The Role of Customer-Based Brand Equity in Higher Education: A Two-Country Study

Due to the increasingly competitive environment, universities are adopting a variety of strategies with the intention of creating a competitive advantage for them. Creating positive brand equity is one such strategy. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which the brand credibility, and influence of eWOM towards customer-based brand equity in increasing brand preference, and the brand choice intention in the university setting. This research is based on an empirical survey of 768 undergraduate students enrolled in private universities in Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, through a quantitative survey questionnaire. The university brand credibility and eWOM were found to be significant predictors of customer-based brand equity across both Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The results also suggest that students’ perception of brand equity related to a university are more likely to exhibit outcomes of brand equity- namely brand preference, and brand choice intention. Findings further indicated that customer-based brand equity mediates the link amongst brand credibility, eWOM, brand preference, and brand choice intention. The current research contributes to the services of marketing literature in the university context by filling two gaps in branding literature; there had not been previous studies focusing much on identifying the importance of customer-based brand equity in the service sectors. Further, the limited conceptual and empirical research on university branding in general and particularly on university brand credibility, eWOM, and university brand equity had been conducted in emerging markets, which had resulted in conceptual ambiguity for the key factors constructing students’ university social experiences.