Purpose – In today's complex and highly competitive marketplace, universities and colleges, realizing a need to develop sustainable strategies, have turned to branding as a solution. However, because of unique service characteristics, universities’ branding attempts may not always result in success. The purpose of this paper, utilizing the concept of brand equity as a foundation of understanding, is to present a framework and scale measurements of university brand equity and its dimensions. Design/methodology/approach – Because no prior measurement scales for university branding have existed, the scale measures for this study are compiled from the literature on brand equity measurements identifying the core and supporting value-creation factors for higher education. For this exploratory study, several pretests and exploratory factor analyses were conducted to ensure that the scale items are comprehensible and clearly measure the intended constructs. Students are considered as the target population for this study. Data for the main study were collected at a comprehensive university in the Midwestern USA. A total of 30 classes with varying sizes provided 439 usable surveys. Findings – Empirical results from the survey research suggest that some of the brand equity dimensions are more important in developing strong university brands. Of the core dimensions, perceived quality of faculty is the most important brand equity dimension, followed by university reputation and emotional environment, brand loyalty, and brand awareness dimensions for creating a strong university brand. Among the supporting brand equity dimensions, library services was the most important for creating a strong university brand, followed by student living (residence halls and dining services), career development, and physical facilities (e.g. gym, classrooms, labs). Research limitations/implications – Although the target population was students, as a first step, the survey was administered to students at one university. Administering surveys to students at different universities and comparing the results would improve the reliability of the brand equity scales. The significant correlations found among the brand equity dimensions suggest the interconnectedness of these dimensions. The findings have implications for developing and implementing university brand strategies. The authors suggest serious consideration to be given to a holistic approach to branding efforts. Originality/value – The branding literature offers no prior research that develops and tests a scale or examines the issues and factors that are important for developing strong university brands and brand equity for higher education institutions. This study develops the scale measurements through a comprehensive literature review, tests the validity of the measurements, and takes the brand equity theory one step further by identifying the core and supporting-value creation factors suggested sporadically in the literature. The framework suggests that both core and supporting value-creating activities are dynamically interrelated and work jointly in creating student learning experiences, and ultimately, a strong university brand.

Purpose -In today's complex and highly competitive marketplace, universities and colleges, realizing a need to develop sustainable strategies, have turned to branding as a solution. However, because of their unique service characteristics, universities' branding attempts may not always result in success. The aim of this paper is to present a brand ecosystem framework in order to develop branding strategies for colleges and universities. Design/methodology/approach -The key elements of the framework include: student experiences as the driving force of the university branding strategies, academic services as the core value creation activities in delivering student learning experiences that are co-created with students and faculty, and supporting activities that are important in creating the core value. Findings -The framework suggests that both core and supporting value-creating activities are dynamically inter-related and work jointly in creating student learning experiences, and ultimately, a strong university brand. Originality/value -The paper presents the crucial elements and the relationships among them for building successful brands in higher education.

With many business schools paying lip service to the concept of professional training, this article attempts to provide some direction for moving from an academic or liberal-arts-oriented marketing department to a professional marketing program. The transformation to a professional school perspective can be facilitated by marketing programs examining other professional schools to identify how these programs differ from their current programs. A professional school approach to marketing education meets the needs of both students and employers while providing the department with a comparative advantage as the business education environment becomes more competitive and challenging.

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The services literature extols the importance of the link between satisfied customers and satisfied employees. In this study, the authors develop and test a job satisfaction model that examines the role of rewarding professionalism. Specifically, they examine whether rewards for professional behavior foster professionalism and esprit de corps (a set of enthusiastically shared feelings, beliefs, and values about group membership and performance) in order to further understanding of job satisfaction for professional service providers. Using surveys from marketing researchers, the authors assess the importance of rewarding professional service providers for professional behavior by examining the links between reward structures, esprit de corps, and job satisfaction. Research findings indicate that as organizations reward professional behavior they help foster the development of key aspects of professionalism. The findings are that a reward structure favoring professional behavior directly leads to higher esprit de corps and employee job satisfaction.