Marketing and Branding Implications of a Corporate Service Program: The Case of Women’s Group Mentoring

R Johns, J McNamara, Z Moses International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2012

Corporate programs are often voluntary and sometimes struggle to attract sufficient participants. Mentoring programs tend to follow a mentor-mentee format. However, one Australian university offers female staff a group-mentoring model. Despite the positive ratings of this mentoring model, there appeared to be negative perceptions of the program. To understand why these perceptions were negative, exploratory research was undertaken. Quantitative and qualitative research was triangulated to improve understanding of the data. Ultimately, recommendations for branding of the product were developed. Numerous incorrect perceptions existed, and one of the biggest hindrances for participation in the program was a perceived lack of time and confusion about the nature of the program.