Background

The University of Minnesota has a rich history in the state of Minnesota tracing its origins as far back as 1851. With five distinct campuses serving all regions of Minnesota, the U is proud of its partnerships with the communities surrounding their campuses, and the state as a whole.

 

Challenge

People in the state of Minnesota were familiar with the University, and its decade long campaign.  But we needed more than familiarity. We needed to build statewide support in order for residents to feel personally connected to the U. Even though Minnesotans were aware of the University, they didn’t recognize its impact on their daily lives.

 

Solution

We took a creative three-pronged approach. 

1. Innovative Research: To get people engaged, we wanted to understand what was important to communities around the state. Originally the University focused on national stories of interest. For a local perspective, we researched the most frequently shared articles by area news media. We discovered a variety of new topics that the University could cover that would connect with Minnesotans across the state. Our new focus included showing the University’s impact on cancer research, water quality/aquatic invasive species, and rural retail.
2. Maximizing Reach & Engagement with New Media Mix: There was opportunity for a more impactful and efficient media mix. We leveraged automatic content recognition (ACR) technology to identify households that had viewed the TV spot and suppressed them from our digital video campaign to ensure we were adding incremental reach with our digital video buy. And, to increase engagement we shifted dollars from OOH to geo-targeted social media, giving us the opportunity to serve our audience relevant messages based on either their interests or their location.
3. Robust Testing: Split testing multiple ad formats and images for each message ensured that we were able to learn which creative assets resonated with our audience, thus increasing engagement. Using these tactics we were able to continually improve performance.

We also tracked engagement after exposure to understand what content people valued.

 

Results

The results produced by this campaign were not only extraordinary, they were award winning. It generated 16.4% lift in Brand Favorability (on a base of 60%). This incredible outcome is built on the power of:

• Highly relevant, engaging content that delivers engagement 3x above the industry benchmark. 
• Complementary media buy designed to extend the budget and reach Minnesotans with relevant messages in the most impactful ways.

 

Services Included

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