Competitive frame of reference is nothing but ‘the market we compete in’. Marist College is an educational institution and it is a type of business anyway. So, the competitive frame of reference of Marist College is Educational institutions market or business. It does not mean that Marist College is like as same every institution else in Market which need no attention. There is a concept called ‘point of parity’ which highlights the factors which Marist College do have and the other institutions don’t. Marist.edu lets people to experience the virtual tour of the whole college just by sitting in front of the computer. I have not seen in any college website which has ‘Virtual tour’. Marist has online library which lets anybody to access all the available books. We can read online if it is Electronic type of book.
Brand elements are essential elements to build the brand. These are include Brand Name, Logo, Slogan, Color, Typo-Graphic elements etc.
Interpretation of brand elements of Marist College as follows:
Brand Name: Brand name describes the value and type of the business. ‘Marist College’ established by Marist brothers. Thus, it is ‘Marist’. Brand name has to be unique but has to have some reasonable meaning.
Brand Logo: Logo has to depict some information about the business. Marist college logo contains the college name, motto in Spanish (Orare et Laborare), year of establishment and image which resembles the letter ‘M’.
Slogan: Slogan usually called the motto. Marist College motto is ‘To Pray and To Work’ which means that, treat the studies as a god. So, concentrate on your studies like prayer to the god and work hard with positive hope.
Color: The Color a company uses to convey the character. Marist College uses Red color is a symbol of power and passion. Which is used to convey confidence and energy. This is why Coco-Cola Company has Red color logo.
Typo-Graphic:Typo-Graphics includes the font and the style of graphics which used to depict a brand. Marist college used a red color professional font which almost similar to ‘Times New Roman’. Institution business must have professional qualities.
Marist.edu has satisfied overall management of the brand should have. Meeting all the requirement is not enough. Must have to organize the things in professional order. Marist.edu is pretty good website but the graphical slideshow occupied the half of the web page and rest half with College news and Events. People has to scroll down to find the information which they actually wanted. The menu buttons must be below the brand logo. Unfortunately marist.edu does not even contains Logo in a web page. The thing which is pretty good is ‘Virtual Tour’ which let people to experience the actual college tour. Anybody can access college online library system. But, I think which should better to available only to Marist students who has their credentials.
Reference:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Marist_College_Seal_-_Vector.svg
http://www.marist.edu/admission/virtualtour.html