Voted #1 Community College by the Aspen Institute, Valencia College began offering four-year degrees in 2012. This required more than a name change from its “community college” identifier, it required a deeper understanding of student needs and wants as the college developed more opportunities.
Solution: Using both quantitive and qualitative research focused on students, faculty, administrators and influencers, we recognized that the college not only gave its students a great experience, but something even more powerful—a belief in themselves. Starting with an internal anthem brand video, we set the stage for a complete campaign launch.
As we were developing the new brand, we still needed to drive enrollment. Recognizing that “potential” was always going to be a key brand pillar, we did an “all-school” casting call where we met the people whose lives Valencia was impacting at levels they never thought possible. We then used these students and their stories in our campaign.
“We Say You Can” was born out of the brief and our conversations with students. We created and placed both online and offline messaging that tapped into the emotion of a student’s true potential. We used the media as the message to show how studying at Valencia empowers students to change the world around them.
After the brand campaign had launched and reached market maturity, we focused the messaging on definable features and benefits that mattered to students. The media department used trackable KPI metrics with over 30 digital campaigns running at any one time for everything from traditional enrollment to continuing education to specific AA, AS and bachelor’s degrees.
As we are constantly reviewing Valencia’s in-market research, we use insights from their applicant pool to provide deeper meaning into various student segments, specifically those most likely to apply, how far out and for what semester. This campaign continued to create a sense of urgency in applications by maintaining its direct selling approach while leveraging Valencia’s key selling points.