University of Northampton rebrands in an effort to stand out

Universities are businesses, just like any other corporate organisation, and attracting students is a demanding task considering the wide options students are presented with. As with all consumers, students don’t want to feel like articles of trade, but like they belong in a welcoming community. In order to achieve that, higher education institutions need rethink and revamp their brand identity to cope with the competitive market.

The University of Northampton (UON) has sought assistance from independent design and marketing agency Masters Allen to create a brand that appeals to the students and makes the university stand out, by offering appealing content to all appropriate for its audience channels.

Susan Parris, marketing and advertising manager, University of Northampton, says, “We know that our students interact with us across a number of channels, and we wanted to ensure that we were sending them clear and consistent messages through all platforms. Masters Allen helped us create a unified mixed media approach which captures the personality of our establishment and provides a true representation of who we are and what we offer.”

In addition to the students themselves, UON has to take into consideration the widespread network of decision makers students take advise from, when deciding on which university to go to, which is a different audience with different needs. Even though a physical brochure was necessary, the university needed to adapt to today’s society’s quick pace and be ready for any syllabus changes, last minute announcements as well as create a platform for interaction and immediate responsiveness.

To combat this problem, Masters Allen created a hybrid prospectus for the university, which consisted of a refined published part and an editable app. Both were designed to be used together to offer the students easy access on any information they might need. Apart from prospectus details, the app incorporated updates about the campus, happenings, videos, case studies, open days and course details.

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