And, we're live!

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Clearing Campaign 2016 - microsite is live!

It's been months in the making, but we've finally gone live with this year's Clearing Campaign. Hurrah!

After all of the research, planning and photoshoots, it's all now starting to take shape, with the first set of ads going live this week pushing our 'Beat the Clearing rush' and 'Received your BTEC results? Apply now' messaging as part of our early targeting strategy.

Graeme, the Digital Marketing Officer meanwhile, has also worked his web magic on a brand new, shiny microsite (see above left) which you can check out via: www.beds.ac.uk/makeithappen. We hope you'll agree that it looks great; clean layouts, mobile responsive, clear conversion goals and call to actions, and dynamic visuals to sustain engagement. It's got a professional feel to it - strongly aligning it with our core marketing messaging.

It's still early days, so keep checking back over the next few weeks, as we add more rich media and dynamic content to the Clearing microsite.

For many our fellow Bedfordshire peers, I'm sure you've already caught a glimpse of this year's artwork in the latest edition of the staff newsletter @Beds. But for those who missed it, check out the images below to see how the whole campaign looks together as a full set. This year's campaign is led by 6 creatives: Media, Life Science, Performing Arts, Business and Computer Science (both of which double up as our generic visuals), and last but not least Sport Science & Physical Activity.

This year we've kept with the employability and student experience themes, and have continued to build on our creative proposition of 'Graduate as a Professional'. Importantly for us as Marketers, we've spent months developing this concept and the artwork, and every aspect of the visual has been carefully considered and composed. Think bold aspirational hooks, clear and uncluttered artwork, dynamic imagery of real students engrossed in real practical student experiences, central call to actions, and digital and social media integration. We feel this year's campaign is stronger than ever, and really feel it presents the University in a strong and confident manner. It's still early days, but we're really excited to see the campaign in full flow, in a few week's time.

And whilst our focus is now firmly rooted in the 2016 Clearing Campaign, we've spent some time reflecting back on last year's campaign activity, and have even managed to get another award submission in for the CIPR Pride Awards 2016, for our work on the 2015 Clearing Campaign, in the category of Best Integrated Campaign (we're hoping to retain our title, as a Gold Winner last year).

And so our first submission has now been entered for this year's @CIPR_Awards for Best Integrated Campaign. One more to write! #PRideAwards

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) June 3, 2016

This follows on from Kylie's earlier submission to CIPR for best Low Budget Campaign. We should find out the result in July, so keep everything crossed for us! And who knows, maybe next year we could be entering the 2016 campaign for a top award. Here's hoping!