Schoolcraft College

Background

• Comprehensive community-based college located in Livonia, Michigan, with a satellite campus in Garden City, Michigan.

Challenge

• Aggressive advertising by competitors drove the college’s urgency to differentiate itself in the marketplace.
• Schoolcraft, like other community colleges, fell into the trap of using low price and convenience as the primary selling points.
• Their previous research pointed to price and convenience as critical decision factors, BUT Schoolcraft was already known to be convenient and affordable, as were their regional competitors.
• Advertising budgets increased every year, yet none of the colleges increased interest or enrollment.
• Successful alumni rarely brag about starting at community college, leaving Schoolcraft’s success virtually invisible.

Approach

• Quantitative research with over 1,600 respondents, including for-credit and non-credit current and prospective students, alumni, and regional employers.
• Focus groups and in-depth interviews with current students, administration, faculty, staff, trustees, foundation members.
• Our research digs deeper.
  • Discovered price and convenience were necessary but not sufficient.
  • Students also deeply wanted to be proud of themselves and their institution. Sure, price and convenience were important, but feeling like they were “in college” and part of a college community were much more motivating and differentiating.
  • Prospective students wanted a challenge. They wanted to feel like they were going places. But they also recognized that they needed support to get there.
• Created and tested brand positioning concepts.
• Identified “Rigor with Support” as the winning concept and developed Supportive Messages, brand voice, and brand standards and guidelines to ensure consistent messaging across media and channels.
• Created a powerful brand campaign and executed it through video, print and out-of-home advertising, environmental graphics, and spirit wear.
• Conducted Message Training workshops with senior leadership, faculty, student tour guides, and staff from admissions, student services, and development.

Results

• Schoolcraft is the only regional college with steady or increasing enrollment for each of the last three years. All competitors have been decreasing.
• The enthusiastic response from the internal community amplified word-of-mouth and increased school pride.
• New Schoolcraft brand increased the overall effectiveness of their other communications, such as social media, led by the internal communications team.