Brescia re-brand shows femininity, strength go hand-in-hand
By Vanessa Santilli-Raimondo, The Catholic Register
Her mind is as sharp as her heels. Lead the pack or follow the boys. Some ceilings were meant to be broken. These are some of the slogans of Brescia University College’s bold new advertising campaign that started in September to increase declining enrolment, said registrar Marianne Simm.“This year, we have the highest enrolment ever and we think part of that is due to work we started last year with our re-branding,” said Simm.
After seeing a trend of declining enrolment, particularly from Ontario high school students, the London, Ont.-based women’s college kicked off a re-branding process in January 2009. This included a consultation of faculty, students, alumni, guidance counsellors and parents on the benefits of attending Brescia. Through this, four attributes describing the campus were identified, which the campaign now focuses on: student-centred, empowering, invigorating and compassionate.
Currently, Simm said there are 970 full-time students and 203 part-time students enrolled at the women’s college.
Affiliated with the University of Western Ontario, Brescia was founded in 1919 by the Ursuline Sisters. While Brescia is idenitified as a Catholic college at Western, it embraces women of all faiths.
“The current campaign has come clearly out of this very disciplined approach to marketing: looking at our attributes, our target market and our need,” said Sheila Blagrave, director of communications at Brescia.
“With the ads, we’re trying to show that femininity and strength can go together.”
Blagrave said the campaign is meant to be humourous, tongue-in-cheek, youthful and meant to attract 18- to 24- year-olds.
But Simm said the secret to the campaign’s success is simple.
“We have really clearly defined our message,” she said. “We’re very confident in the experience that students have here and we are talking about that experience... We have in the students’ own words what their experience was here at Brescia so the message is all drawn from that.”
The campaign is set to run until the spring or summer, but may continue beyond, said Blagrave.
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