How to Plan a Successful College Video That Addresses Your Recruitment Needs Without Sacrificing Creativity
If you’re part of the marketing department of an institute of higher learning, whether it be a private school, community college, or four-year university, you may be tasked with creating commercial advertisements for your school. In most cases, an in-house college marketing team can’t produce what they require and hires an outside agency to do so.
Planning these commercials may feel overwhelming for the uninitiated, but by hiring an experienced production company, your department will be able to deliver beautiful and effective videos that fit your budget. After finding an agency partner, you’ll enter into a planning phase for your video called pre-production.
If you’re a newcomer to making commercials, we wrote a guide with our recommendations on how to approach the pre-production process.
Address Your Recruiting Needs
Push for Creativity
Take Advantage of the Scout
Address Your Recruitment Needs
Who do you need to target with your video? As a college marketer, you’re likely aware of the impending “enrollment cliff”—a predicted 15 percent reduction of college students between 2025 and 2029. Part of your department’s job will be to help clear this cliff, and the mitigation strategies you use will affect the messaging included in your commercial videos.
The enrollment cliff is what higher education professionals refer to when addressing the predicted 15 percent reduction in college-bound students between 2025 and 2029.
One strategy your school’s marketing department may be taking to increase enrollment is by targeting underserved populations. What messages do they want or need to hear from a prospective college in their commercials? Consider these themes for your video:
Affordability
Debt and the rising cost of college is on the forefront of any prospective student’s mind. Gen Zers are “more likely to hold student debt and have higher balances” than millennials. For students on the fence about whether to attend or for students unable to secure loans, college may be completely off the table.
This is where many institutions, particularly community colleges, can make a dent. In your video, highlight what makes your school more affordable for students than competing schools. Share impressive statistics such as low student debt among recent graduates. If affordability is one of your strongest recruitment points, find a way to work with your agency to highlight these options, such as:
- Low tuition rates
- Scholarships and grants
- Financial aid packages
- Work-study programs
Representation
We know why media representation matters: people thrive within spaces in which they feel a sense of belonging. So, when a prospective student sees someone who looks like them in a college commercial, they imagine themselves attending that institution. Representation can go a long way in making a student excited about their future.
Mad Genius produces college commercials for a number of HBCUs. The 2019 Image Spot we created for Jackson State University is a perfect snapshot of student life at JSU. We worked with JSU to represent campus culture and types of students: Greek life, visual artists, techies, musicians, athletes, and more. After seeing this commercial, the right students will know that this is the school for them.
International Students
The pandemic wreaked havoc on international students, causing new enrollments to drop 46 percent in 2020-2021, but “new international student totals [are] back to pre-pandemic levels.” The US State Department is prioritizing issuing student visas and reducing wait times for interviews. Now that students can travel here, how is your school marketing to them?
Students in India, China, and elsewhere cannot travel to the United States just to visit your campus. Create tour videos especially for these students that show where they would be living, studying, and working. Film versions in several languages and use the video in targeted, paid advertising. Testimonial videos from international students can go a long way in getting a prospective student excited about applying to your school.
Technical and Vocational Training
Years ago, a student who wanted to attend a technical school may have been encouraged to enter a four-year college. However, current labor shortages and availability of great paying trades has ended the stigma against trade school. Students are clamoring for two-year programs that will prepare them to be out in the field, earning great money as soon as they graduate.
Show these students at work. If they can do it, the person watching can, too.
Your agency can work with you to develop creative ideas for higher education commercials that address your recruitment goals while continuing to acknowledge your school’s bread and butter: the traditional student.
This recruitment commercial for Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College is an example of a video campaign that included the traditional student but also featured popular workforce training programs like welding, automotive repair, HVAC, nursing, elementary education, culinary arts, and more.
Free Help from Mad Genius
Do you need some advice about producing commercials for your college? We’re all ears! Schedule a free, 30-minute Q&A with a person who helps make them.
Push for Creativity
Picture it: Bleachers full of cheering fans. A professor at a lectern. Students smiling in a quad. College commercials often contain montages of the school’s best features, and it’s not a bad strategy! The montage is a tried-and-true method of showing off your campus, promoting academic programs, and conveying student culture.
Want to take it further, though? Push for it! If you want to stand out in a sea of sameness, ask your agency for memorable ideas that go beyond the montage. During the video’s ideation process, these creatives will keep your recruitment goals in mind while working to elevate the storytelling above and beyond the montage.
Consider these clever deviations from the montage: Delta State University’s “Fear the Okra” series incorporates classic horror movie tricks to create memorable, funny commercials that make you proud (and a little afraid) to be a Fighting Okra.
The original videos, created by Mad Genius in 2012, are unexpected gems whose popularity resulted in the creation of another set, also starring higher education’s toughest vegetable, in 2021.
Take Advantage of the Location Scout
Investing in a commercial video production for your school can be a large expense. As part of your school’s marketing team, you are responsible for making sure that every dollar you spend matters. Therefore, it is no surprise that you’d look at a proposed budget and see where adjustments can be made.
If you have not been a part of a commercial shoot with an outside agency, you may be wondering about a specific line item under pre-production: the location scout.
A location scout is part of the pre-production process of making a commercial. During a location scout, members of the agency you hired to produce your commercial meet with you in person. Together, you investigate the location or locations that you’ll be shooting at, which may include on- and off-campus interiors and exteriors.
Budgeting For a Location Scout
Logically, you already know about the best-looking buildings, scenic areas of campus, and iconic features that may look great in a commercial. So, when a budget is tight, it may seem sensible to remove location scouting and, instead, have the production team arrive at the shoot, sight unseen.
Unfortunately, while this logic may seem sound, the reality of shooting a commercial without a proper Location Scout is different. Commercials average only 30 seconds in length, so it will not be possible to fit in all the wonderful programs, locations, and other features your school has to offer. And creating a series of spots to fit everything in can get expensive. It’s important to prioritize what’s most important to highlight.
By walking through and evaluating locations together, your agency can help you make decisions about the most critical locations to include. Location scouting is a key piece of the pre-production puzzle, without which the location list may be too long, causing delays that hurt the quality of the finished product.
Why Location Scouts are Crucial for Your Commercial
Having made our fair share of excellent, high production value commercials for various institutes of higher education, Mad Genius can confidently advise that pre-production is essential for the success of your video. Therefore, the location scout is actually the last item that should be reduced or removed from a production budget. Below, we dive into what a location scout accomplishes:
1. Establishes Communication Between Agency and Client
By convening in person, the agency will be able to consider locations for your video as well as build a professional rapport with the in-house marketing team. They will shepherd you through the process of shooting a commercial video, the scope of which is often underestimated.
During the location scout, your agency should provide clear communication about their working process, including:
- Answering any questions you may have
- Listening to and addressing your concerns
- Making shoot schedule recommendations
2. Results in High Production Values
The visual storytellers working on your video production will use the location scout to find what interior and exterior shots will look best on camera. During the scout, they’ll take reference photos and discuss composition and any lighting needs.
And while most competent production companies can stick a camera in a room, light it well, and compose a decent shot, you should ask your agency to push your project a step further. They should be working to create the most dynamic visuals possible.
Take, for example, a science lab. Labs tend to be visually uninteresting deliberately—the work completed in them requires a sterile environment. But what if you want to feature your lab in your next commercial?
When Mad Genius scouted the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Campus and walked into one of these labs, they discovered the most arresting visuals in the room by using their macro lenses. The real action was happening on a microscopic level! The energy of the footage of petri dishes and slides held its own alongside the commercial‘s welders, athletes, and musicians.
3. Helps Save You Money
The location scout is used to help plan efficient shoot days, and this keeps productions on budget. A failure to properly plan logistics with your agency’s team may result in the need for additional shoot days or a video that doesn’t contain necessary footage. By being physically in the space where the shoot will happen, the teams can discuss and plan the shoot day logistics with you, which may include:
- Filming order
- Time needed to shoot at each location
- Whether sets need to be redressed
- Casting needs
- Props and wardrobe
- Transportation for people and equipment
- Contingency plans for weather conditions
- Filming permissions
- Parking permits
Talk to a Higher Education Marketing Strategist
If you have looming questions about making commercials for your college, join us for a different kind of mixer: a free, 30-minute Q&A with a college marketing strategist.