This is part 4 of a rebranding case study of Texas A&M’s new admissions marketing strategy called Aggiebound.
Overview | Social Media | Guide | AGGIEBOUND MAGAZINE | Response
Aggiebound Magazine
Turning university marketing on its head
Based on the idea that this audience doesn’t like to be marketed to, especially if it comes from us, we threw away everything Admissions ever printed and started over. Rather than send a myriad of random institutional pamphlets and junk mail, we started a semesterly magazine filled 100% with student generated content.
The idea is to have them opt in as a freshman so they get eight issues in total throughout their high school career. It needed to be a unique, quality piece of current and interesting stories about A&M that they wont throw away after reading it. Hopefully it would land on the coffee table and a parent would read it as well.
Initially, we printed a half sized preview issue and handed it out at college fairs. We also sent them out to our current mailing list showing them what Texas A&M would look like from now on.
To take a look inside Aggiebound Magazine’s Preview issue, click here.
Aggiebound magazine revolutionized the Office of Admissions. Before, they were printing tens of thousands of individual pamphlets of which, half would get used before going out of date.
With the magazine, the information isn’t out dated, it just turns into a back stock of student written stories about life at A&M. In the past, outdated publications had to be trashed. Now old magazines that didn’t get sent out go to the regional Prospective Student Centers for students to read which creates a zero waste scenario.
As students get bombarded with material from multiple universities, they recognize that A&M is doing something different. When a student receives Aggiebound Magazine in the mail, they react differently than college spam postcards or view books.
Sidenote — View books Suck
Every college has a viewbook. Essentially it’s the best photos from the last 10 years put in a nice book with puff rankings interspersed. It is an 80s idea still in play today.
While there and after I had left the Admark team, the viewbook was one thing that the superiors just wouldn’t let go of. They tried to explain that students didn’t want to hear the university pat itself on the back. No dice.
Stuck in a bind, the team went back to the digital native principles. The audience wants to see user generated content, lives socially, and loves being affirmed.
AggieView is A&M’s answer to the out-dated viewbook. It is a “viewbook” of entirely user generated photos collected from instagram and twitter. Admissions has gotten rave reviews and it has become sort of a goal for some to get their photo into the next version. Viewers see it as unbiased since the university didn’t pose and take any of the content.
It is a totally different feel than a traditional viewbook. Experiencing campus as a curated instagram feed is familiar and preferable to the digital natives.
Next — Part 5 — Response
Overview | Social Media | Guide | AGGIEBOUND MAGAZINE | Response
