the driving questions
What if you could create a brand that was an experience? The Brief: Reveal the heart of a Bennington education; celebrate the intellectual characteristics that distinguish Bennington and the people who comprise its exceptional community; and invite prospective students, especially stealth applicants, to engage with the College early in their search. In response, I developed breakthrough social media and backchannel strategies, a constellation of admissions webpages, an award winning print campaign, e-campaigns and accepted student materials.
social media platform & content strategy
In 2011 I began work as a consultant on what would become a multi-year, cross-channel admissions campaign. TappedIn was developed on Tumblr as a virtual tour blog. Tumblr translated that value and opened opportunities for students to engage anonymously with the other students and to have their questions answered in an unscripted post by admissions students. Prior to the launch of TappedIn, the typical college blog model went one way-- current students shared their personal experiences in journal-profile blog formats (usually hosted on WordPress or Blogger). By collecting the voices of a range of students talking in one space, answering questions in one forum, and reaching unaffiliated audiences in backchannel strategies that emphasized content marketing through tagging, the blog not only drove more prospect engagement and stealth applicants, it advanced the reputation of the college in markets it was previously unable to enter. Several other colleges have developed admissions blog inspired by the Bennington student blog mode
an accepted student video
I scripted this acceptance video with our multimedia editor animating applicant responses to: What question has changed the way you see the world? What changed? It was sent as an electronic application acceptance video and later used in yield campaigns.