The future of
higher ed
See how we designed the north star vision of an innovative platform serving 30,000 students and delivered a nationally recognized, award-winning advertising web campaign.
Results & Outcomes
North star education platform design
Award-winning marketing advertising campaign
Scope
Awareness website, platform design, and student marketing experience
Project length
10 weeks
Laying the
groundwork
For an education tech marketing project, we wanted to capture as much of the experience in wireframes as early as possible. So early-on the team was able to line up around what our possible solution was going to be.
A new perspective
on the brand
RIT Online is a huge addition to the offerings at Rochester Institute of Technology. So in response, we wanted to show a new side to the RIT orange and generate some new life into the institution.
A new site for a
new kind of student
When we were thinking about what audiences the site was serving there was a lot. Something that stuck in our mind was that an RIT education, was now accessible to people that normally wouldn’t have the accessibility to do so. Everyone from busy parents, to the underprivileged, we wanted to be ‘Wide awake when you are’, but also tell the unique stories of our new class of students.
Telling your story
A major component to education tech marketing is telling the story of your students. So we spent time 1-on-1 with remote students (before it was common) and committed testimony to web, replete with video and New York Times style articles written by one of our talented copywriters.
The virtual campus
For most students today, their education is online for the most part. However at the time this was an emerging concept. Part of what excited our team, was the idea that the portal could aggregate my interests across the web and that it would live alongside my career path, cross-pollinating the other.
So when we conceived the portal, it became an immersive educational experience that you would want to use, not just gloss over.
The RIT Online
north star
By designing a north star for the virtual campus, we were able to get buy-in for our point-of-contact at the institution meaning we could generate a lot of early interest around the project.
A new side to RIT
To generate some hype, we wanted to create a 1-pager that would demonstrate the uniqueness of an RIT Online education, but also get people excited.
We wanted to make people convert into leads, but also laugh and feel some RIT pride. So we created custom downloadable wallpapers to go along with the awareness campaign for your desktop, phone, and tablet.
Generating
hype
Together as a cross-functional design team, we put together a 1-pager that included custom motion animation, award-winning development, and an email campaign that created over 50,000 clickthroughs in the first day.
Engagement outcomes
For this education tech marketing project we covered several areas which added up to an experience that drew a consistent connection between the product north star, the information site, and the awareness campaign.
We earned several awards, generated lots of interest from the study body and alumni, as well as serving as the foundation for an online educational experience that is still serving students today.
ADDY Gold District 2
Elements of Advertising – Digital Creative Technology
Rochester Advertising Federation
Gold ADDY
Honorable Mention
Innovative Learning Institute
