Advertising universities: re-presenting complex products in a difficult marketplace

Citation

MacRury I & Hawkin S (2009) Advertising universities: re-presenting complex products in a difficult marketplace. In: Powell H, Hardy J, Hawkin S & Macrury I (eds.) The Advertising Handbook. 3rd ed. Media Practice. London: Routledge, pp. 148-161. https://www.routledge.com/The-Advertising-Handbook/Hardy-Macrury-Powell/p/book/9781138678835; https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315881416

Abstract
This chapter looks at advertising in a specialist product sector: university institutions. This area of advertising is significant because of the nature of the ‘product’ being advertised. In the UK, the complexity of the sector is partly a consequence of government-driven shifts in the management and provision of higher education and related changes in its consumption. Since the 1990s, universities have begun to advertise far more frequently. Simultaneously various changes in the composition of the higher education ‘market’ and significant changes in the ways university education is funded have made marketing and advertising appear to be more compatible with ‘The Idea of a University’.