HEC Montréal
We made business school compelling to a new generation.
HEC Montréal carried strong name recognition but was losing ground with the students who would define its future. Leading with the audience, we found the appeal of “business” had shifted: few connected their entrepreneurial ambitions to business school. That insight surfaced entrepreneurial students as a high-value growth segment. We redefined business as a path to personal ambition, landing on a new positioning, “Where opportunities are created,” that more than doubled consideration.
2x
consideration
85%
see HEC Montréal as shaping tomorrow’s entrepreneurs
+23
points of spontaneous awareness
Opportunity
HEC Montréal was the benchmark in Québec, but the next generation didn’t see themselves in it.
As one of North America’s prestigious business schools, HEC had strong recognition. However, younger prospects felt the school wasn’t for them. Aided awareness sat at 66% among 18- to 34-year-olds, against 83% for those 55 and older. This gap threatened the school’s ability to sustain its competitive edge. We needed to reintroduce HEC Montréal to this new generation of business students.
The appeal of “business” had shifted: few connected their entrepreneurial ambitions to business school.
Solution
We redefined business as a path to personal ambition rather than a destination.
Through qualitative interviews and quantitative international research, we uncovered a high-value segment the school had overlooked: entrepreneurial students.
As we dug into their motivations, we discovered that the appeal of ‘business’ had shifted. They didn’t connect their entrepreneurial aspirations to business school. We needed to redefine business on their terms, a path to personal ambition rather than a destination.
We built on an entrepreneurial spirit already at HEC Montréal’s core and landed on a new positioning, “Where opportunities are created.”
Impact
Consideration more than doubled.
This became the connective tissue for HEC’s brand identity, communications, and campus experience. The repositioning reached every corner of the organization and reignited pride in an entrepreneurial culture, turning teachers and staff into the brand’s most powerful ambassadors.
