P1 & M1- University Campaign Analysis

P1: Describing an existing media advertising campaign – Edge Hill University

I decided to look at how Edge Hill University attract their students from their advertising campaigns. I have found that Edge Hill publish their advertisements during and just before peak applicant times, typically, around September-January where open days take place. On these adverts, open days are advertised to locals who may want to visit the university if they are thinking of going there after they finish college. It is important that Edge Hill University include details of their open days on their adverts as they allow the university to show off their best subjects and facilities in order to attract students.

Apart from just plain and simple advertising, Edge Hill have also included a slogan to many of their adverts across their media products. In this case, Edge Hill have consistently used the slogan "Have Your Moment" which suggests all the opportunities you can achieve by studying at Edge Hill. This is so that people can hopefully remember and recognise this slogan which increases their awareness of the university. Edge Hill have a published TV adverts to local TV stations so that only locals will be able to view it which makes the audience a lot more relevant for Edge Hill rather than them advertising to people who live hundreds of miles away. These adverts include key information about the open days, past exam grades and the opportunities available to their students. These adverts are often on video streaming sites such as YouTube with many more links attached to other videos about the University.

Edge hill doesn’t only just use online advertising but they also use traditional advertising in the forms of flyers, newspaper adverts and billboards in local areas. This increases the total amount of people who can see these adverts, especially for those who don’t watch TV often or don’t have certain social media sites. For example, Edge Hill produce big billboard posters to put on bus stops in local towns around the university to advertise to those passing by.

Before creating an advertising campaign of my own I will be looking into other advertising campaigns from other colleges/universities. I decided to look at how Edge Hill University attract their students using cross-media methods. It is essential for colleges or any business for that matter to advertise using different platforms of media to expand the audience as big as possible. Most colleges usually promote during peak applicant times, typically, around September-January where open days take place. This is to attract as many people to their open days as possible in hope of recruiting students looking for where to go.  These open days are hugely beneficial to colleges as it gives students a chance to get a feel of what the college is like to help with their decision. In this case it would help Edge Hill University as they can be allowed to show off their best subjects and facilities to attract students.

Their use of social media is a key factor to their recruitment advertising campaign. Using social media is highly effective for recruiting students as the majority of 16-24-year old's in the UK use social media – Business Insider say this percentage is 99%. It is a great place to raise awareness as there will be many students browsing the web who may not be aware of what they want in their future and will come across this advertisement. Following this statistic, it is important that Edge Hill University does promote themselves on social media knowing how popular social media is among students. Their aim will be to beat other local universities such as the University of Liverpool or John Moore's University) so they must ensure their use of social media to raise brand awareness is maximized to its full potential.

Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/99-of-young-british-people-use-social-media-every-week-2016-8

Using social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are highly beneficial to companies as making accounts and tweeting out information or adverts about the university is free. However, advertisement placement such as promoted tweets can be costly. Social media is also very good for calculating their audience. On twitter it is possible to see how many people have engaged with the tweet and features such as 'likes' and 'shares' also help provide easier data analysis. Another method of analyzing data from their advertisements is by using search engines to find out what key words are helping people find their University website. For example, the university may have a certain slogan and people may have searched this on google to find the University website. This is beneficial to the university as it proves whether their slogan is a success and is working to attract students.  Another thing new technology on social media can help with advertising is location support. Social media sites such as Twitter can find user's locations to be able to only show university advertisements to fairly local students. This will essentially narrow down the target audience to relevant potential students which ensures the money spent advertising has not gone to waste showing students who are from the other side of the country. YouTube can be used to upload videos advertising the University for free, however, the production of the videos can cost them some money. These videos can include their best facilities, their best past exam grades and also interviews with ex/current students or staff, tours around the university and showing what their accommodation offers. Videos are an important way to advertise places such as Universities as they allow viewers to get more of a feel of what the university is like and what they have to offer which can really help a potential student's decision. They shouldn’t just fit everything into one video however, they are best to publish many videos specifically showing certain subjects or key facilities of the university such as the accommodation.  YouTube can also be a beneficial place for Edge Hill if students decide to make and publish videos about the university such as reviews. Many potential students may prefer to hear exactly what it is like from a student who has studied there themselves to be able to relate more instead of from videos created by the University itself.  YouTube also gives Edge Hill University the chance for their video to go viral. YouTube have a trending page on their site and if their advertisement video ended up there it would create a massive boost in the awareness and reputation of the university. If this was to happen and the video was popular on YouTube then they would begin to get an income from it which they can then spend it on further advertising. Edge Hill University would certainly be missing a trick if they decided not to use YouTube as an advertising method as according to Business Insider, YouTube Is watched every day by 26% of teens which is even more than any commercial TV channel.

Another social media platform is Snapchat. Snapchat is most likely the most popular of social media apps for teenagers so it would be an advantage to Edge Hill to make the most of this. Snapchat have a unique way of allowing universities to advertise which also includes location support. They have a special 'stories' filter which can be used for certain locations for snapchat users to post videos and images for anyone else to see. Edge Hill can use this feature to show their university off interactively by having their own University story section in which students from the university can post stories into it for anyone who is local to view.

Finally, the last digital advertising outlet that Edge Hill can advertise with is through TV. Adverts are a very efficient but costly method of advertisement due to the large viewing audience. They can be shown on TV channels which are regional such as ITV. For example, they would only show Edge Hill adverts to those watching in the North-West region of the UK. The key to a good TV advert would be a catchy slogan to help people recognize the University easier. In this case, Edge Hill used the slogan "Have Your Moment" which relates to a series of 'moments' shown in the advert such as sporting achievements and graduations. This slogan suggests all the opportunities you can achieve by studying at Edge Hill. The advert shows plenty of achievements suggesting it is a very successful university and that it will guide you to many successes. At the end of the video it shows a Dance show cast being applauded on stage which leaves the video on a positive note to suggest to the audience that studying at Edge Hill will end in applause and pride. As I mentioned earlier, this slogan can be used to represent the university and can be tracked using Google's key word tracker to analyze the effectiveness of the slogan.  The advert also shows the website name at the end to direct viewers to other online platforms of the university such as social media pages. This shows an example of how synergy is used between their cross-media platforms. Hashtags can also be used for slogans on sites such as Instagram and Twitter as they allow you to search the hashtag and it shows all tweets containing the hashtag. Therefore, Edge Hill can use a hashtag in the advertising campaign so they can see what people have to say about their university just by searching the hashtag. Similarly, to this, BARB can allow Edge Hill to track the audience of the advert as they calculate the number of viewers the advert received. This can allow them to compare this information with their other advertising methods to be able to see which is the most effective.

The last form of advertising I will analyze is the use of print. Edge hill use a few variations of print advertising such as brochures and advertisements in newspapers. Brochures allow potential students and their parents to read all about the university in detail instead of only seeing a brief selection of clips and information that’s shown on an advert. Brochures are good for explaining everything about the university and they really help students make such a really important decision in choosing a university. These brochures and leaflets can be given to students in colleges and sixth forms around the North West to help them decide where they want to go once they've finished at college. Universities can use synergy between their cross-media advertising platforms by using social media, TV and newspaper adverts to advertise the open day then the brochures can be used at the open days to advertise the university even more.  In newspapers universities can advertise their open days to students to attend and they can also include some contact details such as their website address or phone number in order for readers to find out more information. If the university do so well they can also be published into newspapers for their achievements which will increase their reputation and popularity. For example, The Times newspaper included an article in their paper about the 'highest rates of student satisfaction'. This indirect advertising would be highly beneficial to the University due to the high popularity of The Times newspaper and the millions of people reading it online or offline who would now be aware of the University and may attract students to join.

Edge Hill Advert - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAQazoG4gUE

M1

Throughout all the university advertising campaigns I have researched, there evidence of certain groups/people or stereotypes to enforce any messages as universities have a large target audience. This theme of a more generalized cast of people is carried out in every form of advertisement, especially the video advertisements. I have analyzed a second university which is Lancaster University and I have noticed how consistent the messages are across both universities’ adverts from Edge Hill and Lancaster University. As well as Edge Hill, they use cross-media methods to attract new students to reach many different audiences. Universities tend to use the bursting model, to target audiences at peak times which would be between September and January for universities to advertise their open days. 

One of the most popular methods of advertising for all Universities is arguably the use of social media. Due to the popularity of social media between students, it is for sure a platform that is certainly going to be successful in reaching the target age group for a university. For example, Lancaster University has a Snapchat feature which consists of posts by its students as well as having the usual Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Lancaster University use these sites effectively as they all have features which allow them to collect information on who has interacted with and viewed their advertising posts. From this they can see which social media platform is most popular for them, allowing them to then focus their campaign on this site. Edge Hill and Lancaster University both have the Snapchat story feature which I believe is a cheap but very effective advertising methods. The Snapchat stories give Lancaster University lots of recognition as anyone locally can view posts from the University and its students. This gives local snapchat users an insight into the life of students which intrigues them about in the University, especially because many stories posted are of students having fun. Another popular social media platform both universities use is YouTube. YouTube is completely free of use to allow Lancaster University to post videos with also a chance to go Viral. A benefit of online technology for advertising is the use of cookies which helps businesses reach their target audience a lot easier. This is done by targeting adverts at products/services at users who have been looking at these things online. For instance, if users have been looking at universities online then cookies would enable Lancaster University for their adverts to reach this user. This can be done on YouTube by having their adverts popping up to the audience before their chosen video starts. Another consistent way of delivering messages for universities is by creating and posting videos about the university including courses that they offer or their accommodation. Universities do this to enable viewers to find more specific information about individual courses that they are interested in, making things a lot more convenient for the audience.  Both universities have videos enabling the target audience to get a feel of their campus which is done through slideshows of images or campus tour videos which can be published on YouTube, their website or even social media. Publishing detailed information of courses and accommodation doesn’t just benefit the consumer but it makes the University look professional and allows them to portray the University in any way they want. If this is done effectively, it can be a big factor in attracting new students to their university.  

Here is a link to a virtual campus tour of Lancaster University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGOPzRpM0yA

Overall Lancaster University utilities cross media-advertising very effectively. For example, their use of synergy is used often to make consumers follow over onto different forms of media to discover more information. For example, their print adverts don’t include too much information, instead they include links to their social media pages. As print advertising limits what universities can advertise, using synergy to make consumers follow onto online platforms can be highly effective when showing off everything that they offer through methods like videos, images or just more detailed information. Synergy is used on pretty much all the adverts that both universities have created, to encourage the audience to visit another platform by including things like "Visit our YouTube channel to see more". From analyzing both advertising campaigns it is clear to see that their focus seems to be advertising on social media. This would make sense as social media allows them to get the feedback they need, it is cost efficient and how popular it is with the universities’ target audience. As well as having consistent delivery methods, both universities are consistent with their messages on the adverts. I have found that most of their ads are aimed to give the audience a sense of belonging, enjoyment and success.  For example, on their videos and print posters they have images of students laughing, smiling and generally enjoying themselves to provide a sense of enjoyment and positivity. This effectively takes away the common thought that university is all work and stress by highlighting the positives. Another common message that Universities portray across is how successful they are. This can be done by including their past exam grades. In this case, Lancaster University include ‘University of the year’ in all their adverts after being voted it by The Times newspaper. They take advantage of this as it suddenly puts a positive idea in the consumers head when they see it. It suggests that if they go to this university that they will become successful in life because of how highly rated the university is. During their video advert and virtual tour, they also do a good job of applying a message of them having excellent accommodation and a positive working environment in hope to attract students. To continue this message of being voted the best university in the UK, they have also included the award on their Twitter header photo, along with some other successes in their bio to provide an instant positive reputation for new consumers who visit their page.

Additionally, on the print adverts and social media pages of all universities I have analyzed have included their contact details at the bottom of their adverts as this is a common convention of print advertising. It allows consumers to contact the university for further information and to solve any queries.