The effect of creating brand identity on branding

Investing in brand identity and brand building studies is not only the corporate strategy of large-scale companies, but also medium and small-sized companies. One reason for this is that the increasing competitive conditions with the effect of globalization force companies to think from different perspectives, while another reason is that the habit of using social media increases with the technological change, and the communication between companies and individuals is more direct and faster. All these conditions lead medium and small sized companies to do more corporate work on customer satisfaction and to create a brand. Although there are many studies on brand perception specific to trademarks, there is limited research on special education and rehabilitation consisting of small and medium-sized companies. Institutions in the Turkish special education and rehabilitation sector, which have started to attach importance to branding efforts in recent years, are trying to gain a place in the minds of their target audience, families or, in other words, customers. For this purpose, they strive to improve themselves, add new education methods and create a brand identity. In the light of this information, the basis of the brand perception of Private Education Institutions has been tried to be revealed, with the idea of reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of a medium-sized private educational institution on the way to becoming a brand institution, and building a more solid future. Continuing communication independent of the brand definition, accompanied by a brand identity will provide new gains to businesses, especially brand loyalty, as well as provide brand positioning and clarify what it should differentiate from its competitors. Due to the fact that it is not possible to meet all of the special education centers in our country, whose number is estimated to reach 3000, under pandemic conditions and because it is a mixed city in terms of demographics, it was deemed appropriate to conduct the study only in the city of Istanbul. In-depth interviews were conducted with the officials working in the private education sector within the scope of the purpose of the research with the qualitative research method. The main findings at the end of the research are; companies take their audiences into account when making strategic decisions, they pay attention to the education system and the choice of trainers, they attach importance to the language of discourse and they should use digital marketing tools actively. For this, it has emerged that communication activities should be carried out by creating a concrete brand identity guide, in accordance with brand promises, designs and by paying attention to connotations.