The Brief
SOAS, University of London is a leading institution for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Historically they had been top 20 in the league tables, but recently have dropped slightly below this.
The aim of this campaign was to build brand awareness through outdoor, school, online and in targeted print magazines to increase undergraduate applications.
Historically applications come from students, who speak a foreign language, have lived abroad, have looked for specialist or unique courses, or find an international or global focus appealing. Therefore the campaign we built had to be multi-cultural, multifaceted and demonstrate the sophisticated, specialist nature of SOAS.
Proposed Solution
PlattForm’s solution was to produce a detailed media plan encompassing a range of activity online, in print and out of home.
We also proposed to produce a suite of creative that could be used across a number of different media and would serve to build brand awareness both with students and their parents at a national level.
We built a suite of creative using stylised photography and the following strap lines: ‘Embrace colourful language’, ‘Explore cultural understanding’, ‘Shape world affairs’ and ‘Think beyond borders’.
These engage with the audience and show what a course at SOAS could enable them to do, they are strong messages supported with powerful, colourful imagery and using the SOAS patterns to convey the cultural element.
Final Creative
Translated into online flash banners, escalator panels, bus shelter adverts and a range of print collateral, these formed a campaign that will go live in phases in between September and December 2013 and run for the majority of the academic year 2013/2014.
During the preparation of the campaign we ran a brand session with the wider marketing team at SOAS, a student ambassador and alumni to get a rounded opinion on the direction of the campaign, which was extremely well received.
This piece of work demonstrates our excellence in creative and at the same time compliments our skills in selecting a wide range of brand building media.
