Week 15 - Creative Analysis

Week 15

Secondary research that informed the creative brief came from that of competitor analysis and enquiries into the university's own policy on acquisition and retention of prospective students through digital means and the support available for current students. Here is what we found;

Competitor Analysis;

Gecko Labs

Can capture student data offline with no Wifi – Campus connect is most used by international students that may find it difficult to gain access to internet, so thus this will be extremely beneficial for campus connect 

•Enquires are stored in a cloud based system – if recruiting from international students across the world, the team back in the UK can engage instantly. – again will help with international students 

•Reporting and Analytics – every engagement with student is monitored and then provides you with a report explaining popular courses, locations and average number of enquires. 

•Social Marketing Insights – use student data to identify what social media platform they are most active on to find out their main interests and where they spend most of their time, this can be used to make more personalized marketing efforts to the specific student. 

 The fact that we ourselves are within the target demographic of the CampusConnect app put us in a unique position to pitch ideas to Daniel Hinckley regarding the creative brief. In regards to the objective of the session we re-ordered the brief in order to create a viable pitch for a solution;

1. What is the key objective?
The key objective of the brief is to pitch the CampusConnect app to the MMU recruitment and retention teams in order to secure a contract for StudyBundles to use their application with the institution. After meeting with the recruitment and retention teams of the university it was established that the university was not interested in adapting the app in it's current state as they had experience with their own prospectus application which had ultimately failed in it's objectives leaving them sceptical on the worth of the StudyBundles version. From here we met with the client and the brief was thus adapted to the purpose of setting the application apart from the competition based on our own research.

2. Who is the audience and what do they need from your client?
The audience in regards to the brief is the retention and recruitment teams at the university; however ultimately the target audience is that of the prospective and current students who will be using the application. 

3. What will inspire the audience to engage with your client?
I would recommend that the functionality of the application and it's potential to connect those with similar interests - for example those prospective students looking to join a sports society have the platform to do so. Likewise also highlighting the potential support available to those students who may not be overly sure about how their experience will pan out (see week 14 personas).
4. How will you reach the audience?
An important platform for engagement for this demographic is that of social media and in particular Facebook. Through targeted advertising certain demographics can be singled out and displayed advertisements related to their own interests. Through this method the demographic concerned can be reached with lower budgets and greater efficiency. 
5. What is the single most important message you’d like the audience to know about the brand/product?
That the potential of the application as a free platform to connect with current and prospective students in order to create a shared community is not an opportunity to be missed.