Client: South University

Description:

Founded in 1899 as a career college, South University has evolved into a fully-accredited university offering degrees from the Associate level to Doctorate degrees. South University is a fast growing subsidiary of Education Management, one of the nation's largest providers of post-secondary education with over 80,000 students enrolled. EDMC graduates have become Pulitzer Prize winners, internationally acclaimed chefs, renowned educators, psychologists, innovative animators, and successful corporate trainers.

Situation:

University officials made a last-minute decision to open their fifth campus in the growing Tampa/St. Petersburg market. With just 11 weeks before the first classes were scheduled to start, they hired Anderson to introduce the University to a major media market already served by two other well-established universities and a number of Junior and Community Colleges.

Strategy:

In order to positively establish the South University brand in a crowded marketplace, while achieving new student enrollment goals for a limited degree, Anderson recommended a very different approach from traditional higher education advertising.

Anderson developed a campaign built around the double entendre of “a brand new U”. The advertising featured appealing images of students accompanied by copy rife with the promise of professional and personal success in “a brand new U”.

TV, radio and outdoor formed the backbone of the offline campaign. Each message contained the web address of an Anderson-designed, campaign-specific website where prospective students could go to learn more about the school and its programs (www.abrandnewu.org). Prospects interested in scheduling an appointment with Admissions were encouraged to initiate the process from a contact form on the website.

Results:

• The Tampa campus opened on schedule and has met its enrollment targets for each successive start date.
• Overall, campaign-related messages represented 34.3% of all leads generated but 42.5% of all applicants and over 80% of the initial class, proving that the Anderson campaign delivered a higher quality of motivated applicants than those generated by the University's other sales and marketing channels.
• South University's first branded approach to enrollment was judged a resounding success in the face of fast development and urgent implementation. Based on our success, the University expanded Anderson's role to include its Columbia, SC campus, beginning with the Fall 2006 term.
• This campaign proves once again that the integration of offline and online advertising efforts can lead to significantly improved business results, if properly planned and executed.