BUS602: Marketing Management

The concept of global marketing has increased competition among different companies, and this increasing competition has resulted in the focus on brand management. The fierce competition has made branding a top most differentiation technique for the product as well as for the service industry. In the higher education market, the top most priority of the universities and other HEI's is the development of strong brand equity but attainment of this objective is the real task; as the services provided by all higher education institutes are the same in nature. Brand equity is, therefore, the only possible way for the clientele to differentiate one university from another. During the literature review, it was observed that limited research regarding university brand equity has been done. This has, therefore, generated a need to explore the concept of branding and to determine whether the university branding is a reality or a myth?

Yoo et al., Lin and Chang, have noticed that awareness, acceptance and quality played key roles in developing the image of the product which in turn developed the clients' purchase and repurchase decisions. They, therefore, identified these factors as a construct of brand equity. Therefore, the main objective of this research has also been developed on the same line which is, to check the influence of these dimensions i.e. brand awareness, brand acceptance and brand quality on brand image which in turn develop the brand equity of university.