Arts University Bournemouth
The creative economy is the fastest growing sector in the UK, and is projected grow 40% by 2030, adding more than 8 million additional jobs. Amidst national budget cuts to creative education, and as one of only 8 specialist creative universities in the UK, AUB has a responsibility – to students, to their subjects, and to the creative industries as a whole – to communicate the quality, relevance and career potential of creative degrees.
In an environment that encourages innovation and imaginative thinking, AUB empowers its students to question, challenge, and inspire change. Over the course of our 10+ year relationship with AUB, we've consistently challenged them to do the same – from how they present themselves as a brand, to how and where they interact with their audiences.
Brand
AUB's brand has always revolved around driving a sense of aspiration amongst students, parents, educators and industry audiences alike, demanding a balance between creativity and professionalism, both on-and-offline.
As the competitive landscape has evolved across the last decade and a half, we have seen AUB through three successful brand refreshes. By ensuring its greatest asset – the creativity of its student and alumni – is always at the heart of the brand, each refresh has retained a consistent truth and character driven by their brand sentiment – 'We can't say we're creative, we need to show it'.
Web
Across a 6 month period of stakeholder engagement, workshops and content creation, aub.ac.uk was designed and rebuilt from scratch, delivering a site that acts as a ‘shop window’, showcasing their provision across a range of study levels.
Key to the approach was balancing easy-to-access course information with authentic and up-to-date experiential content. To facilitate this the site was built to be managed, in-part, by heads of academic departments.
The results;
- 10% increase in pages per session
- 46% increase in average session duration
- 47% decrease in bounce rate
- 164% increase in order a prospectus
- 15% increase in open day clicks
- 332% increase in Open Day page conversion rate
- 3rd on the Silktide leaderboard for accessibility.
Campaign
From bringing AUB directly to the channels inhabited by their audience with the world's first Instagram prospectus, to hands-on personalisation at UCAS, our campaign work with AUB has been led by the power of showcasing creativity at all levels.
Each recruitment cycle prevents a fresh opportunity to reach their audiences in the most authentic and effective way possible and has never been limited to a traditional media plan. However, as the HE sector faces increasing budget pressures and a nationwide drop in applicant numbers, fine-tuned campaign activity has contributed to a 164% increase in online visitors and an increase from 36%-50% return users to Open Day booking pages.
332% increase in Open Day page conversion rate
164% increase in online visitors
46% increase in average session duration
3rd on Silktide for accessibility
The world's first Instagram prospectus
@aub_prospectus
Our work with AUB has received over 10 Heist Awards, including the latest for 2023 winning 'Most Effective Use of Digital or Social' following on from winning Gold in 2022 for 'Best Student Recruitment Publication or Prospectus'.
We have also received 2 Chartered Institute of Marketing Awards (1 Grand Prix), 3 Brand Impact Awards, 1 European Excellence Award, 1 Drum Award and 1 BIMA.
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With thanks to Simon, Helen, Charlotte, Lauren and rest of the team at AUB.
