Managing Consumer-Based Brand Equity in Higher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to establish the key elements of brand equity for international students by exploring existing brand equity theory in its applicability to international higher education (HE). The main objective of this research is to enhance academic understanding of brand equity in the HE sector and explore the implications for management practice. Quantitative data collected via a self-completion survey are used to test a model of brand equity in the context of HE. The empirical setting is Slovenia, which has a mixture of public and private provision and an increasingly competitive environment. The results provide support for the proposed conceptual model, with image-related and awareness-related determinants. The findings of this research provided evidence that the customer-based brand equity model can be applied to the HE context as an element of competitive advantage and used to guide marketing activities for Universities internationally.

Keywords

• brand perception
• brand equity
• higher education
• services marketing
• European Union
• Slovenia