Prospective Students' Perceptions of University Brands: An Empirical Study

Abstract

A model of the elements of a university brand was developed together with an instrument for measuring how favorably each of these elements was perceived by a sample of young people who were considering entering university. One hundred and ninety-eight students undertaking pre-university courses in two further education colleges in East London completed a questionnaire designed to assess their evaluations of two out of three post-1992 universities covered by the study. The questionnaire contained sections that explored the promises suggested by a university brand, the objective circumstances of an institution, and its symbolic and external representation. Linkages between the favorability of the sample members' perceptions of the main components of a university's brand and the participants' conative, affective, and cognitive responses (including those related to a university's reputation) were also examined. The model involved a mixture of constructs with formative or reflective indicators and thus was estimated using the technique of partial least squares.

KEYWORDS:

• HE marketing
• university branding
• organizational identity
• brand architecture