UI marketing a glossier image

MOSCOW, Idaho – Recruitment mailings from the University of Idaho this year are glossier, the slogans catchier and the pictures prettier. It’s all part of the school’s aggressive new marketing pitch.

The new information booklet for prospective students, known as the viewbook, transforms the school’s image from traditional to bold, said Wendy Shattuck, the school’s vice president for communications.

“It’s time to turn up the volume on being aggressive, strategic and creative in how we project ourselves,” she told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. “Students get bombarded. We need distinction to break through the clutter.”

With more than 4,300 colleges and universities in the country, marketing has become increasingly competitive, educators say. UI’s new campaign is also an attempt to stem declining enrollment numbers.

Total fall enrollment dipped 5.9 percent this year compared to last year’s count of students during the first 10 days of school – from 12,476 to 11,739 students.

Enrollment is a key factor in the school’s budget – fewer students means less money from tuition and other student fees.

“We have to raise more, charge more, or stop services,” said Lloyd Mues, the school’s vice president for finance and administration.

To raise more money, the school needs to boost its enrollment, and that’s where the marketing can help, Shattuck said.

Information packets are more “artsy and attractive,” she said. A team of marketing experts chose photographs that highlight the school’s pastoral setting.

“We are not New York City,” said Bill McLaughlin, chairman of the school’s faculty council. “We are in this beautiful western part of the country, and there is no reason we shouldn’t play off of that.”

The tag lines splashed on information mailings – as well as billboards, radio and television advertisements – try to brand the school behind that Western backdrop.

Two new slogans read: “No Fences” and “Open spaces. Open Minds.”

To craft the new campaign the school brought in two marketing consulting firms: Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Stamats and Gallatin Group, a public relations firm with an office in Boise.

The new media push will cost the university $400,000 for the first year and $500,000 in the second year.

Paul Kimmell, a Latah County commissioner and executive director of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce, took a peek at the new materials when UI sent a recruitment package to his son.

He said the mailings were not over-hyped and made the school and the city look favorable.

As for his son: “He’s a 17-year-old boy. He has no reaction,” Kimmell said.