Fuseideas Executive Creative Director Mike
Benes, who also serves as partner of the agency’s division Fuseacademia, will
be speaking at the 2013
CASE District 1 Conference on January 31 to highlight the
agency's experience in the rebranding efforts of the University of Rhode
Island.
What
is CASE?
CASE District I is the regional chapter
of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education representing the
northeastern United States and eastern Canada. They are hosting a 3-day conference
at the Weston Copley Hotel in Boston. CASE District I seeks to provide
educational professionals in alumni relations, communications, and development
with information, tools and networking opportunities to advance both their
careers and institutions.
The Marketing Challenge
The University of Rhode Island, a
top-notch research institution, was perceived to have limited resources for
faculty and a below-average curriculum for students. The University felt that
prospective applicants and teachers associated the size of the state with the
size of opportunity at URI. In addition to enhancing their brand and academic
identity, the University also wanted to increase their out-of-state enrollment
and appeal more to new faculty job applicants.
Fuseacademia’s Benes, who has recently
spearheaded major marketing initiatives for higher educational institutions
including Virginia Commonwealth University, William Paterson University,
Wheelock College, Iona College, George Perimeter College and Worcester State
University, immersed his team in the challenges URI faced and adopted a
comprehensive approach in the University's re-branding campaign.
Fuseacademia’s
Approach
"With all projects of this
important nature, Fuseacademia spent a tremendous amount of effort pouring
through market research and relevant case studies to define and distinguish
URI's true identity and how we could leverage this to attract our target
audiences," said Benes. "We devised our campaign around the idea of
'Thinking Bigger' because a relatively smaller institution in the smallest
state in the U.S. must often 'think bigger' to succeed in the highly
competitive higher education landscape.
"We know our branding initiative
is working because we have the metrics to back it up. This is not to say we
didn't encounter various speed bumps along the way. Of course every campaign
has challenges. How you learn from them and adjust is the most important thing,”
said Benes.
“We look forward to sharing our
collective experience of URI’s rebranding project at the conference."
Follow
CASE
Keep up with the CASE D1 Conference as
Fuseideas tweets live during the event with the hashtag #CASED1. Follow @Fuseideas
on Twitter.
