Purpose – the purpose of the article is to investigate current marketing and branding trends in higher education, and to discuss some popular marketing tools incorporated into the marketing strategy of a contemporary university. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the fact that managers working in higher education have to become more market-oriented as they are facing new challenges in an extremely competitive international environment.

Research methodology – the article is based on the analysis of theoretical literature and previous research on the topic, OECD and EU documents on the basic trends in higher education, and marketing plans of randomly chosen higher education institutions.

Findings – the analysis performed in the article has allowed the author to identify the main challenges experienced by contemporary universities in the agenda of promoting their educational services and programmes, and some novel marketing tools applied for enhancing the university’s brand awareness and reputation.

Research limitations – the limitations of the study are mainly related to the research base, which includes a few higher education institutions, so future study with a broader research base is recommended to generalize the findings.

Practical implications – the research results may be useful for higher education managers responsible for developing a competitive marketing strategy of the university aimed at promoting their educational services and programmes.

Originality/Value – the research is based on the analysis of working marketing plans of some universities having good marketing traditions.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/cibmee.2019.062