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Say it out loud

Acadia University had so much confidence in what it has to offer, it created a campaign driven by what others say about it

by Corrie Fletcher-Naylor

Acadia University had an unsettling reality check two years ago: After three years of declining student enrollment, it hit an all-time low in 2007. With just 900 new students that year, the university was at risk of not being able to sustain itself if the trend continued. “There was a disconnect going on,” says Ray Ivany, Acadia’s president and vice-chancellor. “Our numbers were down, but we had a student body that was giving us satisfaction ratings through the roof. We weren’t doing a good job of telling our story.” 

Situated in Wolfville, N.S., the university is home to 2,995 full-time students from more than 50 countries and employs more than 345 full-time and part-time educators. Over the last 171 years, Acadia has built its reputation on the promise of providing students with a personalized experience through access to exceptional faculty, rich research opportunities, and cutting-edge resources. In fact, for almost two decades the university has been ranked as one of the top Best Overall Undergraduate University for Reputation in Maclean’s magazine’s annual university-ranking issue. 
 
It became clear that a new recruitment campaign was needed, one that built on the school’s history and reputation. Yet university recruitment is not like selling a product off the shelf; the audience is young people trying to make one of the most important decisions of their lives. “Acadia’s campaign had to tell our story as clearly and as powerfully as possible,” says Ivany, “but also empower students to pick the right university for them.”
 
The task fell to Halifax-based MT&L , a marketing-and-PR firm with extensive experience in the university sector. “What was striking about Acadia was the passion students had when talking about their experience there,” says Kim West, a partner with MT&L. “When we heard students saying, ‘It’s like family here’ and ‘It’s the reason I’m successful today,’ that was our ‘A ha!’ moment.” 
 
MT&L  redesigned the Acadia4U website, featuring university-generated blogs, videos, and social networking links to Facebook and Twitter. The idea was to reach prospective students with the stories of other students, faculty, and alumni.
 
The campaign, called What’s Your Story, raised Acadia’s profile in a personal way. Music student Gillian Proudfoot confides on the site that she picked Acadia as a last option but fell in love with the campus after auditioning. “A lot of my friends went to schools in the city,” she says. “They just hung around people from high school. I made a new group of friends. And my old friends look at my Facebook page and say, ‘You have this whole other life that we don’t know.’ ”
 
MT&L delivered What’s Your Story to places students congregate; created a Facebook page; and bought online banner ads and Google ads that referred young people to Acadia4U to begin unfettered conversation. “This was a campaign about letting go,” says West. “In social media you need to be confident in your product or experience, because you can’t restrict the dialogue once it gets started.”
 
While it’s still early in the campaign, the results are already positive; Acadia’s year-over-year first-year enrollment is up by 13%. Plus, the What’s Your Story online banners ads, seen almost 30 million times, drove more than 12,000 visitors to the Acadia4U website. Even more impressive, Acadia’s new Facebook page attracted more than 600 members, including 80% of the incoming class, who say being a member made it easier to integrate into the campus and make new friends. 
 
Acadia will continue to invest in recruitment and carefully watch evolving trends in social media. University leaders like Ray Ivany want to make sure that it stays connected and continues to attract students and faculty. Ivany says the results could have been much different without MT&L. “If we had looked at this in a traditional way, we wouldn’t have chosen to have others tell our story or put emphasis on social media,” he says. “Now that others are telling our story, it’s our job to make sure we’re delivering on those expectations.”  
 
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