Brand evangelism among university students: a study on antecedents

Mazuri, Abd Ghani and Rashidah, Mohd Ibrahim (2018) Brand evangelism among university students: a study on antecedents. In: International Conference on Humanities, Education and Society, 21 Jul 2018, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

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Abstract

The role of the brand in higher education has been considered as very important. The brand is possibly the most important connection a prospective student has with an institution. The brand of a University carries with it a promise of a particular level of service and student outcomes. In the case of education, the service is more than a simple set of tangible features but is a complex bundle of benefits that satisfy customer’s needs. As universities around the world are expanding their marketing campaign, prospective students undertake a complex consumer decision making process when it comes to selecting a university to attend, and branding becomes a means to simplify their selection process. In today’s highly connected marketplace, contemporary organizations like higher education institutions are also paying careful attention to a relatively smaller, but highly influential, group of consumers called brand evangelists who embrace their brands intensely, actively disseminate brand related experiences to others, attempt to recruit others to experience the brand, and dissuade others from consuming rival brands. Hence this study attempt to study on the antecedents of brand evangelism among university students in Malaysia. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between customer orientation, competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination, brand orientation and perceived quality, university reputation and emotional environment with brand evangelism. A study focused on public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Samples of 593 university students were collected via survey questionnaire. The study utilized Structural Equation Modeling statistical technique to test the study hypotheses. Results shown that customer orientation, brand orientation and perceived quality, university reputation and Emotional Environment were positively effect on brand evangelism among students in university. Nevertheless, customer orientation and interfunctional coordination were not significantly related to brand evangelism.

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