Strategic brand management for higher education institutions with graduate degree programs: empirical insights from the higher education marketing mix

ABSTRACT

Intense competition for student enrollment has created a strong need for higher education institutions, especially those that offer graduate degree programs, to differentiate themselves. This article introduces the concept of strategic brand management as an avenue for higher education differentiation and discusses how higher education institutions with graduate degree programs can strategically manage their brands (i.e. corporate and product) through the higher education marketing mix (i.e. prominence, prospectus, program, price, people, premium, and promotion). Using a closed-ended survey and partial least squares structural equation modeling of a sample of students enrolled in a graduate degree program (e.g. MBA), the study finds that the utilitarian elements (i.e. prominence, prospectus, program, and price) of the higher education marketing mix have a positive direct impact on the product brand (e.g. MBA brand) and an indirect impact on the corporate brand (e.g. university brand) of these types of higher education institutions. However, hedonic elements (i.e. people, premium, and promotion) of the higher education marketing mix do not produce any significant impact on either the corporate or product brands of these institutions. Implications from these findings to theory, practice, and future research avenues conclude.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic brand management
• higher education marketing mix
• graduate degree program
• MBA
• corporate brand
• product brand
• utilitarian
• hedonic
• prominence
• prospectus
• program
• price
• people
• premium
• promotion

Acknowledgments

The first and second authors wish to pay tribute to the third author, Ernest Cyril de Run, a person who inspired many people from all walks of life, from early career and senior academics. Ernest received his PhD from University of Otago and served as Full Professor at University Malaysia Sarawak. He passed away peacefully on 4 April 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The sample size of cases in the current study meets the required sample sizes of 80 cases (i.e. 10 cases × maximum of eight arrows [i.e. from prominence, prospectus, program, price, people, premium, promotion, and product brand] pointing at a latent research construct [i.e. corporate brand]), 96 cases (i.e. based on power analysis using G*Power), and 100-200 cases for a meaningful structural (or path) analysis, as suggested by Hair et al. (2017), Akter et al. (2011), and Hoyle (1995), respectively.

Additional information

Funding

No funds received for the study.