At least some of the students hitting the books at B.C.’s post-secondary schools this month have likely been touched or influenced by one of a number of marketing and branding campaigns launched recently by universities and colleges in the province.
For each post-secondary institution, marketing and branding is about getting in front of the student as often as possible in order to remain top of mind with students during their school selection process.
It’s also about reinforcing an institution’s strengths and showcasing what separates it from others in the post-secondary landscape, areas that Marty Yaskowich said are undergoing some fundamental changes.
“The emergence of many different universities that were once colleges is certainly changing the landscape,” said the managing director of Tribal DDB Canada.
“And there are online universities now that weren’t around 10 years ago.”
Ad agency DDB Canada’s Vancouver office, which includes its online advertising division Tribal, is leading branding and marketing campaigns for the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Langara College.
Yaskowich said post-secondary institutions have a “product offering” that’s both unique and intangible.
“It’s not a pair of shoes you walk into a store and buy,” he said. “It’s a much longer cycle of research to make that purchase, if you will – and there are a lot of influencers that come into it.”
Students have many choices when selecting post-secondary institutions, said Lisa Fisher, UBC’s brand manager, so schools need to reach them and their influencers in many ways.
“You need to reach their parents, their guidance counsellors and all the people who influence their decision-making,” said Fisher.
After launching its new brand and marketing strategy for B.C. last year, UBC is rolling out its new look and messaging across Canada this year and internationally next year.
While the university is using traditional advertising channels, much of the “story-telling” in the campaign will be online in social media channels and video. The new brand slogan – “a place of mind” – is part of UBC’s efforts to present itself as a more cohesive organization. The university traditionally left marketing to each faculty.
“We really felt we had to come together with a clear brand and have a more consistent message and look and feel across the university’s efforts.”
She said the messaging isn’t about attracting enough students, it’s about attracting the brightest students.
Fisher added that it’s also aimed at influencing business leaders, policy-makers and grant-makers, to give UBC students a potential edge in the job market and researchers an edge when competing for grants with other institutions.
DDB is rolling out Langara’s new brand – “the college of higher learning” – in advertising and print materials, with a full launch in early fall that will be tied to the college’s 40th anniversary.
In developing the campaign, DDB and Langara acknowledged the trend in which a number of colleges are becoming universities.
“As a college [Langara] offers personalized student educational experience through small class sizes and opportunities for one-on-one instructor interactions,” said Yaskowich.
“They felt that their new branding needed to reflect their pride in being a college as well as their focus on academic excellence.”
The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is in the second year of its “it” campaign, which encourages students to find their “it” – their passion, their career.
To highlight the diversity of its curriculum, BCIT’s campaign messaging includes word fonts that are built out of the tools and other items found in a particular field of work.
“It does a great job of speaking to the hands-on, applied nature of our education,” said Leslie Courchesne, manager of customer accounts in BCIT’s marketing and communications department.
She said BCIT’s market research shows that the institute is known for providing top trades training in B.C., but that it needs to better market its technical programs like robotics and engineering.
“BCIT is quite different than a university or a college,” said Courchesne. “We have to make sure that our targets are aware of what we have to offer and how it is that we’re different.”
Does all this branding, messaging and marketing work?
“There are a lot of factors that influence our enrolment, but [BCIT] is in stronger position going into September than it has been for the past eight years,” said Courchesne.
UBC’s campaign last year targeting international students also provides evidence that marketing can affect a student’s decision-making.
The university’s applications from international students increased 17% this year.
Fisher echoed Courchesne in noting that there are several factors that go into a student’s decision to apply to an institution. “But we do think that efforts we made in our marketing last year had an impact.” •
Some of B.C.’s top post-secondary schools are reporting higher application volumes and enrolment as the new school year gets underway.
Student applications at Thompson Rivers University are up 2.1% this year after the school’s enrolment increased 6.4% last year – the first time it had risen at the university in four years. Among programs that are generating the highest interest at Thompson are adventure tourism and tourism management.
Josh Keller, Thompson Rivers’ director of student recruitment and liaison, said the school’s retail meat-processing and culinary arts programs, both of which are part of its tourism department, are getting more applications than they have in almost a decade.
And while its undergraduate science program is generating more interest, a number of the schools other technology programs are still lagging.
“Some of our technology programs have been soft for quite a long time,” said Keller. “I think there is an impression that there aren’t any jobs in that sector.
At press time, the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) was at about 99% capacity. Last year at this time, the institute was 92% full.
While demand for its trades and technology programs is increasing, Pat Matthieu, BCIT’s director of enrolment planning, said apprenticeships are at 90% capacity, which is down several percentage points from last year.
“Employers may not be indenturing new apprentices right now,” said Matthieu.
“They’re saying, ‘Our current workforce is what we’re going to stay at.’”
First-year student enrolment at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Okanagan campus is up 22% in what is that campus’ sixth year of enrolment growth.
UBC’s Vancouver campus dropped its enrolment this year by less than a percentage point to return to near-provincially funded levels. Overall enrolment at its Vancouver campus rose to 46,789 in 2009 from 35,152 in 2000.