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

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!

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

9 Weeks & 4 Days (but who's counting)

Sophia Meola, Marketing Administrator

Hello there everyone!

It has been a whole 9 weeks and 4 days (but who’s counting) since I started my position here at the MARC department and it is still as great as ever. If you read my first post then you would have got a little background about me, what I like and what my aspirations are. I am happy to be back and writing a second post for this blog and no doubts I will ramble on again like last time. Since we spoke last I have had quite a lot going on in terms of work around the MARC department. I am attending regular team and departmental meetings, working hard on my tasks, getting involved in new campaigns and just generally settling more into the department.

What am I currently working on? Well, in my last post I mentioned I was given the opportunity to work on a numerous of different tasks. One of which is still updating a handful of subject guides for the new academic year and students arriving end of September beginning of October (not long now). These are still being worked on, altered and re-designed; however, they should be completed considerably soon. The road has been a little bumpy with some specific subject guides but who doesn’t like a bit of a challenge right?! I can almost see the finish line and the official DEADLINE for that matter so I really need to push to get these completed. I am on leave from Wednesday 24th and return Monday 29th so ideally I need to get them completed before my leave…fingers crossed!

The photo library! I have been working on the online photo library for a few weeks now and it is slowly but surely coming together nicely. This task has involved me scrolling though all images available on the internal server and updating captions, tags and deleting duplicates. This has been a great task to work on and jump in to between everything else I am working on at the moment. I consider myself quite an organised individual so I have really enjoyed re-organising it all (I am such a dork).

On the theme of pictures I was actually asked to contribute and take part in the new 2014 winter campaign. This involved me attending a nifty photoshoot and answering a few questions in a video. I am extremely excited to see the final results and everything should be going live Monday 22nd of this month so keep your eyes peeled. I have refused to watch my video takes back as yet as I don’t know what to expect…did I say the right thing? Did I miss anything out? Does my hair and makeup look decent? – Such a girly thing for me to say haha. The thing is I want to start making videos to progress my personal blog and start the whole Youtube vlogging thing so ideally I really need to get it down to a T. I mean, otherwise it might be a tad tricky editing a video and uploading them. Ohh nothing is ever easy with me.

Now for a task that I have completed! A few weeks ago I was told to copy over the 2015 Undergraduate and 2015 Postgraduate prospectuses into single file documents onto the W drive. Just like the above suggests I went through a copied and pasted each page throughout the prospectus into word documents and then re-formatted the layout ready for when we start work on the new 2016 ones! I found it very therapeutic and also very interesting as I got to obtain a full understanding of all of the subjects we offer here at the university.

A few weeks ago now I completed my Business Student blogging internship with the university. It was such a great experience to get involved in and I love how it developed into an online diary format documenting my final year at the university. It is something I can always look back on in the future and reminisce. This was actually the first year introducing the student blogs and I think there is talk in the works that they will be carrying on…yay! During a team meeting on Monday I was told that the team wanted me to help recruit and train the new student bloggers. This really excited me because blogging is a huge part of my life and being able to incorporate that into a job role seems like perfection to me. Blogging has become a huge part of my life and it is such a glorious tool that can be used throughout so many different marketing platforms…the possibilities are endless.

On the theme of Monday’s team meeting, I was told that the MARC department wanted to elongate my contract a keep me on board a little longer than initially planned. For a Business management graduate who only graduated two months ago this is a great opportunity for me. Hopefully I will be able to stay the duration the team want me, however, I did make a few plans and commitments prior to finding out about the new contract as I obviously thought my last day would be 3rd October…fingers crossed we can work everything out.

What would be a Sophia blog post without something a little personal?! In my last post I mentioned that my blog was nominated under two categories in the 2014 Cosmopolitan Blog Awards. Since writing that post the voting has now closed and we find out results during an awards ceremony on 7th October in London. I am extremely excited to head down, meet up with some blogging friends and also meet a whole load of new bloggers. I am a little nervous and anxious about it all but just to be going to the awards for me is an achievement in itself so we will see what else the night might bring. I am planning on bringing my nifty Canon 700D with me so I may or may not write a little post about it all to update you guys on here or on my student blog…eeeep! P.S my blog has had it's little makeover now so if you fancy a little peek you can do so by clicking here. 

Overall, it has been a great 9 weeks and I am looking forward to starting work on some new projects...one of which will be the new 2016 prospectuses! Rightio, I think that is everything that is going on at the moment. I hope you enjoyed reading my rambles once again. If you have made is this far then well done, you deserve a gold star!

Speak to you all soon!

We're still clearing that path, someone get a leaf blower

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

The Clearing Campaign is still going strong with all hands on deck in the MARC Department.  We have ambitious targets to hit and everyone is working very hard to achieve them.  It’s been great seeing all the artwork erected in various formats in the local area.  Passers-by have looked on bemused as I have tried to capture billboards and lamppost banners on my mobile whilst striving not to walk into any hedges.

I went to the Odeon cinema in Milton Keynes yesterday to see ‘Million Dollar Arm,’ my boyfriend’s choice, he is always forcing me to watch sport and related documentary’s about former basketball players that have succumbed to the dark, drug fuelled underworld of sport only to emerge on the other side as motivational speakers (!).  Needless to say I was hesitant to sit through a film about both cricket and baseball but it turned out to be a typical feel good Disney endeavour.  Anyway I digress, my point being as I sat through trailers for ‘Lucy’ and ‘The hundred foot journey’ I was proud to see our Clearing advert flash up on screen.  It was good to see that it is still going strong.

We have even extended, upscaled and added further activity to really strengthen and optimise the campaign.  We have extended and added outdoor advertising, expanded our events remit and added additional Student Room, UCAS, What Uni , Metro and other University sector advertising online.  We are using detailed tracking and analytics to augment the campaign and ensure that we are using the best possible methods to get the brand out there.  I am also working on a new radio advert to refresh the message that it’s not too late to join us.

Winter is coming

For the past few weeks I have been working on the new artwork concept for the Winter Campaign.  We want to take the current Clearing concept of the student journey and develop it further to show the graduate journey.  We have been looking at how to retain what we created with Clearing but take it to the next level.  Coming up with creative ideas is easy, the hard part is making your ideas work on the page; making a functional advert that delivers whilst retaining edge and innovation.  And time is never on our side.  After playing around with different ideas we have now developed a mocked up design.  But you can’t see it yet, because it isn’t ready; our (proverbial Frankenstein’s) monster is yet to have life pumped in it.

But I can tell you that the strap will be ‘Discover a path to your future’ which continues and develops the ‘clearing a path to your future’ message (see what we did there; of course you did it’s not that deep).  The artwork sets out to visually represent UoB unearthing students hidden talents/skills/passions in the form of a glowing image against a dusky backdrop; it’s very dramatic. 

I was out of the office last week doing the photography and videography for it.  We have some great graduates on board from a range of disciplines.  It was really fascinating to hear about the different experiences and journeys that they had undertaken.  I found it inspirational to see what our graduates have achieved and it was great to hear how passionately they felt about their experiences here.  Some were recent graduates who had obtained scholarships, some had high profile jobs at well know companies and others ran their own businesses.  Our resident Marketing Assistant Sophia Meola had her arm twisted to represent Business.  I got some lovely ethereal, ballerina shots of her.

As ever we are very ambitious in our vision. For our Sports graduates Joe Strange and Ryan Freckleton I wanted to get dynamic motion shots of them running and jumping which meant taking shot after shot to get the image just right.  A photo shoot with us isn’t any ordinary photo-shoot it’s a chance to both pose and get your sweat on.    

We experimented with directional lighting to create extreme states and produce depth and interest in the photographs.  The test was articulating the vision in my head so that the photographer and model understood exactly what I was trying to achieve.  A lot of it was trial and error as solutions which made sense in theory didn’t always work out in practice.  Nonetheless I am confident that the resulting shapes and hues will really give this campaign a sophisticated, corporate feel that will set us apart from the competition and take the brand from strength to strength.

I’m sure you can tell that I am really excited to start working on the artwork properly now that we have got all the photography sorted; can’t wait to see it come to life.

Anyone who knows me will know that I love a spread sheet, sad I know, and I have been too busy of late to give my spread sheets the attention they deserve so off I go to love and nurture them back to present day accuracy.

Type soon,

Krystle   

A thrilling week at work

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Managers Away Day

It seems that time is flying by at the moment. And the days seem to go by all the more rapidly, especially when you're limited to only two days of desk time within the working week. That's right! I've been out and about this week, breaking out from my 'typical week' which usually involves quite a lot of meetings in and around campus. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to get 'out there' and meet the wider University to support their recruitment efforts, but it always makes for a nice change to get off-site and progress your own projects. After taking Wednesday out with the other Marketing Managers for a team building away day, it was off to Manchester with Krystle, our Campaign Officer, on Thursday morning to meet with a Media Agency we've been working with on a rather ad-hoc basis to discuss our 2015 Winter Campaign.

The one that everyone wants
to win!

But I must confess, my trip to Manchester wasn't all work and no play. Straight after the meeting I, alongside other Marketing and Digital Marketing colleagues made our way over to the Palace Hotel in Manchester, in anticipation of this years Heist Awards, aka the Education Oscars. Anyone who works within the HE Sector, and Marketing specifically, will know just how much importance is placed on the coveted Heist awards. If a team was going to win an award that represented a shining example of best practice then this was the one. The entries are notoriously difficult to compile and so to get short-listed, for us, was a massive achievement in itself and one that we are very proud of.

At the @heistawards. Lets see if table 34 is lucky for @uniofbeds this evening pic.twitter.com/2aGoay73cZ
— Sarah Hampton (@Sarah_Hampton) July 10, 2014

Getting in the carnival groove

This year's theme was 'carnival', and we were in for a very special treat with an array of singers and samba dancers performing on stage, much to my delight (the singer could be a potential winner for Eurovision in years to come I'm sure of it - which I adored). And, known as a team who likes to get stuck in and get involved, we donned our carnival masks and wore them with pride and we bopped away and boogied in our seats.

Out en masse: left to right:
David, Me, Sioned, Beverley
and Paul 

We were up for Best Undergraduate Prospectus, for our 2014 Publication. This category is one of the 'biggies' and so it was no surprise to see that we were up against a 'short-list' of 13 other UK Universities. Although we had a great evening, we sadly didn't get the gold this year. We were pipped to the post by the University of Leicester who had presented a great looking Undergraduate Prospectus focused on their finding of Richard III. Funnily enough, we lost out on the Best PG Prospectus title last year to the same University for the very same reason - I'm seeing a pattern here! So, if you see me by our new library development armed with a spade, you all know why!

Exclusive: our new PG15
prospectus

For the second week running, I only have two days in the office, but this time it's because I'm taking some much needed annual leave - a whole three days, to celebrate getting our Postgraduate 2015 Prospectus off to print. After a great team effort over the last few months, we've finally signed the publication off. It'll soon be available online, so keep checking back over the next few weeks for a first look at our brand-new prospectus. We'd love to know what you think! We're not entirely finished yet, as we still have the printer proofs to sign off, but the big bulk of the work is now complete, so I'm taking the time while the sun is still shining, as when I come back, everything will be firmly focused on Clearing.

Stepping out the office

by Michelle Ramsumair, Marketing Administrator

Starting work when it's dark enough outside to still sleep definitely tells me it's almost time for those delicious limited edition Costa hot beverages. The beautiful festival of lights is also approaching on the 03 November. For all those celebrating I wish you a very happy Diwali in advance. Next Halloween and Christmas!

Weeks are flying and it's almost time for my holiday, but more on that at a much later date. In the meantime the team are working hard in one of the busiest times of the year. We mostly remain in our office, but all our hard work can be be seen by those outside. Our second wave of the Winter Campaign is about to start so make sure to look out for us. We couldn't let you forget us after Clearing now could we?

As October open days pass we start preparing for 16 November open days at our Luton and Bedford campuses. It's always interesting and fun to meet nervous potential students and their encouraging parents. Reminds me of when my mum and I started looking at universities. I remained quiet and my mum would push me forward slightly saying 'You're the one applying not me, say something'. It's the best way to find out everything you want to know about where you will be spending some of the most important years of your life. Not to worry though, just remember everyone is in the same boat.

I recently attended a CASE Publications Forum in London. It's always great to escape the office for a day to network and see what more you can learn in the world of marketing. The importance of publications, working with agencies and story telling are the main areas we covered. I came away with many interesting points to feedback to the team, whether it was reassurance we are on the right track or learning something knew. It was definitely beneficial for all who attended.

Amongst the daily race we are running there has to be some fun right? So I've recently found a new hobby... snowboarding! Well I've done level 1 and level 2 this weekend. Not quite flying down mountains and doing tricks just yet but that's all in good time. All I can say is if your skiing or snowboarding next year...be careful on the slopes! I may be hurtling past you. So if you see someone screaming, zipping past you and they are still standing, that's not me. If you see someone screaming and rolling past you..bingo!

Wish me luck!