Abstract:

Given that universities operate in dynamic and challenging environments, marketing strategy has become a priority to ensure strong recruitment and the retention of students and teachers (Asaad, Melewar, Cohen and Balmer, 2013). For this reason, the strategic management of the brand has become a key element in the education sector and, especially, in higher education institutions (Rauschnabel, Krey, Babin and Ivens, 2016).

Focusing our attention on the role played by higher education in Spain, Grijalba and López (2007) consider that the increase in the educational level achieved in our country in recent years has been one of the most important phenomena that have occurred. Although in some aspects the levels of other European countries have not yet been achieved, the trajectory experienced has culminated in an educational convergence with the neighbouring countries. In this context, it has been argued that the growth of the Spanish university system has been significant since the beginning of the nineties. As a consequence, the Spanish University has ceased to be an elitist institution to become a system that provides mass education (Pérez, 1997).

Parallel to this, brands have evolved over time to become a life experience for consumers, having acquired an emotional importance that is reflected in the satisfaction of people who consume or buy (Camacho, 2008). That is to say, brands simplify the purchasing decision-making processes and represent both a guarantee of quality and a real alternative that is different, relevant and credible compared to the competition (Casanoves, 2017).

In this framework, the objectives of the present research were to:
(1) establish which are the most determinant variables of brand capital in the higher education sector, and
(2) decipher, at an empirical level, the most notable variables of brand capital on the part of agents involved in private universities.

Thus, and after reviewing the seven major proposals on brand capital models in the literature (Farquhar, 1989; Aaker, 1992; Keller, 1993; Faircloth, Capella and Alford, 2001; Yoo and Donthu, 2001; Delgado and Munuera, 2002; Buil, Martínez and De Chernatony, 2010), we have considered four elements that are identified by these authors and were also deemed to be of importance in previous studies. These are:
(1) brand awareness,
(2) brand image,
(3) perceived quality and
(4) brand loyalty.

Together with these contributions, research that supports each of the elements of brand capital in its application to the education sector was reviewed. In order to corroborate the established hypothesis, we accomplished an empirical research quantitative in nature, by means of a survey in Spanish aimed at a group of 343 lecturers, 164 service employees and 486 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Economics from the six main private universities in Valencia (Spain), obtaining an amount of 993 useful surveys for our research.
In the scenario described, the realisation of the present research supposes a scientific advance in the discipline of marketing; since, although there has been specific research into brand capital and the variables that compose it (Saavedra, 2007) there are very few investigations that comprehensively analyse the perception of brand capital through the opinions of the agents involved in higher education institutions in Spain (Casanoves, Küster and Vila, 2017).

Keywords:

Marketing, brand capital, higher education, private university, structural equation modelling.