ROLE OF BRAND IMAGE ON BRAND EQUITY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS OF KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Abstract

With the rapid expansion of higher education institutions (both privateand public) and
globalized competitive world, particularly in the Pakistani context, marketing a HEI
brandturn out to beexceptionallyessential. Strong brands are a source of craftingand
augmenting a brand's perceptions amongst stakeholders. These perceptions are crucial
inpersuading behaviors and enactment of an institution. Hence, brand image which is
defined as the perceptions of consumers about a brand is strategically important in
persuading consumers' decision making. Thepurpose of this paper is to examine the
impact of brand image on brand equity in higher education institutions from the current
student's standpointand compare the brand equity of public and private sector HEIs in
the emerging market of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province of Pakistan. A substantial
similarity exists in the respective students' contemplation measures for private and
public HEIs; nevertheless, earlier research submits that there are
certainconditionswhich seemto be evaluated differently by students for public and
private sectors.The suggested frameworkhighlights how brand image can be used to
assess HEIs' brand equity and whether students perceive public sector HEIs differently
from private sector and vice versa. This study will pave way towards extending the
existingknowledge in gauging the brand equity of HEIs and build quality education
brands. A quantitative research approach was used in collecting data with the help of a
survey questionnaire from a large sample of n=765 students currently enrolled in the
various public and private sector universities of KP.According to the findings of this
research there is a wide-ranging support for the conceptual model showing a significant
and positive relationship between brand image and brand equity of higher education
institutions. It is thus established that the integral consequence of the study offer ample
evidence of differences in branding between public and private sector higher education
institutions.