and then in mass distri- bution, started here: the Mothes, the Lepoutres, the Mulliezes, the Paulets, the Prouvosts, and even the Arnaults, who moved from textiles to luxury goods.
Other than weaving, it is also the town of cross-fertilisation: a pioneer in commercial exchanges, the town was at the heart of inter- national exchanges within Europe. This is where the deep truth and the forgotten times of Roubaix are to be found: it is the French town for textiles, for creation, fashion, mass distribution, but also today of its most
advanced version: mail order. La Redoute (based in Roubaix) is the foremost seller of female garments in France. It now takes more orders over the internet than through the post. We can clearly see the sketching out of a legitimate territory of competence and influence that the municipality can activate.
This positioning is the source of coherence of present and future activities to be carried out locally, in the same way as the communica- tions that diffuse them.
As with any brand, the town has its slogan:
‘Fashion loves Roubaix’. This encapsulates the profound truth of the town brand: a textile town, a town of creative entrepreneurs, and a town of good business. It is aimed both ‘inter- nally’, at the community itself, an active partner in its own development and repu- tation, and at federalising all so-called external activities. Strong perceptions can only be built if all these activities converge on a single direction and a single meaning.
As for the products that represent renewal vectors, embodying the town’s mercantile and fashion vocation, they include the opening of the ‘La Piscine’ museum (housed in the historic swimming baths), the arrival of the Edhec business school in Roubaix, the instal- lation of a MacArthur Glen brand centre of 17,000 square metres that brings customers to Roubaix from 50 kilometres around, including from Belgium, the rehabilitation of factories to create a fashion and creative quarter, and so on.
Universities and business schools
lectual excellence, its universities, its research centres, its innovative companies, its design centres, its hi-tech and hi-touch brands – or the lack thereof.
Working on the France brand means asking questions about the foundation of its repu- tation tomorrow, as a great country of the 21st century: that is, as the transmitter of a living, contemporary culture, therefore capable of attracting students from around the world, not only to study philosophy and literature, art history or sociology, as they once did, but to study economics, business, management, high and new technologies.
Higher education institutions are now also engaged in a brand war. Revealingly, there are now global comparisons on the quality of universities and business schools – a sign that the market is now global and the evaluators are not French. The same is true for wine. In Europe, the Financial Times draws up the ranking of 55 European business schools. Its 2006 ranking is shown in Table 5.4.
Table 5.4 The top ten European business schools
1 HEC Paris (France)
2 London Business School (UK) 3 IMD (Switzerland)
4 Instituto de Emprese (Spain) 5 Iese (Spain)
6 ESCP-IAP (France/Germany/Spain/Italy) 7 RSM Erasmus University (Netherlands) 8 Cranfield School of Management (UK) 9 Bradford/Tias Nimbas
(UK/Netherlands/Germany) 10 Insead (France)
Source:Financial Times, 4 December 2006.
The challenge that European universities must meet is considerable. Their resources are so small that they do not even appear in worldwide evaluations. Like Oxford, the Sorbonne is a true brand, whose reputation has been built over centuries and diffused worldwide. Its excellence in literary studies is well known, carried by the excellence of its
professors. However, an objective analysis of the service that each student receives illus- trates that in terms of teaching, as with any brand, the intangible components are not enough. Major financial resources are required to bring today’s teaching up to the standards of global excellence in education.
This will be the great challenge for Europe brand: to give its universities the financial resources to shine internationally. If the state cannot do it, then companies must, and therefore it is necessary to change the rela- tionships between companies and the university. This is why the big business schools everywhere have already acquired the status of global brands.
Every country has its star brands: the United States has Harvard and MIT for example, the United Kingdom has Oxford and Cambridge, and China has Tsing Hua; in France, HEC and Insead are brands. Of course the United States also has other excellent business schools, as global comparative rankings continue to demonstrate. However, only some of these have additional emotive value, strongly linked to intangible compo- nents, the vague feeling of entering into more than simply a university or school, but into a very exclusive and global club.
It is striking to see how globalisation poses new problems for educational institutions, which were previously sheltered from it. Like it or not, they must now think like global brands, and give themselves the resources to do so. What is a brand, if not a name with strong influence and power to attract – since their market at least is global? Reputation is the inevitable attraction vector: an aura attached to a name able to bring the world’s students and major executives to Europe to round off their education at great expense.
It is therefore necessary to know how to export our qualifications, if Europe wishes to remain in the hunt as a great country.
However, globalisation requires a complete revision of our certainties, practices and habits. It is now necessary to think globally in
order to remain number one.
This global market is now revealed by global judges, who have drawn up their evaluations as objective rankings. In the international evaluation by theFinancial Times, considered the reference on business schools the world over (as summarised in Table 5.4), HEC Paris occupies the top European spot, just above the London Business School, IMD in Switzerland and the two Spanish business schools. Insead is the tenth-ranked European business school.
In worldwide terms, HEC is now 18th, even ahead of the Kellogg Business School (Northwestern University). This evaluation by the Financial Timesis based on a multi-criteria analysis objectifying the performance param- eters of each business school, its ability to deliver added value to its students on all programmes, and to executives who go there to improve their competencies.
These new evaluating authorities define the objective criteria for their judgements: they measure the true added value for each business school. In so doing, they impact the products and the processes.
The discreet but systematic rise of HEC Paris on the world stage is slower than many execu- tives would have liked. The university or school brand is built through its products: it does not flood the media with big promo- tional campaigns. On the contrary, its ambas- sadors are the quality and success of its students, hence the importance of selection and the critical mass of the number of former students, and publications by professors in the best scientific management journals, as a way of durably impacting managerial thinking. Professor Philip Kotler has made Northwestern known as a global marketing Mecca, and Michael Porter has strengthened the status of Harvard Business School.
Another contribution comes from the repu- tation of international pedagogical engi- neering missions by the biggest groups, and the ongoing training of executives worldwide.
Two strategies compared: penetration or skimming off
Reasoning like a brand also leads to drawing inspiration from brand management. From this point of view, we know that to grow in a market, there are two main strategies:
creaming off or penetration. It is interesting to compare the rapid penetration strategy of Insead with the strategy of creaming off the best followed by HEC Paris.
Founded in 1959, Insead chose the strategy of rapid market penetration, capitalising on the fact that in Europe at the time, the MBA was not a concept that was either known or practised. Only the fortunate few pursued their studies through an MBA at Harvard or Stanford. In the best business schools in the United States, the country that created the MBA, it takes two years to obtain this presti- gious qualification. The first year of the MBA is used for learning management in general, and the second is necessary for specialisation and further study, structured individual projects and so on.
For a teaching institution, the rapid pene- tration strategy consists of acquiring a high market share as quickly as possible, by multi- plying the number of students and thereby obtaining a large body of alumni, capable of lobbying within companies to influence their recruitment. As the notion of the MBA was still nebulous in Europe at that time, Insead decided to deliver its MBA after only one year, which enabled it to produce twice as many graduates as the true Harvard-style MBA, which takes two years. As a further consequence of this rapid penetration strategy, the school considerably increased its class size: it now has 440 students per year. Finally, another campus was created in Singapore, to create even more Asian graduates.
The result of this very coherent strategy is that the Insead brand acquired international recognition, and its ‘educational product’ is ranked in tenth place among the business
schools of Europe by the Financial Times in 2006. Compare this strategy to that of HEC Paris, now ranked number one among European business schools.
Beginning 10 years later in the race towards internationalisation, HEC followed a strategy of creaming off the best, as this brand required. When you are the guarantor of excellence in your own country, you cannot do otherwise. This is why the HEC MBA was based on the model of the best American MBAs: two years were required to deliver quality teaching and to train high-level managers. The size of the first classes was also reduced: the selection of the best students is an integral part of brands of excellence.
Dedicated MBA professors created a unique level of teaching and team spirit. Little by little, the reputation for quality spread.
Furthermore, HEC, through its relationship with the Chamber of Commerce, is closely linked to the world of business. The result of this highly coherent strategy, dictated by the desire to maintain the brand equity attached to HEC, is that a worldwide name awareness remains to be constructed, but the experts (Human Resources directors, CEOs, the Financial Timesand the like) have recognised the superior quality of the product.