Marketing in higher education

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Marketing in higher education
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DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_569-1
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Mari Elken
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Marketing in higher education
Mari Elken (NIFU)
Introduction
The rise of marketing in higher education is usually associated with an increasingly globalized,
managed, marketized and competition-driven world of higher education. From a narrow perspective,
marketing concerns the processes of communication concerning the product or service that is being
provided. From a more broad perspective, one can also conceptualise market as «a frame of mind in
which questions are asked about the optimum relationship between an organization and its
environment, or parts of its environment, and action is taken that is informed by the answers to these
questions» (Litten, 1980, p. 41).
Historically, marketing initially entered the vocabulary of higher education research in the early 1970s
US higher education (Krachenberg, 1972), as institutions were increasingly competing for students.
Initial studies explored student choice (as consumer behaviour), donor relationships and fundraising.
By 1980, Litten (1980, p. 42), notes that «academicmarketing has taken off» in the US context, implying
that the discussion had by that time become integrated with broader debates about higher education.
In the mid-80s, Kotler and Fox (1985) wrote one of the seminal books in the field, inspired by growth
of marketing in the health care sector (Hayes, 2007). In the European context, marketing of higher
education is a much more recent phenomenon, as emphasis on market coordination emerged
considerably later and education is still in most countries viewed as a public good. Nevertheless,
discussions of marketing and branding have also emerged in the European context, rather prominently
in the UK context (Foskett & Hemsley-Brown, 2002), but also for example in the Nordic and Baltic
countries (Elken, Stensaker, & Dedze, 2018).
Broadly, one can view marketing in higher education from two different research lenses – first as a
means of organizational modernisation, a signifier of the broader changes higher education is going
through; and second, as a research field in itself with focus on research about marketing processes in
higher education. Marketing in higher education is a field with its own journals and conferences, and
communications professionals have an established function within higher education organisation
(Elken et al., 2018). As a research area it has been marked by processes of consolidation and
development (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006) in recent decades. In the following two sections, we
briefly address the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of marketing as a research area by exploring the rationales for
introducing marketing and the different perspectives on what marketing, and then turn attention to
the ‘where’ and ‘who’ of marketing by reflecting on the organizational embeddedness of these tasks
and those who engage in marketing tasks.
The ‘why’ and ‘what’ of marketing in higher education
The rationale for marketing (the ‘why’) is associated with the processes of increased managerialism
and marketisation of higher education, where concepts and practices from business world have been

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introduced to higher education, arguably often in a somewhat uncritical manner. The proliferation of
marketing practices in higher education is thus often associated with the fact that higher education is
becoming increasingly globalised and competitive, with increasing demand. Globalization and the
global knowledge economy have put increased emphasis on cross-national competition (Rust, Portnoi,
& Bagley, 2010). The professionalization of administrative services is an expression of creating more
coherent and rational organizations (Krücken & Meier, 2006), able to express more agency in
competing in the global marketplace. For some institutions, this means that they increasingly also
compete for students both nationally and globally, creating new demands for student recruitment and
communication functions.
From early on, there has been an acknowledgement that marketing in higher education has some
specific characteristics. This means that the ‘what’ of marketing in higher education remains a debated
issue. Higher education has more than one market (Krachenberg, 1972). These markets are not
isolated from each other, and it has been argued that marketing strategies thus also need to reflect
this (Licata & Frankwick, 1996).
The relationship between higher education institutions and students also has some special
characteristics which challenge the traditional notion of marketing. A prominent traditional marketing
heuristic is the idea of 4Ps (price, product, place and promotion) (McCarthy, 1960), where additional
Ps have been suggested subsequently (people, processes, physical facilities) (Ivy, 2008). Higher
education institutions do not effectively compete on these dimensions. Students are both the ‘client’,
they participate in the educational process and they are also the ‘quasi-product’ of the process (Litten,
1980, p. 48). Conceptualising students as the ‘product’ implies that it is the employers who are viewed
as the customer (Kotler & Fox, 1985). Over time, there has been a development of viewing marketing
in higher education as an issue of marketing a ‘product’ to conceptualising it as a ‘service’ (Hemsley-
Brown & Oplatka, 2006, p. 319). Nevertheless, viewing higher education as a service does not
necessarily solve the problems with applying existing models from business marketing; decisions about
education remain a ‘unique choice’ which makes higher education marketing a different endeavour
(Canterbury, 2000).
Marketing in higher education also needs to take into account multiple functions of higher education;
even in the most privatized systems, higher education as an institution also has important functions as
a public good. While these concerns were expressed early on, e.g. Litten (1980, p. 52) noted that
«higher education marketing cannot simply respond to natural private demand and fully maintain our
intellectual tradition or completely discharge the public responsibilities that are vested in the system»,
the discussions of appropriateness of marketing models in higher education have not disappeared.
In a review, Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka (2006) identify a range of core themes in the literature,
including marketing communications (dissemination of information to potential students and also
widening participation), image and reputation, transactional marketing issues, relationship marketing
(see also Helgesen, 2008), strategic aspects of marketing and its tools, and various characteristics of
the markets. They also observed that themes related to branding were under-researched. However, in
recent years, a range of studies on branding have been published on a variety of themes (see, for
example, Bock, Poole, & Joseph, 2014; Chapleo, 2011; Drori, Delmestri, & Oberg, 2013; Stensaker,
2007; Wæraas & Solbakk, 2009). Additional themes that have been introduced include the role of
emotions in branding exercises (Durkin, McKenna, & Cummins, 2012), discussions on the role of

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rankings in marketing (Poole, Levin, & Elam, 2018), and attempts to measure value added of branding
exercises (Chapleo, 2011), to name a few. An important new theme is linked to digitalisation and the
use of social media in higher education marketing. There is a wide range of recent studies that concern
appropriate and effective means of using Twitter, Facebook and other digital channels (see, e.g. Brech,
Messer, Vander Schee, Rauschnabel, & Ivens, 2017; Clark, Fine, & Scheuer, 2017; Peruta & Shields,
2017, 2018).
The ‘where’ and ‘who’ of marketing in higher education
While higher education systems remain nationally embedded, systems across the whole world have
been going through significant change processes in recent decades. Higher education institutions are
expected to be more flexible and adaptive to new external demands (Sporn, 2001), they are expected
to become rational coherent organizations able to take strategic action (Krücken & Meier, 2006).
Marketing is thus one signifier of a modernisation process of higher education organisation. In this
context, universities are positioned in a changed social context “immersed in market logic”, where
branding signals a modern identity and institution (Drori et al., 2013, p. 146). In an analysis of visual
representation of 821 institutions in 21 countries, Delmestri, Oberg, and Drori (2015) find both
similarities and differences in visual branding, suggesting that the idea of a rationalized professional
university has found different forms in different national contexts. This rationalized view stands in
contrast to the historical view of higher education institutions as organized anarchies with
disconnected streams of problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities (Cohen, March, &
Olsen, 1972).
While it is clear that universities have undergone considerable change processes in recent decades,
there is also ample literature that suggests that these change processes have been constrained by the
enduring characteristics of higher education institutions. Thus, the change process is not so much a
shift from the ‘Ivory tower’ to a ‘Service Enterprise’ but a process where several concurrent organising
templates can be identified. Higher education institutions are complex organisations and this
complexity provides a range of challenges for marketing. For example, Chapleo (2011) argued that
branding is inherently complicated in higher education, as it would require the creation of a coherent
and consistent image of the organization. At the same time, a Delphi study by Hayes (2007) suggested
that integrated marketing would be the ‘next big thing’ in marketing of higher education.
In general, studies of the ‘who’ in higher education marketing remain comparatively scarce. In one of
the early articles Litten (1980) suggested that rather than employing external marketing people,
administrations within the system should adopt marketing principles in their work. Nevertheless,
marketing is a task that increasingly implies specialized expertise. Hayes (2007, p. 928) noted that the
personnel that obtained marketing tasks in the 1980s predominantly came from sectors where focus
had been on marketing products rather than education or even the service sector more broadly. In a
recent study of university communication departments in Nordic and Baltic regions, institutions in
Baltic countries seemed to a larger extent include professionals in the field, whereas in the Nordic
countries these departments had a more mixed background (Elken et al., 2018). Nevertheless, studies
in this area are comparatively scarce. This lack of literature is reflected in the fact that those working
in administrative positions have generally been a group that has received comparatively less research
attention in higher education research. This s a group that has been going through considerable
professionalisation and specialization processes in recent decades in a range of countries (see, e.g.,

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Gornitzka & Larsen, 2004; Krücken, Blümel, & Kloke, 2013; Szekeres, 2006). Nevertheless, university
administration has not been considered as a coherent profession, and ambiguity remains concerning
nomenclature and grouping of staff (see, e.g. Sebalj, Holbrook, & Bourke, 2012, for a discussion on the
Australian case). Thus, studies of several of the professions within the administrative tasks of
universities remain rather unexplored.
Future avenues for research
While marketing in higher education has been a rapidly expanding, it is also a field of research
undergoing changes and is still in a consolidation process. Some of the earlier work on marketing was
marked by calls for more marketing in higher education (see, e.g. Krachenberg, 1972; Licata &
Frankwick, 1996), sometimes viewing marketing from a slightly idealized picture. Yet, the concept was
also described as one that would «stick in many an academic throat» (Litten, 1980, p. 40), emphasizing
the need to adapt marketing principles to the reality of higher education setting, and warning against
«insensitive, uncritical, or irresponsible application of marketing principles, concepts and techniques
to higher education» (Litten, 1980, p. 54). Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka (2006) conducted a systematic
literature review on marketing in higher education and note that studies on marketing of higher
education more often tend to represent themes that arise from the business world, rather than arise
from the specific characteristics of higher education. In addition, they argue that «the literature on HE
marketing is incoherent, even inchoate and lacks theoretical models that reflect upon the particular
context of HE and the nature of their service». Consequently, they conclude that much of the work in
higher education specific marketing was still in the pioneering stage about ten years ago.
While a steady stream of research has emerged in recent years, in a recent editorial Chapleo and
O’Sullivan (2017) noted that consolidation of the field has not yet been reached and significant gaps
remain: “‘traditional’ marketing theory and approaches no longer have sufficient capacity to explain
the behaviour and decisions of students in particular, andthatmodels to helpprovide a holisticoffering
that meets evolving needs are lacking”. Nevertheless, this is also a field in rapid evolution and a range
of various concepts and themes have been introduced in recent years.
One fruitful avenue for further research would be to further research marketing and communication
as specific organizational functions in higher education. Similar to the analysis of management
consultants who have ‘returned’ to higher education (Czarniawska & Mazza, 2013), communication
and marketing represent specific organizational tasks. Initial studies in this area suggest that these
functions can alsohave a range of internal functions in higher educationinstitutions (Elkenet al.,2018).
This would suggest that marketing, branding and communication are perhaps tasks that are not only
oriented towards the external markets but can also be discussed from wider organisational
perspectives.
In general, future research could further aim at integrating themes from marketing in higher education
with more mainstream higher education research, and in this manner create a conceptual basis that
can address marketing concerns while having more nuanced understanding of the characteristics of
higher education as a societal institution and the change processes it has been going through.

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