A Higher Education Brand in Transition
Situation
Niagara County Community College (NCCC), a two-year State University of New York institution outside of Buffalo, NY, was not getting the traction its unique offering should attract. As a community college, it offered on-campus housing, a robust sports program, and a highly regarded culinary institute. But as a smaller school, it also faced stiff competition from other, much larger area colleges and universities. The college realized they needed to refresh their brand to more clearly reflect what made it special and stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Our Approach
The college needed a wholistic approach to help define their brand. NCCC serves many target audiences, and the institution needed a pulse on all of them. Whether it was students, faculty, staff, influencers like parents or high school counselors, alumni, and regional businesses that hired its graduates, NCCC needed to hear from all of them to truly articulate its brand.
Level 7 approached this project from many fronts, using several methodologies and strategies to define the college’s brand. These included:
Competitive Communications Analysis and brand audit – This focused on communications strategy, positioning and tactics of competitors as well as the college itself. Level 7 reviewed tactics used for recruitment, and opportunities where potential students would encounter competitive brands – websites, university literature, advertising, publicity, and social media.
Internal Stakeholder Interviews – Level 7 completed interviews with NCCC stakeholders to discuss the current brand, how it is positioned among the competition, trends in the higher ed space, challenges, opportunities and short-term strategic imperatives.
Student Focus Groups – We conducted focus groups with current students, non-traditional students, under-represented prospects, and groups of regional high school prospects
Alumni In-Depth Interviews – Level 7 conducted a series of alumni interviews to gather perceptions, reasons to believe, and personal experiences from this important target group.
High School Counselor In-depth Interviews – This group provided NCCC with insights regarding counselors’ process and role in selecting a college and how the NCCC culture, offering, and brand resonates with them.
Regional Quantitative Survey – this was administered among current students, prospective students, potential students – both traditional and non-traditional – and parents in the region.
Brand workshops with the College’s internal team.
Development of brand messaging and strategy.
Solution
Level 7 developed a comprehensive approach to uncovering and refining NCCC’s new brand identity and create a platform that was able to speak to individual target audiences with a single voice – yet unique messaging for each group.
Level 7 also partnered directly with the College’s advertising agency to thoroughly express the brand and develop tactical strategies to meet prospects and influencers where they were.
Results
The results of the brand launch and name change to SUNY Niagara were dramatic and immediate. Its advertising agency used the work Level 7 to create a voice that reached the College’s audiences in a meaningful way. After the first year, SUNY Niagara saw an 11% growth in enrollment, which was the highest among all 64 SUNY colleges. And all of this in a local region which had a decrease in the number of graduating high school students – the college’s main prospect pool.