Brand archetypes in resource-constrained MBA programmes: A powerful strategic brand management tool

MBA programmes at many resource-constrained institutions in the USA face increasing pressures from changing demographics, declining applications and enrollments, and diminishing prestige of graduate business degrees. Now more than ever these institutions need branding strategies to differentiate themselves from competitors. Meanwhile, consumer-goods firms have long used archetypes to differentiate their brands, as have research-intensive institutions of higher education. This paper argues that archetypes are at least as useful for strategic brand management at resource-constrained MBA programmes as they have been for consumer-goods firms. Further, the paper discusses the appropriate archetypes that higher-education marketers might employ to differentiate their MBA programmes’ brands.