Author(s): Saejoon Oh
Recently, Korean universities are experiencing difficulties due to the decrease of the school-age population caused by low birth rates and the situation is even more difficult for regional universities located outside Seoul and the metropolitan areas. Thus, universities have to carry out active marketing communication activities to secure their student quota. Universities have carried out various promotional activities, but such activities have been practiced based on available budget, without consideration of efficiency. Thus, this study utilized the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis to examine what type of marketing communication activities can be effective other than the traditional print and online advertisements, and examine the priorities of those activities. The results showed that of the first level factors, the importance weight of advertisement was highest followed by sales promotion, public relations (PR), and personal selling. Such results imply that although universities are placing great emphasis on personal selling activities such as admission briefing sessions in high schools and university admission exhibitions, such efforts should be placed on other activities.
Of the second level factors, Out of Home (OOH) advertisements, advertorials, and university posters posted in the walls of corridors and stairways of high schools showed high importance weight. This result implies that a sufficient amount of budget should be assigned to such fields. Also, television advertisements were analyzed to be less suitable due to their high expenses. Lastly, university posters posted in high schools showed the highest importance weight in the sales promotion field. Moreover, these university posters provided in high schools showed the highest importance weight after online advertisements in the total ranking of the second level factors.