Get Connected. Make a Difference.
How it came together in short order
The changing landscape in the Canadian student population and post secondary education required a strategic approach to recruitment that involved technology before technology was mainstream. The King’s University College recruitment team embarked on a game-changing approach to recruitment that consumer marketers were starting to deploy, and with sophistication and creativity.
Results
- Record number of students with high GPAs applied to King’s University College.
- Continued growth of a community of like-hearts and like-minds.
- Featured in the Report on Business in the Globe & Mail for the innovative approach to student recruitment.
Get Connected. Make a Difference.
An integrated campaign that leveraged technology across mobile platforms, social media, web portals, traditional media, and multiple touch points with prospective students and their parents.
The campaign focused on reaching students through succinct yet relevant messaging and imagery. It included carefully selected TTC transit posters that promoted King’s along with interactive contests, unique tracking and calls to action, mobile interactions with “txt to win”, university recruitment posters with tracking points, a viewbook with photography that represented their diverse generation, the integration of QR codes and online portal for more information (rather than more printed pages), and a concentrated recruitment portal with community focus.
Prospective students were invited to join the King’s community while they were in the decision-making phase, reflecting the inclusive nature of King’s. Student Ambassadors visited high schools, spoke about the benefits of King’s, and handed out highly creative stickers for student lockers (or their backpacks and cars) to promote the brand.
A campaign of this scale typically requires a long planning cycle, but the client/agency team had a 3-month window to plan and launch the integrated campaign, and reach the students waiting to be connected. All relevant messaging was managed for each of the audiences as well as all of the moving parts.
Here is a look behind the scenes at how it came together…
The Strategy
The highly integrated and innovative game plan came to life during a brainstorming session facilitated by the CMO On-Demand. The session combined senior level marketing strategy and creative direction that included the recruitment team’s input, and concluded with a succinct launch plan to address the student research findings.
Campaign Planning
Launching in such a short window required high-level planning while carefully scoping the details including the data collection model. Also, many details needed to be covered in a divide and conquer approach for success.
Creative Direction
The creative played a key role in bringing the vision to life with strategies to integrate technology in a new way, strong design, and the use of imagery that included directing a photo shoot to represent the diverse population.
Integration of Technology
The Creative Technologist from the agency provided technical expertise to leverage mobile platforms, online portals, community chat groups, unique tracking, implementation of the digital elements, and trained and assisted the client team as needed.
Campaign Monitoring
It became very clear which touch points were generating the results, tactics that required more consideration, and the ones to cut.
Agile Research
Insights collected from the prospective students also shaped the focus of the messaging and approach while the campaign was in-flight.
Budget Allocation
The King’s team purchased their own media, but they were unsure about the effectiveness of the previous media spending. They were able to quickly see how their overall budget was performing and optimize their spending.
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