Optimization of Corporate Branding Strategy in Higher Education as the Marketing Sustainability: Study at Universitas Pembangunan Nasional (UPN) "Veteran" Jawa Timur

The rise of the phenomenon of state institutions which are required to become independent both financially and management are forced to be competitive with each other, both from domestic and foreign private institutions. It's forcing the institution to improve the competitiveness both in terms of services and achievements to hold its existence in the current of global markets. UPN "Veteran" Jawa Timur is one of the new state institutions, which is expected to be independent in both, financial and management, and they use the brand "bela Negara" as the corporate branding strategy. As a higher education institution have to improve tri dharma services. Corporate branding is a strategy to increase the market value of an organization. The three stages in corporate branding strategy are the goal (vision), culture, and externalization. This research focuses on identifying the vision of how awareness among users. Two independent variables, namely brand association and brand reputation, are taken from the theory of corporate branding strategy. While the brand image variable as a moderator and brand awareness as an independent variable. Samples were taken from 411 UPNVJT students by purposive random sampling. The questionnaire as the instrument research which uses a Likert scale. All item and variable indicators are tested both reflective and formative with the SmartPLS 3 software. From the results of the outer and inner model, it is found that the brand image as a moderator has the most influence on brand awareness. Overall, it shows that it supports the existing hypothesis, and the variable which has the smallest influence on brand awareness is the brand association.