Most college advertising tends to be boring. OK, let me rephrase that since I work for one!
Most college marketing tends to follow the same formula when trying to recruit new students. I know this from another perspective, because I’m in the process of reviewing a boatload of marketing aimed at us because of my son’s impending college decision. Of course we try to shake things up here, but the standard elements are postcards, brochures, web sites, invitation to virtual tours, personalized URL’s (PURLs) etc. Bring up Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Delicious and people get queasy, but we try.
But sometimes someone breaks the mold.
I wrote about how one school used an unusual media buy to do this, and why marketers ignore three fundamentals of marketing:
- Exploiting the medium
- Knowing the customer
- Giving them information they could act on
On the first point, marketers seriously underestimate the power of the medium, and that is precisely where the message falls flat. Media buyers and planners are not on the same page when everyone’s trying to hammer out the message.
To use an example from a different, competitive category, most car ads also tend to be extremely me-too and boring. But take a closer look at this “medium” used for Mini Cooper in Germany. Which do you think came up first with the idea? The hotshot Creative guys or the boring media planners?
Hoipolloireport 
When I was in high school (oh so long ago), I remember our mailbox getting flooded with all of those brochures and over-sized newsletters; it was incredibly overwhelming! Eventually all of those glossy packets you get begin to blend together in your mind and you feel that there really is no difference between A, B or C University because the all those materials start to look the same, except that they come in different colors.
College advertising does make a difference. Here in good ol’ Texas, a friend told me he was embarrassed to attend Schreiner University because of an incredibly ridiculous advertising campaign they ran a few years ago. I think the school quickly got the hint because they remixed the ads with new footage to be modern and “hip” – they’re better, but still not as good at St. Edward’s TV commercials, of course. 🙂
Good luck on the college hunt!
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