Role Of Branding To Attract Foreign Students

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Halmstad University

School of Business and Engineering

International Marketing

Master Thesis:

The role of branding to attract foreign students - the case of Chinese higher education

D-level, 15 ECTS, Spring semester, 2013

Tutor:

Navid Ghannad

Author:

890309-T182 Jiang Wei

880123-T476 Ma Wuchen

The role of branding to attract foreign students

- the case of Chinese higher education

Abstract:

Keywords:

1 Introduction

Firstly, this part will be presented brand and brand marketing. Later on the problem will be mentioned. And then the research purpose and question will be discussed.

1.1 Background

Throughout the period of reform and opening, the Chinese higher education has been experiencing transformation (Shi Li & Chunbing Xing, 2010).Since the Chinese Education Institution implemented the open-up policy at the beginning of the reform and opening process, which keep increasing the scale of higher education by recruiting much more the college/university students (Shi Li & Chunbing Xing, 2010). This is a widely accepted present situation that higher education is being internationalization like business generally (Healey, 2008). According to the Healey (2008) stated that there are two characteristics to illustrate the conception of internationalization higher education. One is that the higher education should input the different significance resources from the other countries; the second is that higher education output personality characteristics and competitive education resource to the international society (Wilen-Daugenti, Grace & Mckee, 2008). Nowadays, the Chinese higher education is an important output sector. It means not only set students to study in the foreign college/universities but also attract foreign students from the world. At the same time, there are a large number of colleges/universities competing for the worldwide students. This purpose is not only for the new colleges/universities to build but also existing colleges/universities want to expand. Colleges/universities increase financial investment both to attract more foreign students and create opportunities for students to broad (Wilen-Daugenti, Grace & Mckee, 2008).

In the face of the fierce competition environment around the world, colleges/universities have begun a search for a unique definition to characterize themselves differently both in attracting students and academic construction in further. Therefore, the branding used to attract national students will not cut when the overseas recruitment (Wæraas & Solbakk, 2008). If the colleges/universities want to achieve the effective of attracting more foreigners, the university should be pay more attention to the branding. Because the brands are everywhere, and it has importance to make marketing success is undisputable (Caldwell & Freire, 2004). Brand is an idea to make marking in the different kinds of constituents’ minds, such as customers, employees, etc.

Nowadays, higher education fields, especially college and university should comprehensive consider the two principles of branding (differentiation and integration) to make sure their positions in the fierce competitive education markets (Herr, 2000).

However, developing university need to have to find the appropriate brand marketing strategy and branding management that would search the challenge from international market for branding university all over the world (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006).

Based on these theories, the framework of this study intends to cover the literature concerning about Branding and Chinese higher Education to analysis the educational experience to help universities differentiate and build unique brands so that the recruitment will be having a better consequence.

1.2 Problem discussion

Park et.al (1986) has been researched the brand of university impacts on their brand image，which he obtains a result that the university brand image is not only provided with the functional attributes but also possess the affective and symbolic attribute. And then, there are two issues to influencing the recruitment rate of foreigner to input for Chinese high education. As followed: The school brands lack of attraction to the foreign students. Compared with developed countries, the overall level of China’s higher education is not well-known except a few famous universities like Peking University, Tsinghua University. Most Chinese universities are lack of branding force in the international higher education market, which directly lead to the mainland universities without any attractive for the foreign students in international markets. Students output and input existing the problem of serious "deficit".

At the same time, due to the Chinese universities lack of publicity or even loss, the foreign students are general short of understanding the Chinese universities. When they apply for the university, firstly choose the first-class university they heard like Tsinghua University and Peking University. What is more, the criterion of China recruitment is relatively low for the foreign students in mainland China. Therefore, every student would not to give up the chance to apply for first-class universities in the similar to the recruit foreign students conditions.

The university need to pay more attention to the tangible property (the university function) and intangible property (the university reputation) for shaping the well brand image (Park, Jaworski & Maclnnis, 1986). The definition and protection is what the university branding want to represent and embrace all tangible and intangible elements, let the branding unique and personality (Dooley, R., 2012).

In totally, our thesis focuses on branding to express the significance of the Chinese higher education, it is the lens through which they attract the foreign students to view their high teaching quality, personality courses, and standard management. Many colleges/universities have been competing distinctive by created branding. Actually, branding is itself existing not created and it’s just to define and express them (Dooley, R., 2012). Here branding higher education is how our aim to suggest the Chinese general universities to achieve the competence of attracting more and higher quality foreign students.

1.3 Purpose

The study of branding in higher education has the practical significance to help the universities to enhance competitiveness and optimize the use of resources. Bring the marketing strategy as brand to higher education areas make for the good image to the universities. Now days, most universities in China have the demand of branding themselves, so the study of brand in higher education is necessary for them.

Nowadays, environment among the Chinese higher education is competitive, different Chinese universities use the different branding ways to attract foreign students to study in their universities. This thesis is trying to analyze the branding using in the different universities which are the proper ways to attract foreign students and take more market share. In details, the university should try to keep high brand reputation, and make effective brand be known by all over the world, in order to attract more foreign students.

During the study we are trying to find the clear and suitable branding way in Chinese higher education, and put forward the relative suggests for Chinese universities. In details, the university should try to keep high brand reputation, and make effective brand be known by all over the world, in order to attract more foreign students.

1.4 Research Question

With the background and problem discussion given above, our article will focus on the following research question to justify the literature and intend to mention appropriate suggestions:

How can the Chinese college/university use branding to attract more foreign students?

1.5 Delimitation

The limited literature focuses on the branding to surveying several administrators in the Chinese University— gathering their perceptions on a variety of marketing activities conducted in the recruitment of foreign students. This thesis would mainly analysis the school managers’ or administrators’ viewpoint to analyze how to increase more overseas students to apply in the Chinese University. Also, the different universities of China differentiate in their opinion, and since we have chosen the several universities because we have been study in here and they have a well basic to develop the programme of the recruitment overseas students. We have no chance of interviewing people from the north or south areas of the inland city in China. We have been chosen the three universities in the coastal city of China, such as the cities are Ningbo, Beijing and Shanghai. Focus on the business sector to study the key factors of branding to attract and influence the students applied in the international education markets.

In order to make our thesis more reality possible, we would also use some brand marketing literatures analyzed and provide several cases to comparable these recruitment effectiveness by their bands and brand strategies.

2 Theoretical Considerations

This part will show the theories and conceptions of branding and higher education.

The theoretical framework of higher education branding is keeping development. Branding has been approved as one of the most effective method in the marketing. So branding is not only use in business, but also in higher education. In following are from two aspects to introduce and compare the branding and higher education.

A brand name of an organization makes itself different from its competitors. In today's competitive environment, more and more customers expect products to brand themselves. Customers often build up a relationship with a brand that they trust and will regularly purchase products from that brand. Some people will only purchase a particular brand even though there are acceptable alternatives on the market.

2.1 Brand

2.1.1 Definition of Brand

Branding is a kind feel and understanding of consumers about target object. All the things can be recognized as brand. Here we talk about the brand in marketing, that the feel and understanding of consumers about business, included production, mark, entrepreneur and enterprise.

The earliest systematic study of brand was by David. Ogilvy (1955), he believes that the brand is a complex symbol, it is the sum of brand attributes, name, packaging, price, history, reputation, advertising, the brand can be it defined by consumers by their own impression experience, it is the sum of consumers’ feeling.

The opinion of Pilip. Kotler (1967), brand is a name, term, mark, symbol or design, or a combination of all, and the purpose is to identify one or a group of products or services, get competition with the opponent's products and services to distinguish by consumers.

The In American Marketing Association Dictionary (Aaker D.A., 1996), "Brand is the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.".

2.1.2 Brand Constitutes

The work of Jean-Noel Kapfer (1992）shows that there are many contents among brand, especially the six levels below:

Attributes, it means that the core characteristic which different with the other brands, included quality, functions and price etc;

Benefits, it is the real benefits for consumers to help them solve problem by brand;

Values, the brand also s the produce values to the consumers;

Culture, it means brand represent the itself culture;

Personality, the brand has the personality traits;

User, the brand can suggest the kind of consumer to buy or use the product.

Brand constitutes is complex, but no matter what brand, can it as a system with three aspects: one is the element of brand product function, such as the pattern, quality, price and packaging, etc; then is the corporate and product image element, such as patterns, colors, advertising, culture, etc; at last is the element of consumer psychology such as the feelings, attitudes, experience of the enterprises and their products and service (George Rossolatos, 2012).

2.1.3 Brand function

Brand is well-known by consumers because of the brand has powerful function; the main function is that brand is the guarantee of the quality and credibility. The process of building the brand is to improve the quality of the production and enhance the credibility among the consumers; the strict production management, advanced production technology, high-quality staff, and the responsibility of the user are all related to the build brand (Guangchang. G, 2010).

Firstly, Brand consider as a guide for consumers during the shopping.

There are many similar goods or services in the market at the same time, so the consumers can choose goods and services according to the brand. It would be a kind of effective select. As brand is the symbol of high quality and credibility, it shows that the product has recognized by consumer. At this time, the brands provide effective market information to consumers, and help them to make choice (Guangchang. G, 2010).

Secondly, there is a relationship between the enterprises and consumers.

Brand is the expression of the products, services, information and values, in the process of branding, it makes consumers to know the brand, and give the specific information to consumers at the same time to distinguish others brands.​​ When the consumers shopping, they will choice the different brand’s productions or service by their different values ​​and needs. In other words, the selection will match the consumers prefer. At this point, the brand consider as significance symbolic in consumers to consume of certain products.

Third, brand can make more profit.

With the brand establish, it will have high visibility, reputation and credibility, the result of that will also make consumer loyalty to get more profit. It is a kind of intangible asset of the brand. Although sometime the price will higher than others, as the consumer loyalty it also meet many consumers requires, in order to make the profit to the brand. It can be seen that brand lead a huge market share, that is the reason why business force on the brand building (Guangchang. G, 2010).

Fourth, brand has Spread Effects (brand extension).

After a brand established and has a good reputation, the brand can develop a series of derivative products around the core products to get the same market effect. As the famous brand has brought the trust to the consumers, help to know the productions. So the consumers do the shopping, they simple their way of choice to save times. In fact, brand not only show their productions and services to consumers, but also let the consumers to know their business culture. In this way, consumers involuntary pay more attentions to the news productions and services.

2.1.4 Theory Brand

The brand theory first appeared in 1955, there are many scholars developing the brand theory during the half century. To summary to the brand theory can be divided into five periods as below.

Brand Image

In the early time, the studies of brand are focus on "What is brand?" David. Ogilvy (1955) claimed the important of the long views of brand image; advertisements are not only a symbol of the brand image, but also make contribution to it. He compared the concept of brand image with advertising; put it to the academic area. According to the theory of brand image, the consumers are not going to select the productions, but the material and psychological benefits from the brand image of it. Therefore, advertisement is the base of brand to establish and maintain the brand image. In the view of David Ogilvy (1995), when the brand image of the product developed well, make the productions of the enterprise to get the larger share of the market and more profit.

Brand Position

The work of Ries & Trout (1981) shows that the companies should offer different productions and services to the different potential customers, in other ward, to a position of the production to consumers. According to this theory, the productions offer to consumers must depend on consumers’ demand and make it different from competitors.

In Ries & Trout (1981) mind, if the companies and brands want to succeed in the competitive environment, required them to have a clear idea to position themselves from competitors. In an easy is to make deep and unforgettable impression in consumers’ mind.

To make a good brand position depends on the effective of differentiation and multiple value of a brand identified by consumers. In order to avoid make the same with others brand, brand position must make sure who the competitors are, what the competitors’ brand positions are?

Brand Equity

Aaker (1991) argued that the brand equity is a kind of assets and liabilities associated with the brand, the brand’s name and brand’s logo which can increase or decrease products sales volume, influence the services to customers and the value of customer.

Aaker (1991) also pointed out five major elements of the brand: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand association and other assets.

Brand loyalty; it is the core of the brand equity; the brand value is performance by brand loyalty. If the brand don’s have loyalty consumers for it, the brand is just a mark. In this kind of view, marketing is not the final goals for the brand, but to build the long-term relationship with the consumers, in order to keep the profit from the market share.

Brand awareness; must consumers usual prefer to the productions or services from a brand which they are know well. Because they will get comfortable feeling from the brand. In assume that the familiar is reliable for the consumers, and the consumers trust the quality of brand. Therefore, the true meaning of the brand awareness is to recognition by consumers. There are two main purpose of brand awareness, first, for consumers to identify and remember the target brand easily; second, for consumers to make association with new productions.

Perceived quality; it is the general impression of consumers to the brand. It included brand’s functions, characteristic, reliability, durability, service, utility evaluation, commodity quality. It is the basis of brand positioning and brand extension. The research shows that the more satisfaction of consumers to brand, the more market share and development will get by brand.

Brand association; it is the mean that all the association made by consumers from the brand. It is the description of product characteristic, the interests of consumers, the use of occasions, origin, character, personality and so on. The association will make sense to the brand to make brand image. It is the result of the unique selling point and brand positioning.

Other assets; it is the mean of intellectual property of brand included trademarks, patents and other assets relate to the brand. And how to protect intellectual property rights, how to prevent counterfeit products? It also included customer resource, management systems, corporate culture and corporate image and so on which bring economic benefits by brand manufacturers.

In the research of brand equity, the brand is represented business or product visual perceptual and cultural image, it is something representative of all enterprises which in consumers’ minds. It is not only a trade mark, but the credibility of enterprises and a commitment to consumers.

Brand Management

Brand management came from the Brand Strategy; it's a way Strategic decision and strategy implementation activity service the brand by considering the consumers. The purpose of brand management is control the brand well by the management (Sumaira S. & Tehseen S., 2011).

There are two sides of brand management, for consumers, brand management is managing experience of consumers by control all the aspects, like advertisement, marketing and service etc. For the company, brand management included brand goal, brand positioning and brand communication etc (Sumaira S. & Tehseen S., 2011).

Brand Relationship

In the last years, brand relationship has been the most popular topic for the academic community. It was first developed by Fournier (1998), as the consumers’ awareness of brand became more and more strong, he suggested that regard the relation between consumers and brand as the relation among people. It has been accepted by Keller (2003) and J. Aaker et al. (2004), they developed this theory to explain the relation of consumer and brand according to the fact.

In the future research of brand, to study from brand relationship into brand has been a trend, compared with other theories, brand relationship can make good communication with consumers, it will strongly guiding the company brand management.

2.2 Brand with higher education

2.2.1 Definition of higher education brand

Higher education brand is the degree of recognition by social during the building and developing of the university, in this process, the university keeps its own educational philosophy and campus culture in order to distinguish other university. The brand can be finding in every elements of the school, such as school name, school badge, teaching, research, management, representative building or attractions, teachers, principals and students (Raiser, F. Floax and J, Koelman, 1992).Higher education brand is the integration of awareness, reputation and loyalty (Guangchang. G, 2010).

The higher education’s brand awareness refers to the degree of university known by public. The awareness of university often formed though the history, but it also can be made by the brand theory and marketing strategy with the suitable plan in a short period time (Guangchang. G, 2010).

Brand reputation of the university is the praise of the public. Reputation is the base of university to build the brand. Reputation is different with awareness; it is formed by a long way. The university are trying to transform brand awareness into reputation by improve teaching and service quality, strengthen the internal management of the school, in order to get more approve by the social (Guangchang. G, 2010).

The university brand loyalty is meaning the followers by public of the university brand. The public is concerned about the development of the school, and accepted schools temporarily mistakes, it shows that the school high brand loyal (Raiser, F. Floax and J, Koelman, 1992).

2.2.2 Characteristic of higher education brand

In the research, we consider university as a kind of business company with the brand theory, but university still is a place for academic. It has its own characteristic.

Brand building

The formation of the higher education brand goes through the historical of the university slowly. Personnel training, scientific research and social services are three main functions of university recognized by the public. Among the three main functions, personnel training are the most concerned by the people. Because the personnel training are not easy to make by a short time, it refers to the all kinds of universities’ capacities. Therefore, the university wants to increase awareness are different with commercial brand, advertisement and publicity is important for them to building brand, but the most important part is the university must has the powerful strength, and focus on connotation construction (VanTwist, 1999).

Brand content

All the commercial brands have real products or services; it is also performance brand by product or service. The university brand is completely different with commercial brand. Universities do not have a real production, although it provides educational services, but it is total different with the commercial services. The university brand has several factors including university presidents, students, teachers, academic, cultural, campus. University of brands builds from all aspects of performance (VanTwist, 1999).

Some article focus on the basic characteristics of university brand. Generally, they think that the brand has some notable features, namely all kinds of best talents' person, the first level of teaching condition, the leading level of the scientific research, higher social service quality, the superiority of material conditions, the creative campus culture, and advancement, characteristics, sustainability, etc (McAlexander , J . H . , Schouten , J . W . and Koenig , H .F, 2001 ) .

The others articles suggest the higher education brand should be focus on the reality of the composition. For instance，education brand is the mark of the university name. Education brand is the formation of visibility and reputation with the process of the long-term development, which regards the forms of university name as intangible assets, such like public proved general impression and evaluation, and the degree of satisfaction (Baum, 1990).

At present, with the hard competition in the higher education market, the Chinese universities need to enhance the competitive ability (Williams et al., 1997). Therefore, high education should make the Chinese university brand to enhance their competitiveness in the education markets (Mok , 2000).

University brand has been an extensive examination of education as a specific services marketing (Tim Mazzarol, 1998), such as the brand marketing of course services and social services, etc. It is not only the core competitiveness of the external performance but also is a kind of management philosophy to accumulate, acquire and allocate the higher education resources. Essentially, university brand is the comprehensive recognition degree of the university in the society, such as teaching ideas, characteristic, quality and social service (Ramsden P., 1999).

University brand has various value and effect, such like the characteristics of diversification, high quality, uniqueness, high level, and the education market identity (Waeraas,A. and Solbakk,M. (2009).

2.2.3 Brand of higher education

a. Creating Brand uniqueness in University

The brand is like a tool of creating distinctiveness for the consumer differentiation needs in the process of choosing the products (Gabbott and Hogg, 1998).

Implementing standardized or adapted brand strategy, which depends on most universities are expected, because of the universities want to attract overseas students to their campuses. For instance, the core curriculums offering consistent across the higher education markets, as well as some components of the recruiting standard including scholarships, entry demands and cross-crediting of previous education should be adapted to various target markets (Brendan J. Gray, Kim Shyan Fam, Violeta A. Llanes, 2003).

Apparently higher education branding needs unique and creativities constantly (Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L. A., Farnham, S. D., Nosek, B. A., and Mellot, D. S. 2002). The unique feature is the part and parcel of university brands, so the university/ high education should be develop their unique feature which pay more attention on the educating of the students’ innovation spirit and practice ability (Derek C. Bok, 2004).

b. Developing Brand Attributes in University

Brand Attributes would show brand characteristics (Marieke K. De Mooij, 1998). It represents the basic properties of the brand and emphasizes the physical and personality aspects of the brand. Attributes could developed images, actions, or suppose. And then, the brand attributes help create brand identity. Brand preferences are link to particular brand attributes and influenced by customers’ values.

Using the approach by Vorhies (1997) suggested (Vorhies, D.W. 1997), brand attributes should categorized under several determents of distinct headings, namely consumer attribute, Provider attributes, Product attributes and Symbolic attributes:

Consumer attributes. This brand will be link to the consumers’ characteristics and experience. In the context of higher education markets, these attributes in terms of factors represent student-related, namely record of formal schooling, motivations, professional interest, etc (Keller, 1993).

Provider attributes. The attributes represent the organization, the staff in the university by providing the service and other attributes such as place/location (Booth, 1999) and history of university. So in the context of university, these attributes include the relationship between students and the faculty (Scott, 2000; Chen, 2008).

Product attributes. These attributes acknowledge the power of quality in the education service (Cheng and Tam, 1997 Cheng, Y.C. and Tam, W.M. (1997), such as tuition fees (Booth, 1999; Keller, 1993; Chen, 2008), and guarantees and after sales service (Vorhies, 1997; Kent et al., 1993). Their factors could be availability or not, in terms of the courses arrangement, admission standardization, tuition fees, etc.

Symbolic attributes. This represents the university total image and reputation (Byron, 1995). And this type will illustrate in the next chapter "Brand Image", because that will have a strong link with symbolic attributes to show the importance of the university brands.

2.2.4 High education brand marketing

Brand marketing of higher education is the university administrators trying to enhance the university brand value, using the higher education market way to develop a the school branding. The competition between enterprises in the international market has evolved from production competition, capital competition to brand competition; the brand has become a magic weapon to win the competition. Therefore, enterprises want to control their own future, have the ability of sustainable development, it must be centred with brand to expand the marketing activities, which has become the economic rules. Brand marketing is the study associated with the development of market economy.

Higher education brand marketing is the development of education marketing; it is the detail of higher education. It is associated with higher education marketing, but not all the same with it. Brand marketing of higher education is cared about the educate consumers’ value, based on the internal and external university resources, independent development mode. There are many reasons of the college brand marketing purposes nonprofits, as the special production and service of university, the complexity of the colleges brand management environment, the long-term building of the university. The basic processes of the higher education brand marketing is market positioning, brand image design, institutional arrangements, brand communication, brand management, brand expansion. Higher education brand marketing is a senior way of marketing.

With the crisis of higher education and the trend of higher education became popularization, market-oriented and internationalization. In 1980s, the strategy of rand marketing was introduced to the field of higher education.

Park et al (1986) did the research of the school brand image, they claimed that the school brand image not only have functional attribute, but also have the attribute with emotional and symbolic. And the university should pay more attention to both of education and reputation. The brand image is the performance of brand position; it also can show the requirement of brand position. So the brand images have well influence to the brand publicity, brand loyalty and brand equity.

Brand image is the beliefs held for the specific brand. Brand image is formed all of relevant sources to better impress in consumers’ mind. Positive brand image is the way of exceeding impression the customers’ needs. Generally, the positive brand image has main elements of unique logo reflection organization’s image and the key values supported. An image is the based on the brand perceptions of associations that the consumers have been formed about the brand.

Moreover, the brand image plays a important role in university to the sector as a whole (King, D. 1993). Paramewaran and Glowacka (1995) suggest in their study of university image that need to develop or maintain a distinct image to create a competitive advantage in the increasingly competitive higher education market. This image will impact the volume of recruitment students, so establishing these images to increase the student’s application willingness to that institution (Ivy, 2001). Building a strong university image means focus on target students to service, teaching in the certain way or target geography.

2.2.5 Higher Education Branding Strategy

With the consumers’ needs become more and more variety and different, organization needs to connect the corporate strategies and marketing strategies to address different consumer segments in the competitive education environment (White and Griffith, 1997). Targeting the customer could be addressed by various links to corporate and marketing strategies (Brendan J.Gray, Kim Shyan Fam & Violeta A. Llanes, 2003).

The branding literature has identified a number of branding strategies, but this paper focuses on just two important strategies: In doing so, universities have used their mainly brand factors to overcome foreigner students' little know about these when they choose university all over the world, enabling them to attract more foreigner students to study in China and deepen the promotional and positioning strategies in the University Branding.

Apparently, position statements should be deeply considered in the University Branding. If the Universities want to develop brands, they should have effective brand strategies. Firstly, the Universities need to understand the key education requirements of foreigner students and the core of the perceived value and increase elements of their offerings’ program (Alreck,P.L. and Settle, R.B. 1999).

Bulotaite (2003) suggests that when someone mentions the name of a university it will immediately evoke "associations, emotions, images and faces" and that the role of university branding is to build, manage and develop these impressions.

Some studies suggest that there are the best promotional and poisoning strategies based on the school’s identity (image), curriculum arrangement (quality of teaching-learning resources). In order to develop an effective branding strategy to achieve their target consumers, education marketers also need to find out the effective promotional intermediary/media and communication channels (Brendan J.Gray, Kim Shyan Fam & Violeta A. Llanes, 2003).

2.3 The framework of the branding to attract the international students

According to the theory part, as the brand relationship theory, it is not easy to explain the brand phenomenon with one model to further analysis the cases study and to test the grounded theory appropriate or not. Every model has relationship with each other. So this study framework makes a sense between the brand strategies with higher education to show in Figure 1. For branding research to be develop a comprehensive model of how branding operates in the higher education (Chinese universities), and then further to evaluate various brand factors links within the successful increase the foreign student interesting. The chain depends on the following four major step lines:

1. Source: the relevant brand and branding theory

What the universities do? Marketing activity, as well as the university actions to the branding operate model. The universities think that the brand has some notable features to act, namely all kinds of best talents' person, the first level of teaching condition, the leading level of the scientific research, higher social service quality, the superiority of material conditions, the creative campus culture, and advancement, characteristics, sustainability, etc.

2. Elements of University Brand

What do the administrators think of the function of the brand in the Chinese university? University brand has various value and effect, such like the characteristics of diversification, high quality, uniqueness, high level, and the education market identity. In addition, there are some factors that direct impact quality of university brand. In this thesis will be used the types of brand knowledge to analysis the attractive factors of recruiting foreign students in high education/University, namely the brand unique , the brand attitude, the brand identified, and the brand image.

3. The foreign students think about the Chinese University.

With the shown the main four factors to impact overseas students to apply the Chinese university. Importantly, there are feedbacks the four factors where the brand constitutes influence the perception of the university brand by the students. Of course, the students could be interested in the international universities, and impact future education-market results which need to be considered in this model. Moreover, the university brand could implement some skills/tools to increase the interesting for the foreign students, such like make use of media to promote the university brand, the communicational channels, the ranking with the competitive universities, the place of university located, and external resources.

4. The branding strategy in the Chinese universities

Conduct the university branding is the way of increasing the competitive brand image, brand identity, brand attitude and uniqueness. So if the university brand want to high the attractive, the university should carry out the effective branding strategy in terms of promote the university brand value and recognize the university brand’s behavior. The basic process of University branding include the brand positioning, brand image design, education system arrangement, the brand image communication, brand management, brand extension (strengthen). The branding literature has identified a number of branding strategies, but this paper focuses on just two important strategies: In doing so, universities have used their mainly brand factors to overcome foreigner students' little know about these when they choose university all over the world, enabling them to attract more foreigner students to study in China and deepen the promotional and positioning strategies in the University Branding.

In a word, if the Universities want to develop brands, they should have effective brand strategies. Firstly, the Universities need to understand the key education requirements of foreigner students and the core of the perceived value and increase elements of their offerings’ programm.（Alreck,P.L. and Settle, R.B.,1999）

Bulotaite (2003 sited as the Chris, 2010) suggests that when someone mentions the name of a university it will immediately evoke "associations, emotions, images and faces" and that the role of university branding is to build, manage and develop these impressions. (Chris, 2010)

Some studies suggest that there are the best promotional and poisoning strategies based on the school’s identity (image), curriculum arrangement (quality of teaching-learning resources). In order to develop an effective branding strategy to achieve their target consumers, education marketers also need to find out the effective promotional intermediary/media and communication channels. (Brendan, Kim & Violeta, 2003)

Satisfaction

Location

Media

External Resources

Rank

Communicational Channels

Chinese universities Branding Strategy

Foreign Students ideas of Chinese University

Uniqueness

Identity

Image

Attitude

Elements of University Brand

University Action

The more effective branding operate in the Chinese universities

Channels

Promote Approach

Position

Branding strategy

Attractive

Figure 1: the model of concluding the existing theoretical framework in this study of attractive foreign students in Chinese universities

3 Methodologies

This following chapter will explain for which scientific point of departure of the study process together with the description the choice of the method. Given the suitable theory, we discuss about approach choice and its following consequences. This research was exploratory the principle on the major factors which involved the brand strategies in the branding Chinese universities effectiveness. Therefore, this thesis was considered to apply the interviews and smaller samples appropriate (Christy and Wood, 1999).

A scientific way has applied to the quality standard to research under increasing validity and reliability by researchers.

3.1 Type of Research

Generally, mentioned by the Saunders et al. (2003) that research is the scientific way in order to raise the people studies knowledge and then to find out the relevant analysis them. According to the nature of the problem, the types of research are different to classify. These categories can be expressed as exploratory, descriptive and explanatory. (Saunders et al., 2003)

The purpose of this research is to describe and analyze the Chinese universities branding process and the attractive brand elements that involved in the general process of branding strategies at the three Chinese universities choosed, such as the Ningbo University, China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) and East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST). This study of research would be involved into the descriptive approach. The research has been implemented by interviewing the key administrators of the international office in the university about implementing the branding process at the three Universities and then to conclusion the each branding criteria (the key factors and branding strategies effectiveness). In order to increase the quality of the research and acknowledge the research process, the research part also have been used the desk approach and the second-hand tools to search the data collection. The theories connect to the thesis problem area have been considered and evaluation about the second-hand data as well.

3.2 Research Design

There are a lot of patterns to uncover the formulation of the research process. In this thesis, the authors describe the research onion model below in order to illustrate the formulation of the research process. The following model introduces the research design of the exploration (figure 2, Research Design):

Semi-structured: Interviews

&

Books, articles, journals and internet

Data Collection

Empirical Data

Approach

Qualitative Research

Research Strategy

Case study

Primary data

&

Secondary data

Figure2: Research design

Source: Saunders, M., Lewis P. & Thornhill, A., 2007( sited as the Rajapunsaen & Suleymanov, 2008)

3.3 Research Approach

The reason of conducting research should be used the two kind of approaches in the economic literature. Inductive reasoning is a process of theory building, which the process should include the two steps: one is to observe the particular cases and examples; two is starts with finding out the general phenomenon. On the contrary, deductive reasoning is a process of theory testing, which the process should also include the two steps: one is that need to have grounded theory; two is that find out the theory applicability for specific examples. (Saunders et al., 2003)

In this studies, the thesis has been used the deductive approach. Sanders et al. (2003) sited the definition of deductive approach is that firstly need "a clear theoretical position" in order to "developed prior to the collection of data" (Saunders et al., 2003). In addition, adapting this research, the deductive reasoning has several reasons. Firstly, if the researchers need to test or develop the grounded or existing theory before survey the specific case. Secondly, implementing the execute the deductive approach will be save more time and cost than the inductive approach. (Saunders et al., 2003)

According to Bryman & Bell (2007) there are two types of methodologies to do a research, which are qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is a research strategy that usually emphasizes words rather than quantification in the collection and analysis of data. With this thesis has chosen a qualitative approach to study the role of branding to attract foreign students, since we want to highlight the phenomenon of these contexts. Because chosen the qualitative approach intend to achieve a complete opinion from the participants. (Dr. Catherine Dawson, 2002)By using this approach, we enable to gain a deeper understanding the field of brand in higher education through the case study which base on a depth interview with three administrators in different China universities. The depth interview considered appreciated in order to gain a deeper understanding of phenomenon and focusing on specific entity, supported by Bryman & Bell (2007) mentioned that by the qualitative approach allowed the researcher to gain more validity by meeting the respondent with an openness, which enhances the understanding of the conception.

3.4 Research Strategy

As the study if brand in higher education still in the primary stage, "Case study is a strategy for doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence." (Robinson, 2002, p. 178 cited in Saunders et al., 2003 p. 93 sited as Rajapunsaen & Suleymanov, 2008).In this study we will use the analysis way of Literature analysis, Interdisciplinary research, Case study method and Comparative Study.

Literature analysis; we start the research with search the literature on line, then do the analysis and collating literature, in order to get the whole and correct knowledge about the brand and higher education.

Case study; this is for the data collection; we select three universities as the target research objects. Using the interview way to get information of the universities, and then try to analysis the brand in higher education.

Comparative Study; as we choice three to do research, we have to compare the different or same brand strategies in the different universities. During the compare, we will find the right brand in China higher education.

3.5 Research Methods

The research has been implemented of using two methods, namely primary data and secondary data research methods.

Primary data research use the interviews with people to gain clear understanding the grounded theory used in the practical from their respondents and involved in the issue. In this study, the primary research is mainly from the face to face interviews, e.g., By using the Skype because we can not arrive in the China now.

Secondary research is the tool to help the theoretical and conceptual given in the research and gain the rich information from the published resources. Combined the books and articles of brands or branding literature, especially the study area in the Higher Education. Also, the study searched from the internet resources and university documents as a second-hand material.

3.6 Primary Research- -Case Selection

To explore and understand the phenomenon of the role of branding to attract foreign students, this study is based on personal interviews and supplemented with the secondary data.

a. Semi-structured interview

The research steps which presented by Bryman & Bell (2007) provide us a clear frame to follow, it helps us easily organized our research procedures.

The interview is probably the most widely employed method in qualitative research (Bryman & Bell, 2007). As our work is a qualitative research focus on the role of branding to attract foreign students. Exhibits a concern with subjectivity and gaining access to brand in the universities. We made four qualitative interviews with three administrators in different China universities.

Bechhofer, Elliott, and McCrone (1984) as cited in Bryman and Bell (2007) claim that it’s better to make more than one interview to get comprehensive interview data.

In the interviews we will make records and transcribe in the same time. As Heritage (1984) (Bryman and Bell, 2007) suggests that it is good to recording and transcribing during interview. It helps to get correct data, allows to examination of what interviewees say. The work of this part indicates us to get correct information and have good influence to analyze in the follow.

We make our first step with bring out a research question. And then we collect some second hand data to gain the knowledge about our research area.

Data collection

There are two differences data resource used in this study, which are included primary data and secondary data. The primary data is collected directly information’s through the interview.

The secondary data is gained in form of scientific articles, which collected through the Halmstad University library, Google scholar, and Emeralds. To understand the concept of brand in higher education, this study based on proceeds from existing and considerable relevant theories in order to gain a clear of the phenomenon. Furthermore, this study aims to explore the role of branding to attract foreign students; we have used the keywords such as brand, higher education and China University.

3.7 Secondary Research

"Secondary research involves the collection of information from studies that other researchers have made of a subject". (Dr. Catherine Dawson, 2002. pp.45 sited as Rajapunsaen & Suleymanov, 2008) This research apply the secondary method aim to further develop and rich the theoretical backgrounds and to have a clear view of branding to recruitment in University. What’s more, in order to give more information on the issue, books, articles, case studies.

2.8 Validity and Reliability

When the researchers need to design a research, analyze and estimate the quality of research, the two main factors always should be taken into consideration, namely validity and reliability. So, aiming to ensure the quality of the research, the plenty of time have been spend on the guarantee of the studies to the validity and reliability.

Hussey and Hussey (1997 sited as the Rajapunsaen & Suleymanov, 2008) suggest the findings should be real and accurate in consists of the case studies or the issues happened. That is the validity. In order to achieve a satisfactory validity in the research, researchers have the different ways to use, such like divergence from initial expectations, general idea of triangulation, individual/member checks) and recorded tapes.( Rajapunsaen & Suleymanov, 2008)