Clark University’s College of Professional and Continuing Education (COPACE) launched its Cyber Security Graduate Programs to address a growing knowledge and talent gap related to global cyber security challenges. As a specialization and certificate, these graduate concentrations provide timely options for students, career professionals and organizations.
Cyber threats are rapidly becoming a top priority for the United States government, and for governments and businesses all over the world. Unfortunately, cyber security is lagging behind the threats that are faced on the digital frontier. The Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) Cyber Security Concentrations will emphasize various aspects of cyber security, providing specialized training and education required to assist career professionals in pursuing postgraduate certifications.
The College needed a campaign that would introduce and promote the program regionally for the initial launch, while developing a marketing platform that would ultimately reach national and international audiences. Bergeron Creative working closely with COPACE to implement an integrated enrollment campaign utilizing social media as the primary channel to communicate with the College’s key audiences and influencers to generate student inquiries and referrals.
Technology continues to advance at exponential rates across every industry sector and so too do cyber threats. Today, malicious cyber activity is unprecedented in its scope, sophistication and severity, which have caught the attention of the media with major attacks regularly making headlines. In addition, many IT and technology positions have been downsized and outsourced, leaving career professionals looking for ways to breathe new life into their careers.
We capitalized on the strengths of the MSIT branding program we had previously developed for COPACE, extending the brand messaging and imaging to spotlight cyber security. The MSIT Cyber Security branding needed both to educate and resonate with prospective students and their employers, as organizations have tended to take a reactive approach rather than a proactive view of cyber security.
The messaging for prospective students focused on the impact these concentrations would have on their careers, while the messaging targeted to organizations focused on their readiness to handle cyber attacks. The general awareness that cyber attacks not only can occur, but likely will happen to all of us—is unfolding every day online and in the media. The brand strategy was to use social media to become part of this ongoing dialogue, positioning the program’s faculty as authorities as they commented on current events and the future of cyber security.
Bergeron Creative developed an award-winning outdoor media campaign supporting collateral that targeted prospective students. The objective of the outdoor media campaign was to capture the attention of commuters with a colorful, eye-catching graphic that pulled them into an online dialogue. The headline, “Secure Our World. Secure Our Future,” became the dominant graphic because the message crossed over and supported both brand strategies—targeting technology professionals and their employers.
In addition, we developed awarding-winning collateral themed, “You Want Job Security! Get Cyber Job Security!” the print campaign that used infographics to highlight the career opportunities available to professionals in this growing field. The call to action used the tagline we developed for the MSIT program, “Are You ready?” We also developed more in-depth print collateral, such as handouts and booklets, to support the recruitment effort.
We developed a blog for MSIT Cyber Security Concentrations, which became a program-specific microsite where the brand story came to life and was shaped on a daily basis. The blog homepage featured a masonry-style grid that summarized the latest blog content and became an interactive infographic. The site was optimized for the iPad and each element on the homepage rolled over to reveal a summary of the latest information, making it easy for visitors to get a quick overview and also to explore what was of most interest to them.
The blog’s major objective was to position the program faculty as authorities in cyber security, thus elevating the status of the concentrations. Each faculty member had their own page, which featured their profile along with their latest blog and video blog (vlog) posts. The faculty posts related to their specific areas of expertise in cyber security as well as their perspectives on future threats and solutions. The director of the program blogged about topics pertaining to current events and the general state of cyber security as it stands today.
An online advertising campaign was developed to target organizations. The ads featured cyber security statistics pulled from the College’s infographics. The ads appeared on regional news sites including the Worcester Business Journal and linked back to the blog.
The program is a natural fit for social media, so we decided to make social media the focus of the campaign. Using brand imaging from the blog, we created a unique presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others to communicate with key audiences and influencers to generate student inquiries and referrals. We developed a series of vlogs featuring the faculty, which not only were very compelling—they also provided us a backlog of content to initiate our social media campaign.
The faculty also participated in our social media training program, “Building AAA (Audience, Authentic and Authority) Communities.” The training was tailored to the College’s objectives and covered topics ranging from personal branding and social media etiquette right down to how to post a blog.
LinkedIn promoted the program to working professionals, Facebook and YouTube reached a wider range of potential students, and the program’s Twitter feed kept all audiences up-to-date with relevant information about the program and cyber security issues in general. In additional, a national public relations strategy was launched utilizing PR Newswire and PR Web to set the stage for the next phase of the enrollment strategy—recruiting nationally and internationally.
Bergeron Creative implemented a very focused geographical Google Adwords campaign targeting the local region to generate initial inquires while the social campaign was taking root. We developed two lists of keywords, one targeting prospective students and the other targeting organizations. We set up two different campaigns with Google, making monitoring and tracking campaign results much more transparent. Each grouping of campaign ads linked to a unique landing page with target audience-specific content.
The campaign has raised awareness of the program and continues to generate interest. “We like the way Bergeron Creative thinks—big picture and different,” said Eben Berry, Cyber Security Graduate Programs Lead and President of Cyber Inspectors™ LLC. “This program has been designed to initiate and support social change through education that builds valuable regional assets to benefit our communities with an expanding national and international footprint.”
Both the College and Bergeron Creative look forward to supporting the program’s growth. “COPACE’s Cyber Security Graduate Programs faculty includes some of the most progressive minds in cyber security today. They will lead the marketing efforts by communicating directly with audiences and prospects via social media venues with their knowledge, practical experience and insights,” adds Al Bergeron, President and Chief Creative Officer at Bergeron Creative Studios. “COPACE has a long-standing reputation for implementing both relevant and innovative degree programs. This student recruitment campaign will be a radical departure from the traditional higher education marketing strategy.”
Call us at 617-834-4840 | al@bergeroncreative.com