Auditoria de marca de la Universidad Técnica de Machala

Abstract

Institutions of Higher Education are essential spaces for the construction of knowledge and pillars of the development of countries. At present, these institutions are facing changes such as market saturation, globalization and increasingly competitive environments, therefore, the management of the university brand becomes crucial to achieve competitive advantages and generate loyalty among their audiences. In this way, the corporate brand becomes a living and dynamic entity, defined by the organization from its identity that expresses a promise and values ​​that must be a reference for all its audiences, internal and external. In this sense, aspects such as identity, brand promise and communication play a fundamental role, since identity contains the institution's DNA, and brand promise is the commitment that the organization acquires with its audiences, making communication a bridge to transmit a coherent brand promise , aligned with the identity that the institution seeks to project. From this perspective, brand audits are presented as a tool to know the status of brand management and in what way its identity is being projected to target audiences. In this way, if the identity is projected effectively, there will be an alignment with the image that the stakeholders perceive, thus strengthening its reputation. In the case of higher education institutions, auditing these processes becomes fundamental, since these institutions must always aim towards a search for quality, due to the role they play in social development. Based on the above, a brand audit was carried out at the Universidad Técnica de Machala, the only public university in the province of El Oro, in order to know how its brand is being managed and if these processes contribute to strengthening the identity of the company. institution. For this, theoretical foundations associated with the brand structure, DIRCOM management, identity and communication have been taken as a reference. And the results are supported by the theoretical basis proposed by the communication scientist Joan Costa "Construction and strategic management of the brand: MasterBrand Model". The research methodology responds to a case study under a mixed research approach (quali-quantitative). And it is developed as an exploratory investigation (audit). Likewise, the design of this research is non-experimental of a cross-sectional type because the object of study will not be modified and the data collection is carried out in a determined period of time. To carry out this diagnosis, the following data collection tools were applied: interviews directed to authorities, administrative and service personnel; teacher and student surveys; documentary analysis of the Corporate Visual Identity Manual of the Universidad Técnica de Machala and a discussion group in which experts in brand design and management participated. From the information obtained, the results and conclusions of the investigation are raised, detailed according to the variables under study: verbal identity, environmental identity, object identity, visual identity and cultural identity, communication and brand promise.