Total corporate brand image and its impact on university enrolment intention: A study from international prospective students

Abstract

While current literature has exhaustively explored the concept of corporate branding including its various constructs such as: identity, image, and reputation, especially from a product perspective, it is somewhat limited in the services sector. As such, this study aims to contribute further to the understanding of the impact of corporate branding in services by focusing on UK universities. Specifically, this study explores the impact of online corporate branding on prospective international student’s enrolment intention. Given the heightened competition in the higher education sphere, research indicates that universities despite teaching the concepts of branding and marketing communication effectiveness, many are failing to recognise the strength and strategic importance of their brand, especially online with their limited brand presence. This is critical given that universities are now focusing more on the international student market for recruitment. Additionally, majority of university research has used current students as the sample, there are limited studies conducted with prospective students and there is a dearth of empirical research conducted with prospective international students. By drawing on corporate brand image, signaling theory and integrated marketing communication, this research develops a holistic conceptual model to understand prospective international student’s attitudinal and behavioural response to online corporate branding. The methodology used for this study is a two-stage mixed methods approach, where the first qualitative stage includes 4 focus group discussions with current international students about their understanding and perceptions of corporate branding of universities and their experience of applying at university. Additionally, 7 semi-structured in-depth interviews are held with university marketing managers responsible for managing the marketing communication of the university especially online and the challenges they face, as well as document analysis of the Facebook and Twitter pages of universities to explore the content and purpose of the social media platforms. The literature review and findings of the qualitative stage confirmed the need for the quantitative stage which was a questionnaire conducted with 407 prospective international students on their experience of university corporate branding and their enrolment intention. This study develops the total university corporate brand image concept which includes social media platforms and corporate image dimensions. The findings of the study shed light on what university social media image is, and what forms the corporate brand image including the dimensions and content. The findings also indicate how universities can project their image better and identifies which association impact is stronger on enrolment intention. In doing so, this study identifies the exact content and information that universities need to communicate to improve their image, differentiate online and gain a competitive advantage over rival universities. By guiding universities on successful online communication, this study extends the communication strategy by combining Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) with corporate brand image antecedents to communicate the total brand image in universities.