Situation: Hendrix has a long, impressive track record for pairing exceptionally strong academics with powerfully relevant and expansive hands-on opportunities. However, they needed to adapt their message to address the concerns of a changing market. In this new environment, prospective students and families have become skeptical of taking on heavy student loan debt. Outcomes play a much bigger role in their college decision process than ever before. And prospects don’t actually understand what a liberal arts education is or why it matters. To convince this new generation to even consider a small liberal arts college located off the beaten path in Arkansas, we had to rethink everything.
Solution: As a liberal arts powerhouse, the Hendrix experience is all about being and remaining relevant. It’s about imbuing students with the capacity to constantly evolve their thinking and adapt to ever-changing conditions, disruptive technology, paradigm shifts, and more. Instead of bending to pressure to downplay the liberal arts in favor of job placement ROI, we connected the power of great big thinking to great big career results. We knew that to push audiences to rethink their perceptions of Hendrix as well as the relevance of the liberal arts in a 21st century world, the campaign would have to be bold. We started with in-depth research and developed personas for each audience segment. We created personalized messaging based on their unique journeys, desires, and goals. And then we put our concepts to the test. The results were tremendous.
Results: In a quantitative creative testing study, prospective students overwhelmingly told us the campaign favorably changed their opinions of what Hendrix could do for them. Prospective students interested or preferring Hendrix increased by 10 points after having been exposed to the campaign. They were excited and wanted to know more about the institution. After seeing the work, they said they’d move Hendrix higher on their list of schools to consider. Although we began this initiative prior to COVID-19, it was the ideal message for a world forced to suddenly pivot. Even as classes were being held virtually and the College didn’t know when students would be able to return to campus, they continued to receive record-breaking numbers of inquiries and applications. Following the rollout of the campaign, Hendrix had 3 consecutive years of growth in enrollment. That’s the power of reinvention at Hendrix. Re-invent repositioned and repackaged Hendrix at the forefront of proving the case for the liberal arts – and shows how a mind trained to never stop thinking is the new currency in a world that never stops changing.
What we did: Brand study; persona exploration; brand positioning and strategy; creative platform and quantitative testing; brand launch planning and implementation; brand and social media toolkits; web content; enrollment marketing solutions (search through yield), virtual and in-person welcome center presentation