SPECIAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATIONAL BRAND CONSTRUCTION IN THE CONTEXT OF E-NEURAL NETWORK ECONOMY

The search for competitive positions and the expansion of the range of opportunities for promotion of educational services by universities in the context of changes in economic coordination caused by the development of digital technologies and network structure justify the potential of the studies of the proposed subject. Universities actively use the marketing technologies when forming the educational brands contributing to the promotion in the national and international ratings giving the advantages in the competition for the staff, finance and other resources, in the attraction of the most talented and promising applicants for admission. The paper deals with the study of the key categories of educational marketing and decomposition of the concepts. The results of branding activity of the universities allowed identifying and systematizing brand elements. University’s mission, its mandatory attribute - logo, is the conceptual basis of its brand. However, universities pay inadequate attention to branding policy, branding strategy, and the formation of corporate culture. Within this study, the authors carried out the terminological analysis of the concepts of a brand, a brand of educational organization, an educational brand, generalized the author’s approaches, identified the commonality in the proposed definitions, and defined the main components of an educational brand. The authors determined the elements ensuring the formation of a successful brand of an educational organization and the criteria important for the university brand promotion. The leading Russian higher education institutions were selected as the objects of the analysis. The authors carried out the comparative analysis of the formation and application of an educational brand by the leaders of the national rating of universities. As a result of the study, the authors identified the advanced branding tools and made the conclusions about the directions of formation of branding strategy.

educational brand, brand-oriented educational institution, brand construction, branding, digitalization