William & Mary

Challenge

The Mason School of Business at W&M is a damn good institution. And in Virginia, people know it. But the rankings reflected a dip of influence outside of their home turf.

And those numbers can be unforgiving. Essentially the same few schools get jostled around the top every year and the rest are left outside the city gates. At #103, W&M might as well have been in Antarctica.

Solution

So we studied the marketing materials for those "top" schools and we found that pamphlet after pamphlet described the same bulleted lists of courses and tracks without ever once mentioning the students who used them. Clearly, MBA programs were to be selected by name and ranking, not student experience.

In the Brand Spanking workshop, it had come out that W&M attracted a unique breed of student, far more forward-thinking and progressive than most MBAs. This, we decided, would be the hill on which to make a stand.

Tactics

To start, we found three students who embodied the W&M experience and sculpted a campaign around them: "Everyone Has a Story."

Come fall, Mason hit the traditional college fairs with an eye-catching and unusual view-book. Within an interlocking hexagon, three students talked about their experience in the W&M MBA program. No pyrotechnics. Just innovative design and old-fashioned storytelling.

To complement, we also ran banner ads on the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and Financial Times websites and sent out personalized emails and direct mail that played off of the "Everyone Has a Story" theme. The latter had a flash drive containing the pictures and stories of more than 100 Executive Partner mentors.

Reception

Sometimes, even we are surprised by the reaction a piece of marketing gets. William & Mary became instantly differentiated in the business school world. In just six months, applications more than doubled. And even though we wanted them to ignore the rankings and focus on their own strengths, a 45-slot increase in position the following year was pretty sweet.