University of Central Missouri

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We’ve hand-selected these case studies to show you our range and depth in nonprofit marketing and advertising. As you wade through, you will see that we’ve got the strategic, creative, and media chops to help the University of Central Missouri.

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On this page, you’ll find the case studies we’ve selected especially for you. All of them showcase the talent, passion, and ingenuity we put into everything we do. Reach out if you have any questions!

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Banding together under a bold umbrella.

University of Hartford

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University of Hartford

Home Work University of Hartford

Designing the Cross-Platform Launch of a University's Bold Strategic Vision

The University of Hartford created their UHart Start Strategic Action Plan as a guiding light for the next five years, then they partnered with idfive to turn their action plan into a rallying cry that would generate excitement and share their vision with stakeholders and the community.

The Strategy

After analyzing UHart’s strategic plan, idfive got to work by reorganizing the plan’s contents to lead with a shared vision in its realized state, and then use goals and objectives as proof points, creating a compelling narrative for the next five years and beyond. We also reformatted the action plan into a glossy, full-color 20-page booklet that puts the University’s future in the actual hands of key stakeholders, as well as a bi-fold mailer summarizing the plan for additional audiences. Finally, we built a robust and engaging landing page hosted on the main site that detailed UHart Start’s story while granting full transparency into the plan’s details and responsibilities.

Print Collateral

It’s nice to have a plan, but policy and strategic documentation can often look and feel sterile and calculating. Our job for UHart was to make it fun, dynamic, and useful. We started by remixing the UHart Start plan into a 20-page booklet. Leading with a bold visual representation of the UHart community’s vision, the spread showcases each goal with flair. The result is a tangible representation of UHart’s promise.

For those in the extended UHart network who are curious but not directly involved in the strategic action plan, the mailbox still offered an opportunity to showcase the vision for their beloved institution in a way that still feels real. The mailer succinctly summarizes the plan with a call to participate and engage. But even more importantly, it delivers a physical reminder of the benefits of buy-in to a donor base that rose to the occasion with a 30% increase in unrestricted donations during 2020.

Landing page

UHart’s vibrant brand color palette and pattern library beckon users to dig into strategic action and find out how to engage in key initiatives. The website rewards curiosity and exploration by progressively disclosing information to increasingly specific user questions. Along the way, custom module designs keep things visually interesting as users progress from passing interest to downloading the fully ratified policy document.

The Result

Getting people excited and engaged with a strategic plan with just policy and strategic documentation can be herculean. Using the sum of its parts and remixing it into something exciting, compelling, and full of enthusiasm is how we did it.

Since deploying the landing page, the average time-spent-on-page was around 2:28, showcasing a higher-than-average engagement rate, rather than the average of 0:52.

2:28

Landing page engagement rate

Showcasing the depth of a lakeside leader.

Carthage College

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Carthage College

Home Work Carthage College

Using Informed Web Design to Showcase the Depth of a Liberal Arts Education

With its stunning location, market-focused academic offerings, and comprehensive career development program, Carthage College’s liberal arts education continues to evolve to meet changing needs. But many students and families don’t know that it’s an opportunity that’s within their reach.

Carthage needed a redesigned website that speaks boldly of its promise, achievements, and vision for the future.

Strategy

idfive’s comprehensive discovery phase—including a complete site audit and extensive stakeholder interviews—revealed that Carthage had a powerful story to tell. The College’s website had solid fundamentals in place, but definitely needed a refresh: a lot had happened at Carthage and in the world since the site was launched in 2016. To take the next step, we needed to:

Develop a unifying theme to tell the Carthage story more succinctly, effectively, and boldly
Challenge expectations of what a college website is
Take the website from good to great.

UX

As we worked collaboratively with the Carthage marketing and communications team, clear themes began to emerge that would inform and unify the site’s architecture, design, and content. Chief among these were the deep personal connections that students made at the College; the spirit of exploration and discovery that is instilled in the culture; and a uniquely beautiful lakefront setting, an hour’s drive from the vibrant urban centers of Chicago and Milwaukee.

Design

Balancing Carthage’s distinctive primary red with a secondary blue palette reinforces one of Carthage’s major differentiators: it’s distinctive Lake Michigan shoreline. Wave motifs, reflected both horizontally and vertically, continue the theme and connect with the hero image headline: Your Turn To Make Waves.

156

Total number of Carthage stakeholders engaged in the discovery process

“This project wouldn’t have been possible without the support and insight of the Carthage team. My only regret is not getting to see beautiful Lake Michigan in person.”

Andrew White

Director of User Experience and Information Design, idfive

Media Buying & Planning

Early campaign results attribute a 44% increase in enrollment applications in the first 4 months of the campaign compared to the previous period and 11% increase YOY.

44%

increase in apps received in the first 4 months

The Results

The early response from the Carthage community was overwhelmingly positive, as reflected in these Instagram posts:

“Lookin good” 😍 😉
“It looks awesome!”

More than that, however, the recruitment campaign is delivering a substantial boost in qualified applications.

Elevating awareness in an uphill market.

Bloomsburg professor and student sit in front of monitors at an on-campus media editing station

Bloomsburg University Recruitment Marketing

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Bloomsburg University Recruitment Marketing

Home Work Bloomsburg University Recruitment Marketing

The Challenge

Bloomsburg University has always been focused on student access and success, and a rebranding effort in 2019 helped to sharpen that focus. But then BU needed to enhance brand awareness, support enrollment growth, and communicate its value proposition in the crowded Mid-Atlantic higher education landscape to multiple audiences—undergraduates, transfer students, graduate students, and parents.

Strategy

Partnering with Bloomsburg’s marketing and admissions teams, idfive developed an integrated, multiyear campaign strategy, informed by audience demographic data developed during the University’s rebranding. The objective: to drive site traffic, engagement, and CTRs to the BU Admissions microsite and position “Bloom” as a top choice for prospective students and their families.

While the FY20 campaign focused primarily on brand awareness, the FY21 campaign capitalized on the increased brand awareness to deliver a hybrid brand and lead generation approach. Among the tactics added were Facebook and Instagram retargeting and creative A/B testing across the Google Search, Facebook, and Instagram campaigns.

Media

With ongoing active account management, and using the information gained from the previous years’ campaigns, the idfive media team further refined audience segmentation in FY21 by audience type and location.

Facebook social campaigns and Instagram story placements focused on driving engagement with two main strategies: prospecting and remarketing.

Prospecting ads targeted parents, students and curated high school lists, as well as newly implemented Facebook/Instagram page and website visitors lists created with existing lead and inquiry contacts.
Remarketing ads targeted recent Facebook/Instagram page and website visitors of the BU page and lookalike audiences created based on this list of users.

259

Percent above Google Search industry benchmark, Aug. to Oct. 2021

It’s been rewarding to partner with the Bloomsburg team and push the media plan to deliver more each year as capabilities in attribution and tracking have expanded.

Erinn Hesse

Associate Director of Client Services

Results

Year-over-year CTR performance, FY20-FY21:

Facebook ↑24.33%
Instagram ↑ 39.71%
Google Search ↑ 166.12%
Google Remarketing ↑ 915.24%

Connecting alumni, one moment at a time.

Goucher alumna Mildred Dunnock wears a black feather boa in a striking image used for the Undaunted campaign

Goucher College

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Goucher College

Home Work Goucher College

The Challenge

Goucher College announced its intention to raise $100 million dollars by 2022 for an ambitious campus construction and renovation effort. To do that, it would need to inspire donors, alums, and stakeholders — many who’ve had no contact with the school in years — to reconnect and give. The school’s change from female to co-ed in 1987 and the addition of new degree programs made the challenge of meaningfully engaging alumnae/i even more complex. Despite the significant changes at the school over the decades, leadership believed there was still an emotional thread that connected all Goucher students. The college partnered with idfive to find it — and reignite support for the school’s future.

Decorated event space with large posters

The Solution

Through a comprehensive discovery process, idfive and Goucher College found that what excited alumnae and alumni most was recounting the personal moments at the school that changed the trajectory of their lives. It could have been the day they chose to explore a new discipline, a lesson learned in defeat, or an opportunity to stand up and speak their mind.

Inspired by these stories of students taking their first tentative steps despite the uncertainty that lay ahead of them, we developed Goucher Undaunted, a comprehensive online and offline fundraising effort. Each of the campaign’s tactics invites audiences to remember the moments that matter to them while asking them to support the moments-to-come for future students. A giving page features stories of Goucher alumnae/i plotting the moments and places on an interactive campus map. A video shared over social media and during the campaign’s opening gala expresses Goucher’s underlying legacy. And a series of digital and print assets communicate the Goucher Undaunted mission.

In the first year, the campaign has already raised half the funds it needs while giving alumnae/i a reason to reconnect with Goucher College and each other.

Branding

The Goucher experience is marked by shared experience, combined with a signature bold approach to liberal arts education. The Goucher Undaunted emblem reflects that purpose and rallying cry.

The yellow color of the surrounding box and highlighted “UN” represent Goucher’s influence on the lives it touches. Goucher as a contained place and unified concept is comprised of the same lasting element that capacitates the magic “UN”ning moment that summarizes the Goucher experience.

Undaunted Blue

Undaunted Gray

Undaunted Yellow

Goucher Blue

Accent Blue

The Result

The campaign reached half of the total goal in its first year while giving alumnae/i a reason to reconnect with Goucher College—and each other.

Defining the voice of a community pillar.

Aims Community College

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Aims Community College

Home Work Aims Community College

Refreshing a Community College Brand with Lofty Aims

Aims Community College shatters the common perception of “community college,” with multiple locations and state-of-the-art facilities—including commercial-grade flight simulators, maker spaces, and a new community welcome center, to name a few features. But it lacked a cohesive brand to support its vision as a “first choice” and recognized leader in student success.

The Strategy

With an initial scope of work to analyze the current Aims brand, idfive started in a familiar place: with research, consisting of:

a brand communications audit of Aims’ existing messaging architecture, brand assets, and marketing materials.
comparative analysis of three competing colleges’ brand attributes.
an AudienceScan to determine audience sentiment (actual and desired) using surveys, interviews, and a review of existing research.
a Brand Perception Workshop to engage internal stakeholders to shape brand attributes, platform, and messaging architecture.

The final deliverables included branding, a new tagline, a refreshed mascot, a viewbook, and a brand anthem video.

Branding

After presenting our findings to the president and her cabinet, our scope of work expanded to include developing a revised Aims Brand Guide. With a refreshed brand promise and platform (including supports), a revised logo, and reenergized voice and tone, the College wanted a tagline that could succinctly express the new brand’s position. Working collaboratively with the Aims MarComm team, we launched a research-based initiative to identify a new Aims tagline

— a process that started with brainstorming sessions and ended with surveys and focus groups with major campus stakeholders.

The winner—All In—is best described by our focus group participants: “Catchy, and easy to remember.” “it’s everything we are.” “It’s an allegory and delivers a broader message.” “It’s what the Aims community is.” “Put a stamp on it.”

Aims Red

Aims Black

Aims Slate

Evolution Blue

Corn Husk

Fountain

Design

Arty the Aardvark has come to represent comfort, familiarity, friendship, and kindness. For example, at Arty’s Pantry, students receive free food and basic supplies.

Since Arty isn’t your stereotypical college athletics cheerleader (Aims doesn’t have sports) the redesigned Arty needed to be more than just another pissed off mascot. He needed to be a positive, energetic personification of the institution and community.

Through a highly collaborative and iterative process, Arty emerged—he’s a little bit “dad bod,” a lot “can-do spirit,” and All In.

Viewbook

A refreshed college brand requires a bold, new recruitment publication. We wanted Aims’ new viewbook to connect with prospective students on an emotional level—a critical goal for the admissions team—while also communicating the College’s distinctions with bold visuals and user-focused content. The viewbook was also the first embodiment of the new brand guidelines we had developed for Aims, and aided in expanding on the brand’s look and feel.

To ensure the viewbook is compelling, a unique peek-a-boo cover was designed which opens to an exciting spread explaining what it means to be All In.

Video

For Aims Community College, creating a video that flips the script on who they are and what they offer was a critical next step in rallying a local and national audience of perspective and current students, staff, and the community. After partnering with idfive on an award-winning brand, “All In” tagline, mascot, and marketing materials, Aims possessed a more cohesive and effective messaging platform to articulate the Aims advantage.

With a 90-second montage of students in experiential learning environments at multiple locations and state-of-the-art facilities—including commercial-grade flight simulators, maker spaces, and a new community welcome center, idfive was able to help Aims shatter the common perception of “community college.” Our video production team helped Aims go “All In” and be recognized as a first choice option and leader in higher education.

There’s more where that came from. Explore our website, meet our team, and learn about idfive.

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