CASE STUDY II:
CREATE AN INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN

SITUATION: New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) has transformed dramatically in 63 years, from a local “vocational” school to a highly ranked global university offering 90+ degrees, including medical degrees—yet it was largely unknown or misunderstood. 

NYIT needed to break out of category-generic advertising, publication, and web design, and uplift its reputation by showcasing the university’s reputation-building attributes: students, faculty and alumni embracing the power of technology in the 21st century.

OVERARCHING GOAL:  Burnish NYIT’s reputation and attract new students in an extremely competitive marketplace by showcasing the university’s unique and authentic voice.

"Nancy believes that any business problem can be solved with the power of a great creative idea.

She knows that after the audience segmentation, data analysis and strategic development, there must be a single-minded, razor sharp creative idea that unlocks the real potential of a brand. 

"She will go through walls and move mountains on behalf of a positive common cause, and I would recommend her to any company who wants to transform their business and organization."

Bill Oberlander,
Founder and Creative Director
OBERLAND

TANGIBLE OBJECTIVES:  In NYC, where print, digital, and video ads occupy every square available inch of our real and virtual world, NYIT had to do something unique to stand apart from not only other colleges and universities, but everything else competing for our target audiences’ attention. Specifically, we set out to:

• Shine a light on the core academic competencies of NYIT to help improve the university’s reputation in certain fields.

• Align advertising around the recruitment cycle and showcase our stellar students to encourage applications.

• Identify and promote programs that needed support or were poised for growth.

• Establish consistency in brand voice and images from ads to website to video to collateral materials.

TACTICS: Knowing that NYIT's primary audience of prospective students was composed of digital natives with a historically low attention span, the team had to devise solutions beyond traditional public relations—although that was also important. Our tactics had to be integrated and seamless; our messages compelling, but also easily accessed and absorbed. 

• Brought in an award-winning external advertising agency, Oberland, to help us create a concept and strategize placement. We built a campaign around the tagline "The Future is Ours." Authenticity was key, as was humor, where appropriate.

• Used outbound marketing (e.g. search engine marketing) to promote inbound marketing content, especially videos on the university website.

• Created a 30-second anthem video geo-targeted to NYIT's two New York campuses introducing the new brand theme and the tagline "The Future Is Ours."

• Fine-tuned a media mix of traditional advertising (print ads, out-of-home, radio, and television) with more measurable digital tactics (social media marketing, SEM, geofencing, look-alike modeling, list matching, YouTube influencers, digital display ads, retargeting).

• Launched NYIT's first paid social media ad campaigns, including those aimed at top feeder schools and accepted students.

• Continually tested and optimized new marketing initiatives.

• Implemented analytic tools to measure and improve campaigns.

RESULTS

• Five million video completes (watching our advertising videos through to the end – a 40% increase over the previous year).

• The anthem video, which was posted to Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram accounts, generated more than 2,000 organic views and nearly 25,000 impressions.

• 11,300 clicks to NYIT's website generated from paid search; 54,000 from paid social media; 116,000 from digital ads.

• 30% increase in web traffic over previous year to admissions, academic, and degree pages.

• Average visit to website was 6 minutes, a 60% engagement improvement over the old website.

• 6,700 applications (representing more than 55% of total applications for fall 2018) could be tracked directly from NYIT's digital advertising.

• First-year undergraduate enrollment increased by 21% in the first year of the campaign and an additional 5% above that in year two.

• Oberland was named AdAge's 2018 Small Agency of the Year for its work on the campaign.

• The NYIT integrated marketing campaign was recognized with the 2017 Big Apple Award for Reputation and Brand Management and PRSA's Best of the Big Apple Award for Best Use of Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.