In a couple of my client visits recently, it's become very apparent that one of the barriers to branding success is the "follower mentality" that exists on most campuses.  Most of my clients have aspirant institutions that they are constantly monitoring and tracking and using as a benchmark for measuring their own progress. Don't get me wrong, I am all about understanding the competition; you can't successfully brand your institution in a vaccuum. But, on some (perhaps, many) campuses, competitor analysis turns into competitor obsession. And instead of studying the competition to figure out how we can be different, we try to copy the competition bringing our brands closer together rather than differentiating them. I always laugh when I hear someone say something like "We are the Harvard of Smalltown, Kentucky!" That's a clear sign that a research-based, well-differentiated brand has not yet been established.