Diagnóstico de la imagen de marca de las instituciones universitarias en España

Laburpena

Nowadays, Spanish universities are immersed in a significant change due to the Bologna agreement for higher education, pointed to the curricular integration process among the rest of European universities institutions. This global integration process that affect European higher education includes a relevant increase in competitiveness among institutions that, from a marketing point of view, supposes a propitious climate to realize policies and more effective and profitable strategies of communication to position each university on the Spanish market. Taking into account the imperious need to attract potential clients (future students, students from other universities, etc.) universities ́ challenge of breaking with lazy positions that refuse to believe in the students as clients, by resisting to the application of image management techniques that go beyond strategies and tactics of product/service marketing (Carmelo, M. y Calvo, S., 2010). In order to know the use of the research on the public image and positioning use of each Spanish university, this paper analyzes and exposes some relevant data derived from a sampling and stratified survey conducted to Dircoms or communication professionals of each university (N=59 of 74), with the purpose of getting a real picture of the current situation of each university and, in last instance, to verify empirically the sensibility that these institutions show related to the public perception of his own brand. Besides, this study tries to check in a critical way the differe nt methodologies used to realize branding studies in university contexts.