Festive Cheer and The Call of the Beautiful North

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

This is possibly the busiest time of the year for Campaigns so apologies for the hurried, garbled blog. As Kylie says it’s all a mad dash to get everything done before the Christmas break. I feel like a manic parent flailing around Debenhams, willing to scratch eyes out to get my hands on the last One Direction calendar for my precious princess. You’d all better back up because I’ve got some hefty deadlines to hit.  I have to keep telling ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ to pipe down; not yet guys, it’s not time. "But we have music, chocolate, shiny things and bottles filled with joy" 

"No" I say, for it isn't time.

So January Start and UCMK activity is all live and the campaigns are going strong. There will be two advertorials running in January to promote our EmployAble scheme and Business courses, as well as, our Psychology research. The lamppost banners have been confirmed, artwork is delivered and they will go up for the UCMK campaign in central Milton Keynes within the next few days.

I completed the Aylesbury Campaign photo-shoots a couple of weeks back at our Buckinghamshire and Bedford campus.’ The artwork will complement the Winter suite but we have used bespoke imagery.  Graeme from our Digital Team has been hard at work finalising the designs and they should be ready by the end of the week. The two radio adverts went live on Monday so listen out for them on Vibe fm and Mix 96. I am also working on a couple of advertorials to promote the courses in the local press.

We have just updated the online Winter copy again. I was sad to change the festive copy as I’d grown rather attached to it but the open evening has been and gone so I must let go; anyway it’s time to let the world know that they should ‘apply now’ for September 2015 courses. We are utilising our market research agency Statistics into Decisions to delve into the response to our activity so that we can continually make adjustments to the plan to ensure that mediums work for us. I am also liaising with them on wider market Intel and benchmarking against our competitors.  

*cough* don’t leave Clare *cough, cough*

Our new design agency Fabrik has been honing the artwork designs for Pre-Clearing. We have a strong concept to run with, it’s just a case of tweaking and finalising now. I won’t tell you too much about that until the big reveal in the New Year. I have been organising the photo-shoot for that; graduates to take part, location, scheduling, shot list and art direction. It’s tomorrow so touch wood *knock, knock* all will go to plan and I will share the spoils with you in my next blog. I am nearly finished finalising the Pre-Clearing Campaign plan. Once that’s done I will sort the scheduling.

The results of the Radio LaB logo survey are in and the resounding winner is….

I will look to campaign planning to see how we can get the logo out there.

Clearing…. I’m not gonna lie guys I’ve been too busy to do any Clearing Campaign analysis  or gap analysis the past couple of weeks but lets face it the only one who's hurting is me there because I love a pie chart as much as I love pies. Well bring it on in the New year.

*Cough* Clare don’t go *sniff, cough*

So I intend to claw my way through these last couple of days before I set off up North to see my family and friends. I can then relax, overindulge and party hard returning refreshed and raring to go. I hope that you all have an outstanding time wherever you are.

OK ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ now it’s time…

Happy Christmas All,

Krystle

Starting to wind down for Christmas (I think!)

So, as you can imagine, this week is mostly getting things finished ahead of the Christmas break.

The UG16 prospectus is now at first proof stage, we've had the first draft of the artwork and we’re feeding back to the designers this week. It’s looking really great- really clean and professional with a clear progression from last year. I’m getting excited seeing it all come together, as I've worked on this from the initial design stage.

The February start new student guide is almost signed off now, ready to go out in the New Year. I’m just waiting on some final tweaks and this will be good to go by the end of the week.

Artwork for our PG Open Events
in February

We've also started to implement the PG Open Day plans for February 2015. Google activity and the website homepage banner will be up and running this week, most agencies have been briefed ready for the activity that is imminent after the Christmas break, and I’ll be pushing the event via social media this week, to drum up some awareness and interest before the holidays.

Clare, don’t leave us!

As Clare mentioned in her previous blog, she leaves us on Christmas eve to go travelling in the New Year. We’re not jealous at all! She will be a big miss within the team, but we all wish her the best of luck! We’re all meeting up after work on Thursday to wish her a final farewell.

Merry Christmas!

Festivities

So, over to Christmas! We’ve got two Christmas lunches in the calendar this week; one today and one on Wednesday. We’ve then got a University wide staff party on Friday afternoon.And as Friday is my last day in office before Christmas, it’s a nice way to start my holidays early! I’ll be travelling up to Sunderland straight after to spend Christmas up North. I’ve got my woollies packed and I’m super excited! The best thing about Christmas is spending time with friends and family. Or is it all the yummy food?! Hmmm….

Speak in the New Year,

K

Spreading festive cheer; Xmas parties and planning

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

We've got our list, we're checking it twice, and we're going to find out who's.... leaving on time to make the Staff Christmas party next week.

Full speed ahead as
the Jan UCAS deadline
approaches

For many offices and departments, as the festive season approaches it's a time to start winding down; a real chance to kick back, relax and enjoy the masses of mince pies and festive cheer as the holiday season approaches. But that's not quite the case for the Marketing team over in the Atrium, as December is often one of our busiest months, second only to August when it's Clearing. It's a real crunch time as we make the most of the last few weeks available to communicate with our enquirers and promote the many benefits of joining the University of Bedfordshire before the UCAS deadline in January. So, whilst term may have officially ended and the cold winter weather sets in, things are truly heating up over in Marketing HQ as we go full speed ahead to action our core enquirer activity.

Today is the day of our open evening! There is still time to book: http://t.co/yXOmx1LvST pic.twitter.com/UbeWXTxF5M
— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) December 10, 2014

The last week has seen the Marketing and Digital Marketing teams working hard to promote a festive open evening. This event wasn't originally planned into the recruitment schedule, but was a quick response to some unforeseen events taking place in the town which resulted in our November event having to be postponed at the last minute. Not to be deterred, the team set out to rework all of the campaign visuals, and devise new marketing plans to push out the new event details, with the help of our CRM team as they communicated the new event details out and encouraged sign ups. The event was a real success overall, and we're pleased that we were able to successfully retain some of the enquirers who had originally signed up to attend the event in November.

New 'Apply Now' artwork

All change, all change!
Now that all open days are officially over for the year, it's time for a quick change of all the campaign artwork again, as we move from plugging our on campus visits, to driving applications directly to UCAS for 2015 entry. We're also busily working away on our conversion newsletters, 13 applicant newsletters to be precise. These are the very first communications that our applicants will receive from us, and so we're aiming to get them off to print just before Christmas, so they're ready to be mailed out almost as soon as we get back.

For those who know me well, you'll know I love a good report and a bit of Marketing data. And so in the last few weeks we've been exploring how we can better track the impact of our work. After a number of meetings and after bouncing a few emails back and forth between the marketing and digital teams, we've finally got a new tracking url system agreed and in place, thanks to Paul in the digital team. It's much easier to recall and recognise than the previous tracking we used, and should provide us with much more insight into engagement with our materials. So watch out for this url popping up in the new year across our marketing materials.

Although it's an incredibly busy time, we always somehow manage to find some time to have some fun along the way. And what better way to get into the festive spirit than by donning our best festive favourites for Christmas Jumper Day.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree (left to right):
Krystle, Clare, Sarah, Beverley and Kylie.

As the year comes to a close, we wish you a very Merry Christmas from everyone here within the Marketing team. Stayed tuned to read more about our key initiatives in the new year.

Team away day

This Wednesday the CRM, market research and marketing teams escaped the office for an afternoon of team bonding at our away day at Putteridge Bury campus.

It provided the perfect opportunity to step back and look at the great things we've achieved as a team over the past year, and gave us a chance to have some fun too. From quizzes to photograph missions to drawing challenges, the day had something for everyone.  I was almost entirely useless during the quiz, but a highlight was my team's creative efforts during the Christmas selfie task.

The team put some serious effort into our selfie...

It was great to get out of the office for an afternoon, and to have some festive fun with the whole team.

Amongst all the fun I've been working hard on lots of different jobs, from the 2016 undergraduate prospectus and departmental conversion newsletters, to verbal brand notes and video filming for the next virtual open event. As always, there's a lot going on and there are lots of deadlines on the horizon.

On a slightly different note, this may well be my last blog post! I'll be leaving the University and my last working day will be Christmas Eve. In the new year I'll be going to America for a couple of months to travel. I've really enjoyed working for the University and a huge bonus has been working with the really great people in the MARC department. I'll definitely keep in touch!

Have an excellent holiday and a very happy Christmas.

Clare

Roll up, roll up

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

Things are really heating up on the Campaigns front. It is that time of year, much like the elusive eclipse, when all the campaigns align in the same spot, at the same time. And it’s all a matter of spinning plates. January starts, January Starts, hold on January Start ooo there goes Winter, keep it spinning, and UCMK’s still turning, but watch it, waaaatch it, let’s get Aylesbury and Pre-Clearing going, don’t you fall Winter annnnnd with the left arm Clearing! Phew!

I have been pulling new advertising  ideas out of the hat for Winter Campaign to enhance our current activity. With the help of the digital and design teams I have been refreshing the artwork to promote our latest open days. The digital team has produced some beautiful and highly festive designs for our online copy featuring snowflakes; look how shiny it is…

Next up is January Starts Campaign. The artworks done, the PO’s have been raised, the tracking is in place. It’s bold, its dynamic, the ultimate strong man. With online display, google, email and print, there is sure to be something for everyone.

With much leaping, flipping and jumping the UCMK Campaign has been booked and is in full swing. Witness the bus ads fly by, coffee cups whirr and lamppost banners sway. 

Pre-Clearing is no joke. With the evaluation complete, planning and artwork concept in hand, let’s see just how many platforms we can shove into that clown car.

Watch me walk the Aylesbury Campaign tightrope with Adult Nursing on one side and Paramedic Science on the other. Two plans have been carefully constructed based on extensive analysis to promote our Adult Nursing course starting in March 2015. We also have a new Paramedic Science course running, designed in partnership with the East of England Ambulance Service Trust and Health Education East of England. I have been busy organising the photography of students and graduates for the artwork.

I have only just begun taming the beast that is Clearing. We ran an enormous campaign earlier this year.  I am in the process of pulling together all the data collected to analyse which mediums were most successful. This set us in good stead for campaign planning. We are always working on ways to be better here in MARC and we are conducting evaluations and analysis earlier and earlier so that we can produce the best strategy possible. We have already started booking in activity for August 2015 to make sure that we purchase quality advertising ahead of the competition.

And for my next trick I will be working on a new logo and branding project for our community radio station, Radio LaB. We have created and narrowed it down to 3 logos which our Market Research team are in the process of testing. More news on that to follow.

So be amazed, look on in awe at all the acts we have in store…

Krystle

Keeping it short and sweet (like me)

I would have liked to have started my blog with a big mention of our recent award wins, but Sarah beat me to it! However, I couldn’t write a whole blog without a little nudge to our recent successes- well done team! And I was able to attend my first award ceremony, which was fun, of course!

Well there is lot’s going on at the moment, but I won’t touch on the smaller stuff, perhaps just a little mention on a small task…THE UNDERGRADUATE 2016 PROSPECTUS!

Since my last post we've started work on the prospectus designs, working with a new design agency, and we've been pulling together the content (old and new) and updating our messages to reflect our verbal branding messages. So far it’s coming along well; the designs are starting to come together and the content is too!

My other biggies are working on newsletters for our 2015 applicants, finishing our January start student guide, working on PG virtual event plans and writing reports and evaluations for our recent Open Days.

Recently, we've also been sourcing our student bloggers for 2014-15. Over the next 2-3 weeks, we will have one student per course area blogging on a weekly basis about their experience of the University and what they've been up to each week. It’s a great experience for the bloggers and it also provides great insight into student life for students interested in studying here; straight from the horse’s mouth!

My desk is starting to gather dust…

I’ve feel I’ve been gallivanting around the country a lot lately, on training, of course. I attended a CRM meeting in Liverpool, to look at the developments within the programme that we use. This was a really good meeting, I met some of the team from Azorus (the company that provide our CRM system) and they presented some of the work they are developing at the moment. We also had discussions within the group around what else we would like the system to do, so we can further develop it around our needs.

I also attended a PG forum in Manchester, which looked at PG marketing and how to increase conversion. This was a great meeting and provided a good networking opportunity for me, and I was able to speak to other universities and institutes that were experiencing similar things to us. There was also some case study presentations from other unis and a student panel, which were really informative. I left feeling inspired.

And, on top of the above travelling, I’m back up to Manchesteragain tonight for a friend’s wedding!

Speak soon,

K

Full of PRide after awards win

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

After a week off in the sunshine, I'm finally back in the office and what a first few days back it's been.

Two Gold Awards for Team UoB!

On Friday the Marketing team got glammed up and headed on over to the CIPRide Awards, as we had been short-listed for not one, but two coveted awards. As I was still over in Gran Canaria, I sat with cocktail in hand, in the hotel bar (the only place with wifi!) sporadically refreshing my twitter feed to see how we had done. Much to my delight, we scooped a Gold award for Best Publication - for our 2014 Undergraduate Prospectus. After whooping in the bar and celebrating with a few more cocktails, I was surprised to see that we had won another Gold award - this was a special judges prize (and the second consecutive year that we had won this award) for the Best Use of Research, Planning, Measurement and Evaluation.

Celebrating on stage with an
award win

This really was a great achievement for the Marketing team, and really is testament to the hard work that is undertaken throughout the year. A lot of time and effort is placed into producing our university publications, but in also evaluating the performance of all work, and assessing the ROI and value in all that we do. The team I'm told, had a great evening out, although were left a little on the hungry side after letting the canapes pass them by.

Gold for Best Publication: @uniofbeds for their Undergraduate 2015 Prospectus #PRideATC
— CIPR East Anglia (@CIPR_EastAnglia) November 7, 2014

Midland Hotel - Manchester

And just when you think it can't get any better! Paul and Lauren from the Digital team, alongside Beverley and I headed off to the Midland Hotel in Manchester only yesterday, as we were up for another award. This time the Marketing team was up for Best Faculty Campaign at the Prospects Postgraduate Awards for our work done last year to increase applications to PGT Sport courses.

Celebrating our award win

After a hearty three course dinner, and a good catch up with our contacts at Prospects, the awards were upon us. We were up in the penultimate category, against three other universities and so left to sweat it out until the end. As the speaker started to talk about the winner, I could see that Paul was already celebrating - I of course had missed the subtle references of a 'photo finish' - which of course was relating to our sport campaign. Once it was announced we cheered as we made our way up to the stage to collect our very first award for a marketing campaign.

Award for Best Faculty Campaign

This brings us to a close for this years' award season. So, until next year it's back to work on our 2016 Undergraduate Prospectus, as well as our main corporate campaigns: Winter, Jan Start and Pre-Clearing - and who knows, maybe next year, it could be one of these initiatives that we'll be celebrating... :-)

Back to work

Having spent last week exploring Berlin and carving pumpkins to celebrate hallowe'en, I’ve arrived back in the office feeling energised and ready to work, which is just as well really because there is so much to do!

The East Side Gallery, Berlin

A day off and a pumpkin later...

Now I’m back I’ll be turning my attention to the 2016 undergraduate prospectus. Kylie has been working hard on the flat plan - the working document that we’ll be able to refer to throughout the production process. Once that’s complete I, along with the rest of the team, will get involved in copywriting for the general sections of the prospectus. Writing is always a highlight as it's a chance to get creative.   

This week I’ll also be spending some time writing a selection of short news articles for our subject newsletters. With the help of academics who have shared some interesting stories with me, I’ve been able to pull together some of the highlights of the past year. Now it’s a case of writing them up into striking news items to help with our conversion efforts.

Over the next week or so I will be having meetings with potential new student bloggers. Our student bloggers come recommended by their lecturers, and will be blogging on a weekly basis about their time at the University of Bedfordshire. It's a great (and paid!) experience for them, and it means we gain lots of valuable content that allows us to showcase the student experience here to our future students. Hopefully we'll have the blogs up and running in the next few weeks.

This week marks the end of my first year at the University. It's hard to believe really but, when I look back on all the things I've learned so far, all the deadlines I've reached, and all the work I've helped to produce, I feel quite proud of what I've achieved. And, now that I've done it all once, finger crossed the second time round will be even better!

Clare

Once upon a midnight dreary

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

As it was Halloween on Friday and you may have noticed my mild obsession with macabre literature…

“and the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door…” – bit of Poe (The Raven) there for you.  Bringing a bit of culture to the blog.

…I jumped at the chance to go and see a screening of Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein in London last week.  It was the version with Benedict Cumberbatch (‘that one off of BBC’s Sherlock”) as Dr Frankenstein and Jonny Lee Miller (‘the bloke who dated Angelina Jolie when she bared semblance to a vampire’) as the Monster.  It was standard Boyle, amazing.  It was really visceral, cathartic and sombre; compelling.  If you get a chance, go and see it.

I hope that you all had an excellent Halloween, whatever you got up to.  I ended up going to a local fun fair and fire work display which was great fun. 

The Marketing Team never ceases to amaze me with their hidden talents; our resident Marketing Manager Sarah, emerged as quite the skilled pumpkin carver; who knew.  Ask her to see pictures of her Tigger creation.   

Camp-whaaaaat-CAMPAIGNS

So “what’s the latest in the world of campaigns” I hear to cry, well I’ll tell you.

We are in the middle of delivering a robust, multichannel Winter Campaign which will run until 15 January 2015 UCAS application deadline.  We are using a range of platforms including bus streetliners, cinema 6 sheets, digital display ads, open day listings, Google search, display, keywords  and retargeting, along with Facebook promoted posts.  We also have a range of online profiles on UCAS, Complete University Guide, Student Room, and Hotcourses.

I have been working closely with our in-house teams, our advertising agency SMRS and the media as part of live reporting to closely track an optimise activity.

Beyond Winter Campaign, we are about to launch activity for the January Start and UCMK Campaigns.  I have been busy finalising plans, organising media and arranging artwork for those.

After that will come Pre-Clearing.  I am meeting with the new appointed design agency for campaigns, Fabrik, on Thursday to get the ball rolling with the artwork concept.  I will be finalising the creative brief in readiness for our meeting.  I am very excited about this new collaboration and am looking forward to get going.  I am also arranging graduates and putting together a schedule for the photography.

I have been working with the Market Research team to arrange focus groups to get feedback on the Clearing Campaign and the current Winter Campaign.  We will be running interactive workshop sessions on Wednesday to get student feedback on our artwork and on competitor campaign activity.  This will feed into future briefs.  I will let you know the outcomes.

A really important part of my job is evaluating campaigns.  By using all the data at my disposal I am able to analyse activity and reflect on what worked, what didn’t and recommend progressive measures.  I have recently been working on the Aylesbury and Pre-Clearing evaluations, the recommendations of which will feed into the brief for this year’s plan of activity.

There’s a lot going on as ever so I better get back to it.  

Later skaters,

Krystle

All this talk of 'winter' is getting me excited for Christmas!!

Some of our Recruitment Team
and student Ambassadors waiting to greet
PG students on campus  

From recent blog posts, you will certainly be aware that we have now launched our Winter campaign. Winter is definitely the most used word around the MARC office at the moment. The teams have done a great job pulling it all together and the artwork looks really good.

We’re also in the middle of the open day rush. Since my last blog we’ve held a PG open day on 16 October and another UG open day on 18 October at our Bedford campus. Our Bedford event saw 183 prospective students on our campus, not to manetion schools we had in attendence. There is also another UG open day this Saturday (25 October) at our Luton campus. And let’s not forget our November open days too (15 November, Bedford campus and 22 November, Luton campus). Once the November open days have taken place, we have a couple of months before the next events, so we can evaluate the pre-January events, which will influence our planning for the post-January open day events. So far we’ve seen some good sign up numbers , so hopefully this will continue. We currently have 656 student signed up to our event this Saturday.

Photography
As part of the prospectus project, we have our annual photography session this week and next. We have five days of photography booked in total, giving us the opportunity to get new student profiles and photographs of our new and upgraded facilities. As our prospectuses hold a lot of images, it’s really important that we get the images right, to really show off our campuses and reflect what we can offer our students. A picture speaks a thousand words, as they say! Clare spent two days with the photographer this week to get shots of students and video interviews and I will be working with photographers next week to get shots of our facilities and campuses. I’m excited to be art directing the shoots, as it’s the first time I’ve done photography at the University and it will give me the opportunity to meet some more of our academics and students, as well as experiencing some of the facilities that I have not yet seen.

My lovely CIM certificate

My CIM Training

I recently went to London for a one day CIM course on how to write an integrated marketing plan. I was really keen to attend the session as one of my main responsibilities in the team is putting together our open day plans, which this year need to produce a 25% increase in footfall. The day was quite useful, it was a good refresh to some of the things I learnt at university (which seems like forever ago) and also gave me a few things to think about. Now that I have been at Bedfordshire for eight months and I have been writing integrated open day plans for the past five months, it was really good to leave the course feeling reassured that what we do in terms of our planning is really robust, and we really use insight and evaluations from previous events to influence our future plans, which is key to improving. I also got a little certificate at the end of the day, to show I had taken part in the course.

Welcome to Maria

And finally, on behalf of the marketing team, I’d like to give a warm welcome to Maria, our new marketing administrator, who will be working with the team two days a week for the next six weeks. She is a recent University of Bedfordshire PG graduate and we look forward to working with her in the coming weeks!

Speak soon,

K

Graduates, gavels and a glowing awards 'do

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Going live with our Winter visuals.

You'll see from previous blog posts that winter has well and truly arrived. And we're not talking seasons here. The central marketing team has been working behind the scenes for a few months now to create our new Winter campaign artwork (above), which I'm sure you'll agree looks fantastic and takes the 'journey' concept that one step further, as we show some of our successful graduates reflecting on their success and how it all began back at Bedfordshire. We're really excited as our campaign goes live across the many print and digital platforms. However, as we firmly move into our Winter campaign, it seems that not everyone can bear to part with our creative Clearing concept just yet...

Studying Law in Beds ;-)

Much to the amusement of the marketing team, this years' visual has really taken the media by storm and has really got people talking; from a select few websites taking issue with our use of a gavel and wig as props to represent a stereotyped image of Law, and hysterically likening the wig to 'the one worn by the Prince Regent in Blackadder the Third', through to the Guardian placing us in the top 5 for campaign faux pas' for the use of what they deem to be a 'risque hasthag'. It's certainly been an interesting few months for us here at Bedfordshire as we take on a more confident and commercial advertising approach to increase stand out in a crowded market place, whilst still having a little fun along the way!

For us, the Clearing campaign has been a resounding success, and so whether you love it or hate it, we can safely say that you knew about it. What did you think of this years campaign?

Good luck to @uniofbeds post grad sports dept, finalist in best faculty campaign category #pgawards
— postgradawards (@postgradawards) September 30, 2014

Short-listed for Best Faculty Campaign.

In other news, I was really excited to see that we've been short-listed for yet another award, at this years' Prospects Postgraduate Awards. We're up against three other universities including Brunel University London, Cambridge Judge Business School, and the University of Sunderland in the category of Best Faculty Campaign - for our work undertaken last summer to promote our PGT Sport courses, which generated an overall increase in applications by more than 60% compared to the previous year.

The awards dinner is taking place in November up in Manchester, so we'll keep you posted as to how we do. Keep everything crossed for us!

Another busy month!

I'm finding it hard to believe that a whole month has passed since my last post; it feels more like a few days! So much has happened in the last few weeks so I'm just going to pick out a few highlights to talk about…

Tender Pitches
As Krystle mentioned in the last post, the team was recently part of the panel listening to agencies pitch. My particular interest was in how the agencies presented their creative ideas for our 2016 suite of publications; as I'll be working with the team on the 2016 prospectuses, I wanted to know lots about the look and style of the publications but also the processes that will be help us reach an outstanding final result without too many issues along the way.
It was fascinating to see how each agency approached the tender process in their own unique way, and some of the creative ideas they came up with were really impressive. I found it a massive challenge to pick a favourite at the end of the day!

Can't wait to see what the 2016
prospectuses will look like!

 2016 Prospectuses

While we finish off our work on the 2014 entry and start work on the 2015 cycle, the Marketing Team has begun work on the 2016 suite of prospectuses! So, as well as trying not to get confused, I've been working with Kylie to arrange a photo shoot for prospectus images. The shoot is due to take place at the end of October. We'll be taking profile photos of students and also photographing as many of our brilliant facilities as we can.

Verbal Brand

In that past week or two I've met up with colleagues from the Students' Union and the Department of Computer Science and Technology. In these meetings we've discussed the University's new Verbal Brand strategy.
As ever, it's great to talk to colleagues. I always come away from meetings like these full of new knowledge about the impressive things that are going on in the University. The verbal brand project is exciting because it's going to allow us to use all the information we find out to positively explain what we do here and why we do it so well.

Catch up soon.

Clare

The Wanderer Returns

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

Since my last blog I have been on holiday to Gran Canaria.  It was a relaxing, sun drenched week filled with ice cream sundaes, sea, sand and beautiful sunsets.  We stayed in a safari themed hotel that had animal sound effects to plunge you into the depths of the amazon, life-size animal sculptures that transport you to the Serengeti and there were even terrapins in ponds lining the walkways on the ground floor.  (The temptation was great but I can confirm that I didn’t steal a terrapin).  It was wonderful.  Here for your viewing pleasure is me doing a double teapot next to one of said statues.

Now it is back to the world of work with a bump.  I spent a good day just going through my emails but now I’m back in the groove (Groove is in the heartttttttt…anyone, no. OK.)

 

Winter is here

 

The Clearing advertising schedule has finally come to a close; I have been arranging for all our outdoor advertising to be taken down.  The next step will be reviewing all the data collated during the campaign and scrutinising it to produce a detailed and comprehensive campaign evaluation that we can use to hone our future activity.  It will be interesting to see which platforms performed best and to look into how new forms of advertising fared in comparison to the tried and tested methods.  I will let you know. 

I have been progressing the Winter artwork and as promised will unveil it in this blog.

“It was on a dreary night of September that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me (pens, note pad, shutterstock images)… the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my hard drive was close to full capacity, when, by the magic of dropbox’s online function, I saw the bright glowing eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and convulsed as letters emerged from its keyboard…Behold… (too dramatic?)”

 

The strap continues and develops the ‘student journey’ message set out in Clearing and conveys that our outstanding teaching, based on world leading research and excellent student support will bring out our students potential. 

The artwork sets out to visually representing UoB unearthing students hidden talents/skills/passions.  The imagery encapsulates the idea that UoB students enter as ‘diamonds in the rough’ and emerge as globally connected entrepreneurs.  

The imagery used is dynamic to appeal to creative thinkers.  It demonstrates that as an institution we nurture and encourage the entrepreneurial mind-set of our students.  The graduates used embody entrepreneurial spirit; the glowing vector in each artwork symbolises that which is unique in each graduate that makes them stand out from the competition.   We are very proud of our 2014 NSS results so that also features prominently in the artwork.

I have really been up against the clock with this project and am relieved to see it finalised.  I am a perfectionist and feel that I could have developed the designs further but sometimes you just have to do the best that you can in the time that you have to work with, so I’ve done just that.  With the scheduling, briefing, developing and delivery complete, most of the Winter Campaign artwork is now live, so look out for it on buses, trains, phone boxes and in cinemas etc. 

Our digital team have created a bespoke landing page where you can watch the graduates talking about their experiences, get information on our forthcoming open days and live chat with our advisors.  Check it out here: http://www.beds.ac.uk/discover
 

Tender Time

It is that time of year when we tender for a new prospectus/creative campaigns agency.  Last week the Marketing Team received pitches from the shortlisted agencies.  This is the first time that I have been on the panel for a university tender; the appointment process is very different in the private sector.  It must have been a very nerve wracking experience for those presenting, my heart went out to them.  Lucky for us there were some strong contenders to choose from.  I felt really inspired seeing the different agency designs and I am really looking forward to embarking on a new creative partnership.

Later Skaters,

Krystle

Open day success

Open Days

Signage at our open day

I mentioned in my last blog that I was working on the UG open day. Well, the open day took place on Wednesday (24 September) and it was a huge success for sign ups. We had 315 students sign up for Bedford, with 191 people attending and 512 students sign up for Luton, with 204 people attending. We were all monitoring the sign up numbers on a daily basis and getting excited about the amount of signups we had generated. Although there is still work to do around the dropout rates (which we are working on), it was great to see that the activity in the open day plan generated some really good numbers. Recruitment also did a lot of work getting busloads of schools onto our campuses, so as you can image, we were busy, busy, busy!  I’m looking forward to doing the evaluation for this campaign and seeing where the signups correlated with the marketing activity.

Our next UG open days are in October and November, so next week I will be putting plans together for these events. However, due to the close proximity of the events, these will have a shorter lead time.

Our PG open day plans are also underway now, with Google adwords, emails to students and social media activity already taken place. And we have lots of activity happening around our campuses in the coming weeks, as the students return. It would be great to see the same success for the PG open day, as we seen for the UG open day.

UG16 prospectus

Work has also started on the UG16 prospectus. I have booked photography for the end of October, and put the production schedule together. In the coming weeks I will produce a flatplan and work with quality on the courses lists. We also have two days of agency pitches next week, where design agencies come in to pitch to us and show us their ideas for our prospectuses and campaigns. There are 10 of us sitting on the panel, and following these pitches we will collectively decide who we feel is the best agency.

Training

Myself and my colleague, Clare, also attended a print workshop this week with Belmont Press, in Northampton. It was a really informative day; we learnt about different forms of printing, paper stock and took a look around the facilities to see the machines in action.

Lot’s going on as usual.

Speak soon,

K