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Community College of Philadelphia

The Community College of Philadelphia retained CLARUS Corporation to conduct an updated community image and awareness study for the market area. The Community Scan assessed the unaided recall for the College, the familiarity and the keyword indicators used by the community to describe the Community College of Philadelphia and the other major educational institutions in the market. In addition, the customer service systems were checked for response capabilities and some were found lacking. System issues are being addressed and the College developed a new branding campaign that launched in Fall 2006. The goal of the new campaign is to reposition the Community College of Philadelphia in the minds of the community, donors and business and industry with the College being seen as a “Path to Possibilities,” rather than being seen as simply cheap and close. A copy of the proposed positioning, based on the Community Scan findings, follows. In addition, the Board of the Community College of Philadelphia authorized a marketing budget increase (almost tripling the current budget) for the campaign implementation.

Surry Community College

Surry Community College requested the assistance of a firm to help define a brand position for the College. Marketing had been based on public relations for a number of years and the College was trying to transition to a better market position for the anticipated growth in their service area. The target markets which were currently using the College were identified and marketing strategies were suggested to better enhance their communication with their market. Internal corrective measures were recommended to ensure that the College presents a consistent brand externally. A new marketing director was hired and changes were made. As one can see from the before and after photographs, the improvements in brand presentation were successful.

Before CLARUS Corporation’s study, the College did not have a consistent logo and look and was using the seal as a logo interspersed with various typestyles for the College name.

After the assessment, a new marketing director was hired and developed a new look based on the recommendations from CLARUS Corporation.

Contra Costa Community College District

Contra Costa Community College District requested a proposal for the services of a consultant to assist the District in an overall market evaluation to solidify their brand position and to evaluate market potential and penetration for their three campuses – Contra Costa College, Diablo Valley College and Los Medanos College. The District sought assistance to more clearly define their branding position, set their marketing goals, develop a comprehensive plan and develop strategies to increase enrollment across the District at the Colleges. Enrollments had been stagnant, and even declining for the largest of the Colleges in the District. Competition was increasing for students — both adult and high school students. With that competition, the District sought to better define its market position, its market niches and its competitive advantages with those markets for each College. The District also wanted to understand their current and potential market segments and the changes taking place in those segments for each College. The challenge for the project was that the three Colleges were extremely different, serving very different populations across Contra Costa County and required very unique brand positions for each College, as well as the District.

CLARUS Corporation evaluated the market share and market penetration for the District and each College and established profiles of current markets (Community College Market Scan), interviewed adults (Community Scan), high school students (High School Scan) and employers (Workforce Development Scan) to assist the District in defining the needs of the District for each College’s service area. The data was collected and analyzed by market and recommendations were made for short-term and long-term marketing strategies for the District as well as each College. Finally, a series of brand focus groups were conducted across the District at each College to develop a brand platform for the District as well as the Colleges. Given the unique nature of the Colleges within the District and the varied nature of the populations being served, key brand messages were developed for each College as well as the District to guide the communications of the entities. The District messaging was directed at advocacy but tied the messages of the Colleges together – the messages for each College relayed the unique strengths and competitive market positions of the Colleges within their respective markets. The information gathered in this process provided the basis of the new branding campaign for the institutions and guided messaging at the Colleges.

Tacoma Community College

Tacoma Community College requested a proposal for the services of a consultant to assist the College in an overall market evaluation to solidify their brand position. The College sought assistance to more clearly define their branding position, set their marketing goals, develop a comprehensive plan and develop strategies to increase enrollment. Competition was increasing for students — both adult and high school students — with more than 25 institutions of higher education operating within a few miles of the campus. With that competition, Tacoma Community College had to better define its market position, its market niches and its competitive advantages with those markets. The College also wanted to understand their current and potential market segments and the changes taking place in those segments.

CLARUS Corporation evaluated their market share and market penetration and established profiles of current markets (Community College Market Scan), interviewed adults (Community Scan) and high school students (High School Scan) to assist the college in defining their market position. CLARUS conducted a series of surveys with key markets — high school and adult — within the service area. The data was collected and analyzed by market and recommendations were made for short-term and long-term marketing strategies and a brand position. The information gathered in this process provided the basis of the new branding campaign and increases have been seen in awareness and visibility. This is an example of the new outdoor board campaign implementing the brand campaign using the new logo and positioning statement for the College.

Within three years, Tacoma Community College was listed as number 23 on the 2003 Top 50 Fastest Growing Public Two-Year Colleges: 5,000 to 9,999 Students.

In May 2005, Tacoma again called for CLARUS Corporation to update the consumer research and to develop new strategies for the current market.

Kalamazoo Valley Community College

Kalamazoo Valley Community College has been a consistent client of CLARUS Corporation for almost a decade when the first image study and marketing plan was completed for the College. In that first study, KVCC had seen rapid expansion of its physical facilities. Because of this, the scope of Kalamazoo Valley Community College has broadened with the addition of the Arcadia Commons campus, the Museum and the Technology Application Center. As the new additions broadened the scope of services for KVCC, the position of the College and its institutional image had to be reexamined. CLARUS Corporation conducted the marketing research to identify that repositioning for all entities and developed marketing plans and strategies for each of the facilities at KVCC that were consistent with the overall positioning plans and statement of purpose for each facility. CLARUS identified the marketing outcomes and methods of measuring the effectiveness of the outcomes. The community needs assessment that was conducted provided the data needed to determine the correct positioning of the campuses, the Technology Application Center and the Museum.

In a more recent project, KVCC requested that CLARUS Corporation evaluate their effectiveness in generating inquiries. After devising several marketing strategies in conjunction with the College, CLARUS Corporation then surveyed those who responded to the marketing strategies as well as those who did not to measure how to change the strategies to increase inquiry response. The sample below is of one of the successful strategies developed and measured. A postcard campaign was implemented by KVCC to increase African-American attendance. The campaign doubled the requests for information in the African-American market over previous years.