The determination of city brand personality from the perspective of university students: Uşak and İzmir province example

Increasing the desires and desires of individuals in the modernized world brings together the desire to live in better conditions and to discover different places. The main factors leading to the competition of cities that provide a suitable life for individuals; contributing to economic development, sociocultural development and self-promotion efforts are presented. Cities in competition are aiming to gain competitive advantage by taking advantage of marketing principles and methods. The aim of city marketing is to be able to capture what is appropriate for itself purposes and conditions from different target groups such as visitors, investors, city dwellers, export markets and students. One of the most important target groups of city marketing is the students who are in the tertiary education institutions. Students' economic, socio-cultural, etc. contributions are a fact that can not be denied. In this context, tertiary education market and city marketing activities should be carried out in coordinated coherence and consistency. Thus, cities and tertiary education institutions serve the same purpose and efforts to attract students are similar. The aim of this study is to determine the differences between the perceptions of city brand personality and the demographic characteristics of university students. In this context, 458 students from Uşak and 463 students from İzmir were selected by sampling method. In this study, firstly, city marketing and tertiary education market were examined in conceptual framework. Then, the concept of city brand personality was examined by referring to basic concepts about brand and city branding. In the application part of the work, city brand personality scale was used. The scale used was applied Factor Analysis, Independent Sampling t-Test, Anova Analysis and Tukey Test. As a result of the tests applied to demographic characteristics, the perception of the creative and competent dimension of the brand personality dimensions of Uşak province varies according to gender, while the perception of the elite, creative, intelligent, competent and unconscious dimension in İzmir province varies according to gender. The perception of the brand personality dimensions of Uşak province and the perception of the brand personality dimensions of İzmir province of Izmir is different. There was no difference between the monthly income status and the length of stay in the city and the dimensions of brand personality. As a result of the study, the brand personality of the İzmir was defined as "popular" and "free", while the brand personality of Uşak was defined as "believing" and "peaceful".