Measuring consumer-based brand equity for Indian business schools

Brands are fundamentally about experiences and relationships, and therefore they form prime basis of an institution's connection with their stakeholders. With the mushrooming of business schools (both private autonomous and government supported) and fading global boundaries, especially in the Indian context, communicating a business school brand to stakeholders has become extremely important. It is imperative for Indian business schools to differentiate and build strong brands in the competitive business education space in India. Brand building helps in creating, evolving and enhancing a brand's positioning and its perceptions among stakeholders. These perceptions are critical in influencing behavior and hence the performance of an institution. The paper aims to assess the brand equity of select Indian business schools (from the prospective student's perspective) using a familiarity--perception--preference--choice framework. The branding framework proposed in this study highlights how consumer-based brand equity measures can be used to improve business school positioning and hence the brand image. This paper gives an opportunity to extend the current knowledge in measuring the brand equity of business schools, especially in India. This study would help institutions apply brand equity measurements to their business schools and implement focused branding efforts to gain a higher student share and build quality education brands.