We split our competitor analysis into two parts; firstly we identified two universities which compete with Warwick both internationally and in Britain, and listed the pull factors for these. Secondly we found two courses that compete with the ones offered in Warwick’s Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, and analysed how these universities sold themselves.
Thus, Imperial College London, and the University of Edinburgh were both found to be universities with international reputations that matched Warwick’s.
Imperial was easy enough to analyse; as well as its stellar academic reputation and ranking, it is in the centre of London, and therefore highly attractive for international students. Home students, however, were found to be more likely to be dubious of the costs of living in London as a student.
Edinburgh surprised home students as being one of the most highly regarded universities internationally, as it enjoys high but not exceptional rankings in the UK, yet has a huge reputation abroad. Strong networks of university promoters and alumni at university fairs abroad were found to cause this.
The two universities which offered departments or courses to compete with Warwick’s CCPS were the London School of Economics, and Kings College London. Obviously, both of these had the advantage of being in London to attract (particularly international) students. However, after this initial commonality, we found the two universities portrayed themselves very differently. From watching their promotional videos, reading their prospectuses, and researching popular cultural sources, it was clear that the LSE wanted to project an image in line with their reputation for academic excellence, seriousness and rigour. Thus, their communications were more informative than particularly engaging.
This contrasted greatly with KCL, which tailored its videos and prospectuses to show a wider picture of student life at Kings, and were friendlier and more approachable. They emphasised how much help they gave to international students in terms of helping them get visas and accommodation sorted out. They also stressed their connections with the communications industry as a selling point.
We completed a ‘brand essence’ for both these universities in order to compare them with what we had identified as Warwick’s:
Connecting 5.0 