Future-ready universities: How strong brands drive trust, relevance, and renewal
In a time of rapid change, university leaders are carrying enormous responsibility; not just for their own institutions, but for the future shape of higher education itself.
I was reviewing YouGov’s 2025 Global Rankings (July)*, which highlights how the world’s most recommended brands succeed by building trust, emotional connection, and relevance.
Their stories show that even in challenging times, it’s possible to inspire loyalty and advocacy. (Spoiler: the top five globally are Emirates, Toyota, Levi's, adidas and Nintendo. In the UK, Prada, Gucci, Emirates, MoneySavingExpert and Konami – an interesting top three during a cost of living crisis, perhaps countered by the fourth).
For universities, this is an encouraging reminder: your brand can be a powerful tool for resilience and renewal. It’s not just about marketing – it’s about shaping a narrative that reflects your values, your purpose, and your unique role in society.
So what inspiration can university leaders derive from brands like these? Here are five key insights inspired by YouGov’s research that could help universities plot a confident, distinctive path forward for their institutions and the sector as a whole:
1. Trust and reputation drive recommendation
Top brands are defined not by awareness alone, but by trustworthiness and consistency in quality, combining high scores in impression, value, satisfaction, and reputation into a single brand health metric.
University takeaway: Ensure your institution delivers consistently on student experience, employability, and research impact to build a reputation that stakeholders willingly endorse. Move this beyond getting data for rankings into the critical role that spontaneous word of mouth can play across all of your audiences. What story(s) will they be sharing? And how do they link to your overall narrative?
2. Emotional connection builds loyalty
Most recommended brands like Samsung, YouTube, and WhatsApp resonate emotionally, going beyond transactional value.
University takeaway: Create memorable, emotionally engaging experiences like inspiring alumni success stories or impactful community initiatives to build emotional bonds with students, staff, and partners. Universities are naturally good at sharing rational facts and figures, but what is the emotional resonance that sits under them?
3. Cultural relevance enhances salience
The report flags shifting attitudes toward brand activism and celebrity endorsements, underlining that relevance to audiences matters more than celebrity partnerships.
University takeaway: Anchor your brand messaging in societal challenges relevant to your mission, e.g., sustainability, social justice, digital ethics, to stay culturally resonant without resorting to superficial gimmicks. I've written about being culturally relevant previously, but without resorting to chasing headlines in the press, how could your story (and the many chapters that continually build it) touch audiences beyond academia?
4. Consistency across touchpoints is essential
The YouGov BrandIndex combines metrics like impression, quality, and recommendation to reveal that consistency across every brand interaction matters most.
University takeaway: Ensure your brand shows up reliably, on campus, online, in research publications, and community outreach, so audiences experience coherent brand behaviour everywhere. It's critical that what you do matches what you say. It's the most common way for brand trust to be broken. This means ensuring 'systems' like CRM do not operate in a silo but are connected to the brand vision, tone of voice and behaviour.
5. Global differences require local calibration
YouGov’s research spans 28 markets, revealing diverse consumer attitudes (e.g., preferences for brand activism vary from 44% in the US to just 24% in Denmark).
University takeaway: Tailor brand and engagement strategies to regional and cultural contexts – customising communication for key recruitment markets, local alumni segments, and international partners. Alumni are an underutilised audience. Not only are they the authentic equivalent to the 'guns for hire' celebrity endorsement, but they are present all over the globe, understanding and speaking the language of their cultures.
Final thought for university leaders
YouGov shows that recommendation is the ultimate measure of brand health. For universities, that means building brand experiences and values people want to talk about and share. Recommendation is a product of behaviour. And behaviour should be guided by your institution's brand. Your narrative. Your vision.
Question: How is your institution creating consistent, emotionally resonant, and culturally relevant experiences across all regions to turn students, staff, and alumni into advocates?
There’s no time like the present. So get in touch to discuss how you can ignite your brand to be a strategic leadership tool for transformation, building distinction, resilience, and long-term relevance in increasingly competitive markets.
*YouGov's Most Recommended Brands (July 9th, 2025) ranks the top 10 global brands based on positive Recommend score for the last 12 months among current customers.