NCSDO

Situation Our work for Baldwin-Wallace began as the College emerged from a comprehensive research project. Its finding: that the College’s best marketing opportunities resided in positioning as “a preprofessional liberal arts college.” Given the misunderstanding and confusion that often accompanies the terms, we began by knitting together a market-ready expression of the concept. The result: The B-W Action Plan, which aggregates the student benefits derived from the College’s traditional strengths of curricular breadth, advising and mentoring, experiential learning, and cocurricular richness. A companion graphical element serves as a reference point for the plan’s elements, both in print and online. The work was tested in and informed by NCSDO-conducted focus groups in B-W's primary metropolitan markets.

Results The Action Plan has emerged as a fixture in the College's undergraduate recruitment efforts—and the visual design developed for admissions communications has been adopted as the heart of the broader B-W brand identity, online and in print. During the first two years of the admissions communications program, applications from and enrollment of first-year students have increased by approximately 20 percent. The viewbook earned a CASE Circle of Excellence silver award in 2006.