Sub-brands

"I'm a special case." That seems to be the common theme when you begin to talk about a brand. It seems so hard to develop a brand that is rigid enough to be meaningful, yet elastic enough to allow individual expression and departmental differences.

Most of the time I like the give the analogy of Coke and Diet Coke. No one really wants to be Diet Coke, but they tend to understand that the brand looks different but the same. Another place this analogy seems to fall down is the question of what if someone doesn't like the Coke brand in the first place. Worse yet, what if someone just doesn't like Coke.

It seems like on a college campus this is primary to confronting the marketing conundrum. Professors, staff and others want to change the institution in some cases by changing the brand. Of equal problem are brands that don't really reflect the campus.

The most interesting story I have recently of this is that an admissions counselor got up at a college fair and stated that we were the only "Christian" college in our state with a certain program. This caused quiet a flap with two schools sitting on the stage who feel that they fit the definition of Christian, though they don't fit the admissions counselors. We can talk about Christian or any other word, but the truth is that as marketers we have made some words meaningless. I would say excellence in academics falls into that category. Just what does that mean?

Thoughts? I'd appreciate even a brief comment or two, I'm not sure that I'm not just typing to myself.