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In a market where every advantage counts, business schools are seeking ways to rise above the fray and raise their profiles among their peers. by Tricia Bisoux illustration by Dave Cutler no longer enough to be a good business school or even a great one, asserts Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. To win in the marketplace, a business school must also be a resource of information and have a conspicuous presence in its community. "The great business schools of the world are n an age defined by competition, anything that doesn't give you a competitive advantage in the market for management education puts you at a disadvantage. It's considered invaluable in their communities," says Martin. "They're invaluable not only because they produce great students, but also because they pro- duce great ideas for public debate and information about business practices in general." There is a growing consensus among business necessity," says Roger Jenkins, dean of the Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. "Business schools are finally mirroring that reality. We have to constantly reinvent ourselves and our cur- riculum, because other schools are doing it. If you do noth- ing, you wind up falling behind." schools that public perception of their offerings is as impor- tant, or even more important, than the offerings themselves. As a result, business schools the world over are working to rebrand, reposition, or "re-image" themselves, often on a grand scale. Such continual reinvention will be the hallmark of developing a competitive edge, many believe, in a market where rankings are so influential and a business school's rep- utation is only as good as its next great idea. "In today's business environment, constant change is a Getting to the Media Schools that find the most success in boosting their visibili- ty will turn first to the media, advises John McGualey, pres- ident of Gehrung Associates in Keene, New Hampshire. Gehrung is a public relations firm that specializes in the pro- motion of higher education institutions. "Editorial visibility is so valuable, and it has instant credibility," he notes. "Editorial visibility isn't what you say about yourself, it's what someone else says about you. So, it has three times the value of a paid advertisement." Michael Percy, dean of the University of Alberta School of AMatter of heart. A few years ago, the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Ontario, for instance, began a significant push to garner more media attention. "I thought our business school was a bit too standoffish. We didn't write enough articles, and those we did write appeared in refereed journals that had a circulation of about zero," he says with a laugh. "I felt our Other business schools are also taking that message to faculty had great ideas that should be appearing in the Wall Street Journal or other more widely read publications." The business school started with its own school magazine, transforming it from an alumni news source to a content-rich magazine that covered important business issues, such as ethics, corporate organization, and employment trends. Then, it moved on to capture the general media's attention. Ambivalent at first, faculty members are now wholly enthusi- astic about pursuing non-academic publication, says Martin. "We've gone from a point of relative obscurity to a point where newspapers and magazines come to us," says Martin. In fact, the school's public relations office, which tracks the number of times its students or faculty are mentioned in the media, has found that Rotman now appears in approximately 40 percent of the business coverage among Canada's media outlets. That means that the other 32 MBA programs in Canada are sharing the other 60 percent, says Martin. "Our success has been the result of a conscious effort to encourage our faculty to write articles and editorials for media consumption," he adds. "This really has become a content- driven business. Business schools must have great ideas and then disseminate them to the public." Business in Edmonton, agrees that wooing the media is among a business school's best promotional strategies. "The best way of raising our visibility is to become part of the sto- ries in the newspaper, being a source of comment and infor- mation in columns and articles," says Percy. "It's a low-cost way of raising our profile without buying advertising space." 46 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2003 The Magic of Marketing At one time, a solid student recruiting program and a few well-placed branding advertisements would be enough to keep a business school on the map, but no longer. Instead, business schools are turning to media exposure, consumer- oriented marketing, and branding campaigns to get their messages out. After all, it has become clear that, in today's competitive arena, the spoils will go to those schools that cap- ture—and keep—the public's attention, says McGualey of Gehrung Associates. I