From the Nominator

"The University of Florida (UF) Division of Enrollment Management Communications Team designed the Dream Forward student recruitment and marketing campaign to attract low-income, high-achieving students to apply as freshmen. These students are classified as Pell Grant-eligible students whose household income is less than $45,000. The university has a strong institutional commitment to increasing socioeconomic diversity on campus and is working to remove the barriers that block these students from applying. 

One challenge is to assure low-income students that they can apply and will have the financial resources to attend UF. Within days of being given this assignment by UF’s vice president of enrollment management, the enrollment management communications team (n=3) designed a microsite, announcement postcard, a series of ads, and 10-second videos for a digital marketing campaign. 

The campaign started on October 5, 2021, for a duration of 32 days. The total population reached was 34,565 households, with 20,462 reached with the printed postcard coupled with the digital media ads and 14,103 households that received only the printed postcard. 

By segmenting the targeted populations, we could gauge the effectiveness of each campaign. UF received 13,779 applications from this target group, representing a 40% conversion rate. We were confident that these applications were a result of this campaign due to tag managing the analytics from both the digital ads and postcard. The 13,779 applications represent 21% of our total freshman applicant pool for 2022. We had a total of 65,418 applications for the 2022 freshman class."

From the Judges

The Dream Forward Student Recruitment Campaign was a worthy silver winner as it took a simple aspirational message and executed in an original and thoughtful way. It had good clean copy, sharp design, and a very clear call to action.