University wins three prizes at marketing industry awards
Release Date 24 April 2015
The University has been recognised amongst the great and the good of the marketing industry community this week, taking home three highly prestigious prizes at the Transform Awards Europe.
Up against stiff competition from leading brands in both the private and public sector, the University's ‘Are You Ready?' recruitment campaign for 2015 entry was awarded the following:
- Silver for ‘Best visual identity from a charity, non-government organisation or not-for-profit'
- Bronze for ‘Best implementation of a brand development project'
- Bronze for ‘Best creative strategy'
Reading was one of only two universities to be recognised in the awards. The University worked with strategic brand agency Bell to create a strong visual identity, brand guidelines and a national advertising campaign targeting potential undergraduates - the first in the University's history. The 10-month long, multichannel campaign focussed on high-impact online and outdoor geo-targeted advertising (concentrating on the M4 corridor and London), which showcased Reading's research and teaching using eye-catching images and challenging headlines.
By the end of the UCAS application deadline in mid-January, the University had seen a 21% increase in applications, way above the sector average of just 2%.
Karen Smalley, Head of Brand and Campaigns at the University said: "The judges for the Transform Awards see entries from brands big and small across Europe, and across all sectors - to get this recognition from our peers is simply fantastic.
"We are daring to be different in our approach to student recruitment marketing and the results from our increase in applications speak for themselves. Working with Bell has been great, they combined strategy and creativity to great effect. I'm really excited about our joint work for the 2016 recruitment campaign."
Last month [March 2015] the University was also named joint runner-up for the best ‘Marketing and Comms Campaign' at the Guardian University Awards 2015.
The University's 2016 recruitment campaign is being launched in May 2015.