University of Sassari, Italy.
E-mail: stefano.boffo@uniroma1.it

Abstract

Marketing mass communication is a quite recent reality of Italian (mainly public) university system. Up to the last decade, these institutions had a certain reluctance to use marketing in order to raise funds and acquire students. The change was made possible through a variety of factors, among which the extension of mass university, a higher competition among institution, the budget restraints and a stronger economic pressure of the State. Uni.com, a survey analysing the communication campaign of Italian universities in academic year 2000–2001, shows that Italian higher education institution have developed massively PR, communication and marketing activities. Although some aspects of market logic have broken into the world of academia, the survey highlights that activities are mostly limited to the organization of events and that the 'metabolization' of a competitive function of communication will be rather long and quite likely difficult