International E-Journal of Advances in Education

Öz

Branding of the
universities is rather new thing in nowadays world. In fact, universities have
been chosen considering their features for years.

“A brand is defined as a name, term, sign, symbol (or a combination
of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Accordingly,
creating brand in most cases is started from inventing name and logo and
positioning them on the market. But, besides visual components (name, logo)
invisible process inside organization gives brand competitive advantage (Szczepanska-Woszczyna, 2016).  The aim of the present study is to show that
internal factors, processes are really valuable and crucial in decision-making
process.

Leading universities all over the world are involved in the process
of creating valuable brands, have invented and implemented innovative, as well
as attractive tools of branding. “University branding requires that the higher
education institutions clearly define their differentiating features” (Rekettye & Pozsgai, 2014). Importance of
branding derives from the fact, that exactly brand recognition is valuable
factor in the process of choosing service (Srinivas,
2012). The universities of most eastern European countries lag behind
not considering trends of top international universities.

The main focus
of the article is how Georgian universities lead to positioning themselves. The
problem in their branding process is that most of them do not define their
differentiating features and position themselves the similar way. High school
students have no opportunity of choosing universities according to their
requirements, that makes studying abroad more and more popular.

The objective
of the article is to show how much important it is to plan and develop
university internal attributes so, that they strengthened brand itself and made
it desirable for customers.   Creating
identity for the university is the strategy of university branding. Identity
can be created using differentiating features this particular institution
provides. The aim of many universities in nowadays world is making life easy
for students and passing difficult periods with less harm (Javani, 2016).