Working with VisionPoint: Creative Services

A Life Jacket in the Sea of Sameness

For the better part of the past 100 years, higher education was booming. Enrollments grew steadily across the country, and there was little-to-no need for competitive marketing and creative strategies.

Well, that was then.

Today, institutions are facing challenges from every direction: population decreases, tighter budgets, increased competition, and a growing perception that a college degree is no longer a worthwhile pursuit. To make things even more challenging, you and your competition are fighting for the attention of an incredibly savvy populace whose eyeballs and ear holes are being bombarded with images, messages, texts, tweets, videos, podcasts, and every other form of media you can imagine from the moment they wake to the moment they fall asleep.

As a higher ed marketer, you probably already know that generic, clichéd creative – what we lovingly refer to as “sea of sameness” – can no longer be relied upon to secure quality leads and applications.

Our Creative Team Wants To Make You Cry

In advertising as in branding, there are ways to trigger emotions in people. To speak to something deep in their psyche. To move them and excite them. To make them laugh or feel proud or even bring them to tears of joy.

When a creative campaign for your institution triggers an emotional response, a powerful and lasting connection is forged between your brand and your audiences. This bond leads to affinity and, more importantly, to action. People tend to think that decisions – especially big decisions like where to go to college – are rational in nature. That we logically weigh our options and make a decision based on data. But it turns out that’s not always the case.

Research shows that most of our decisions, big or small, are made unconsciously and involve emotion.

Dr. Susan Weinschenk, behavioral psychologist

At VisionPoint, we pride ourselves on crafting strategic, creative campaigns that connect with our clients’ audiences on an emotional level and get the results they need to be successful in their efforts to fight the headwinds we’re all feeling these days.

And yeah, making the leap to a breakthrough campaign can sometimes feel as intimidating as it is exciting. But we’ll walk with you the whole way, ensuring buy-in from important stakeholders at each step of the decision-making process.

The end product is something your entire campus community can rally behind because it shows what really makes your institution special. Oh, and you’ll have the results to prove it.

And, How Does That Make You Feel?

Breaking through the noise is what we stake our reputation on. And our multi-phase cross-team collaboration ensures that the campaigns we create for our client partners will be emotional, impactful, and successful. Here are a few examples:

Settle For…

Community colleges are unfortunately still overlooked and underappreciated. They’re largely seen as a second choice, a last resort, a place where students have to “settle” for less. And while our client partners at Northern Virginia Community College have been proving this misperception wrong for decades, they were still running up against this stubborn old stigma. Using a fine balance of levity and indignation, the “Settle for…” campaign sets the story straight and positions NOVA as a place where you’ll “settle for” nothing but the best.

VisionPoint’s Creative Offerings

Work With Us

Whether you’re a state system, a 4-year university, a local community college, or anything in between, VisionPoint can help tell your authentic and compelling story with our award-winning creative, giving you the best opportunity to achieve your goals. Ready to talk about your institution’s specific needs? Reach out to our vice president Dana Cruikshank to start the conversation with a free consultation call.