The study purpose is exploring the phenomenon brand identity in Finnish tertiary education; the influence factors to prospective students’ perception in choosing an institution and the actual impact of branding communication to their final choice. The study focus on presenting answers and suggestions to the question: “How to build up brand identity that has most influence toward effective enrolment and recruitment in Finnish higher education?”
The theoretical framework shows how to define new concepts of emerging the brand identity philosophy in tertiary education sector and evaluating the actual impact of marketing communication practices to both internal and external resources to meet foreign students’ satisfaction. A qualitative approach with in-depth interviews was conducted as main method due to the complexity and differs from case to case of the new concepts. The sample was selected non-random 24 foreign students between 18 to 30 years old from different type of programmes with the average age of 23, 7.
The result reveals that marketing efforts based on merging brand identical could lead to positive attitudes and significant students’ commitments. A detail suggestion of future improvement was given by interviewees. Regarding to the outcomes, the vital issue in transferring brand image to student´s perspectives is successful monitoring suitable communicating messages accordingly suitable time and strategies which can enhance its brand identity, be consistent and viable. The limitations of the study are also pointed out
