A Best Practice School Brand Refresh

Brand refresh for all girls’ school achieves strong results

All girls’ independent Catholic secondary school, Brigidine College, recently engaged Look Education to refresh their brand and reposition their school in the competitive western corridor market of Brisbane.

With a 90-year history and a reputation for educating girls to have a strong understanding of service and compassion, this Indooroopilly-based school was keen to develop a new website and prospectus, enrolment advertising campaigns and marketing materials.

But first, we had to uncover the essence of this school. How was it different to other all girls’ schools and other schools in the area? How could we position it uniquely to attract girls that were a perfect match with Brigidine?

In order to decipher this, Look Education recommended best practice – research, followed by strategy, then implementation.

Brigidine’s Best practice school Brand Refresh Formula

From the outset, Brigidine College was keen to follow a strategic branding and marketing process which involved Look Education undertaking:

Focus groups with parents and staff
A brand workshop utilising the Look Education brand pyramid process with their leadership team and key staff
The creation of a brand strategy outlining target audience brand personas, a new tagline and creative campaigns for brand positioning and enrolment driving.
A marketing plan for the school year inclusive of media plan and budget recommendations
New photography to showcase key messages and brand features and benefits
A series of brand videos showcasing the school, the Principal, teachers, students and alumni conveying key messages and brand positioning
Writing and designing of a dynamic responsive WordPress website
Writing and designing of a new prospectus for digital download and print
New creative for advertising across traditional and digital formats
A digital advertising campaign across Google and social media platforms
Radio advertising copy

The new positioning for the school, ‘Shaping women of our time’ was borne out of the focus groups and brand workshop, where parents and staff suggested the brand essence of the school ‘was that it produced authentic, confident young women’.

This in turn, was written to reflect part of the well-known statement – women of our time – suggesting that Brigidine girls are women who are known to make a difference in the world. They stand up for something and are women that people look up to.

The tagline, ‘Shaping women of our time’, was applied to the brand refresh undertaken by Look Education Creative Director, Pete Roddy, who designed the new responsive website, prospectus and advertising.

Eye-catching photographs of a range of Brigidine ‘women’ including sport, science, music and dance action shots were captured in wide landscape formats for web and digital use were shot by Look Education photographer, Wes Tolhurst.

Modern bold typography and full bleed imagery were part of the design focus to ensure brand integrity with the line – Shaping women of our time.

A highlight of the new branding and marketing campaign has been the creation of a suite of branding videos, the first one being a 30-second version featuring a Brigidine College parent and Year 9 daughter, now running as a cinema advertisement in targeted cinemas near the school.

At a recent Open Day, a prospective parent turned up with their young daughter who after seeing the advert at the local cinema and said, “I want to go to that school’.

Another video featured an Alumni who runs a dance school for children with special needs/disabilities. This subject was chosen for her embodiment of a Brigidine graduate who is a woman of our time.

From an ongoing marketing perspective, the most impact has been seen through the set up and management of a creative digital marketing campaign by Look Education Digital Director, Tim Nelson.

A combination of Search Engine Optimisation, Google Adwords and social media marketing has been used to improve website rankings and traffic as well as drive enquiries, registrations and enrolments for 2020.

Critical to the success of the brand refresh was the school’s engagement and willingness to take on board the strategic process. Brigidine College Principal, Brendan Cahill, Registrar Kathy Webb, Marketing Coordinator Mahliah Ivory and other key staff were determined to follow best practices when it came to their brand refresh.

Look Education Brand Strategist, Anita Beasley, said this has been our most successful brand refresh project to date and attributes this to the mutual collaboration between Brigidine and the Look team. “Brigidine were committed to taking the time to get this right, to truly understand perceptions and challenges and identify what made their school and their girls so unique and special.”

“Shortcuts and a piecemeal approach do not equate to best practices when it comes to brand re-freshes. By investing in the process you will end up with a compelling brand position that both your school and your target audience can clearly relate to.” Look Education specialises in brand refreshes, websites and digital marketing campaigns for early learning centres, schools and colleges.

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