The present article summarizes the main aspects of marketing evolution, which is characterized by the development of both "inward" - throughout the whole system of company's business-process, and "outwards" - into the social and political society sphere. These processes are described on the example of the research of marketing and PR-activities of the leading world universities. The research was conducted by the Marketing department of RUDN University in the spring of 2016 in the frame of Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100. As part of the study the methods and tools of the universities' promotion were examined and summarized through the corporate websites, social media and traditional media. The conclusions about the running information traffic which is generated by the universities and which is focused on both external and internal target audience were done.