Re-Assessment of Branding to Develop a New Positioning and Communicati Research Proposal

Essays on Re-Assessment of Branding to Develop a New Positioning and Communication Strategy for Australian University Research Proposal The paper â€Å"Re-Assessment of Branding to Develop a New Positioning and Communication Strategy for Australian University† is an impressive example of a research proposal on marketing. The Australian University, founded in 1952, is one of the oldest universities in the Australian Capital Territory and was ranked as one of the best universities until around two decades ago. In its heydays, it has been a favorite educational destination for both domestic and as well as foreign students particularly from both developed and developing nations from the continents in the closest vicinity of Australia. But in the last twenty years, despite its best efforts, it has been difficult for it to sustain the inflow of students from domestic and international markets alike. While the university has been trying its best to maintain the standard and rigor of education that it has been known for, it is still not able to attract as many students in this age of information technology as it used to in absence of it. One reason for this is that highly negative changes have been promoted by educationists through the last two decades at all – tertiary, secondary and primary education levels. This has plummeted standards in this field through this time span (Meyers, 2012). While policies are to some extent beyond the Australian University’s capacity to modify, the best it can do is to do a re-assessment of it’s the brand that it is and develop new strategies on communication and positioning in order to do a renewed image-building. The first pre-requisite to accomplishing such an image makeover would be a market survey done amid a cross-section of people, directly or indirectly linked with the university, like former alumni, current students, and prospective admission-seekers.MANAGEMENT DECISION PROBLEMThe university management is under a predicament on how to execute a fresh strategy meant to re-assess and re-brand the university.MANAGEMENT RESEARCH PROBLEM Market research problem would be a collection of relevant data and the creation of meaningful information that alleviates the management decision problem and goes into the making of a viable strategy that can address goals.OBJECTIVESThe overall objectives of the market research would rest on the existing need of the university to re-assess its branding in order to develop a new positioning and communication strategy.To re-asses the brand so analytically through an in-depth market survey that it establishes a firm foundation for the university to develop a new strategy for repositioning and communication.To conduct comprehensive surveys among old alumni and current students and gauge the perception of both on the university, its ethos, and expectation they have from it.To analyze the loose ends in the projection of the university's image and methods used thereby particularly through the last two decadesRATIONALEEducation nowadays has become a global phenomenon. This is especially tru e in the case of Australia and other major-English speaking countries. The competition is stiff on both home-based and international turfs, and even major universities across the world are finding the need to market themselves. Correct marketing demands that information be collected systematically, and then documented methodologically, scrutinized and critically analyzed in order to be able to develop effective strategies and communications to foster growth (Brown and Oplatka, 2006). Recent years have witnessed a paradigm shift in education, particularly at the tertiary level. The trend has been widespread across the world, and even in top universities, which use marketing mixes at the national and international level to rebuild an image that is de facto supposed to influence at the domestic front even as marketing inputs might be focused at international level. The higher education, for example, has seen an upsurge in market-type mechanisms and marketization policies even in countr ies that have been previously known to adhere to the rigidities of government control on education (Jongbloed, 2003). Young (2002) has gone to the extent of remarking that marketization, in a number of countries, has been assumed as a compromise between state control, academic autonomy, and privatization.