Jordan Frasier spent three weeks doing in-depth reporting on the advertising done by Clark College in Vancouver, Wash.  That reporting resulted in the following story.

Clark builds its brand for all to see

The campus marketing efforts are continuing with the production of new television spots

By: Jordan Frasier

A student wearing a blue shirt and black slacks walked up the Gaiser Hall stairs and into Professor Tim Cook’s Career Exploration class on a cloudy Thursday afternoon at the end of May.

The student walked to the middle of the room, pulled out his chair, and joined a half dozen other students looking up to the white board while a packet of “Understanding Group Dynamics” worksheets lay on the desks.

And then the director yelled, “cut.”

The man in the blue shirt is an actor, the other students are volunteer extras, and in addition to the white board and desks there was a camera, lighting, and production staff.

Clark’s marketing department is spending several weeks filming three new television commercials to begin airing in fall.  The television spots are one part of a larger marketing effort maintained by the college.

According to Clark’s Director of Marketing Brian Scott, the purpose of the marketing effort is two-fold.

“The driving factor around my program is to drive enrollment and get people to come to the college,” Scott said.  “But beyond that, our advertising is to keep constant awareness and presence in the marketplace about Clark College.”

Clark’s marketing effort combines print, television, and radio ads with tools such as brochures, new academic programs, new services, and general college publicity through news releases and appearances.

But as Clark has seen a persistent increase in enrollment since 2007 and a $5.4 million budget reduction since February 2009, some people on campus wonder if now is the right time to put effort into marketing.

“Right now I wonder why we do any advertising,” said Dr. Kathy Bobula who has taught at Clark since 1982.  “Recently we’ve been adding new students every quarter and I don’t think that’s from advertising. I think that’s from the economy.”

As a faculty member and someone who advises many students, Bobula is concerned with the registration and advising processes with the number of people on campus.

“My own feeling is that we’re over flowing with students and we really can’t handle this influx of people,” Bobula said.  “The college is complaining about increased costs, well, there are increased costs because we have more students and anything we do will cost more.”

Bobula said she saw a television ad for Clark that aired locally during the winter Olympics and she wondered why the college was doing that.

“I don’t see any lack of students and I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t know about Clark College in southwest Washington,” she said.

Clark’s advertising seems contrary to the times in which we live, according to Bobula.

“I think we’re in a new world in that way and I don’t think we need to do that big heavy duty advertising,” she said.  “When I see that, it just kind of reminds me of the for profit colleges like City University and University of Phoenix that are always recruiting students because they don’t get any state money to support them.”

College thinking on advertising and marketing

The concerns like Bobula’s are not unheard by the marketing department, but according to Scott, there are clear reasons for advertising now more than ever.

“Five years ago when I came here, that was one of the reasons [the college] brought on a marketing director, is because enrollment had shriveled to where we were barely meeting enrollment goals, and we didn’t have a consistent focus in the market place,” Scott said.

Scott says his paramount goal is bringing enrollment each quarter, but he also thinks it is important to look to the future and what the market circumstances might be.

“It’s much harder if you stop, start, stop, start,” Scott said.  “With marketing, it is very difficult and it just doesn’t work that way. You can optimize your budget and your efficiency if you maintain a set presence in the marketplace.”

Right now under enrollment is not a problem for the college, but according to Scott, that could change in the future, so it is important to maintain an advertising presence.

“We want to grow Clark College with some pretty ambitious goals for the future,” Scott said.  “If we don’t continue to communicate those stories and communicate those things that we have, not only do we not get that continuing support we’re going to need, but how are people going to know?”

According to Sherry Nelson, marketing communications specialist for the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, the general trend in community college marketing and advertising has shown a decrease in marketing and advertising budgets in recent years.

“Most colleges have reduced what little paid advertising they have done and are trying to cooperate with nearby colleges when possible,” Nelson said.

According to Nelson, there is an increased emphasis on making college Web sites more user friendly as part of their marketing.  Nelson also said most colleges don’t have a designated pot of advertising money, but rather scrape together bits of money from different departments or grant sources for targeted marketing efforts.

Clark’s Executive Director of Communications and Marketing, Barbara Kerr, said most of Clark’s marketing efforts are focused on the schedule, catalog and Web site, but the marketing department also has an eye on what she described as a tradition of communicating with the public through advertising and marketing.

The dollars and cents of television advertising

The marketing department hopes part of its enhanced marketing effort is conveyed through its television marketing.

For the last few years, the marketing department has produced television spots to air locally, mostly on cable television.  The department has a pool of ads that includes three ads created in 2008, two created in 2009, and three additional commercials this year that Scott said would refresh their supply going into the next year’s advertising campaign.

Two of the ads produced this year are geared toward the Running Start through age 34 demographic, while the third ad focuses on the corporate and community education program and is geared toward an older demographic.

Each of the commercials costs about $5,000 to produce, and that includes hiring an independent producer/director who is responsible for equipment, staffing, and locations, Scott said.  The cost also includes editing and graphic work that results in the final 30-second spot.

Scott said the commercials are budgeted to be amortized over a three-year period and perhaps longer if the department feels that the ads maintain some application.

Once the commercials are produced, it costs the college an additional $5,000 per quarter to air the ads on local television through Comcast.

The cost of television ads are in comparison to a one time print advertisement in publications like The Columbian, which runs for about $700 as a 5-column by 5-inch ad, according to Scott.

Scott says the marketing department does research to determine how to focus their television advertising, and that the department aims for a 90 percent saturation of the 88,000 household market with its ads.  Within that saturation, they hope for each household to see a Clark College commercial three times within the 6-week air schedule leading up to the start of each quarter.

Clark’s brand takes to the air

Through Comcast the college can target specific local audiences and times for its ads to air.  That type of schedule comes at a varied cost from $5 to $30 each time the commercial airs.

In preparation for this fall, Scott anticipates starting to air the commercials about the week of August 23.  They will continue right up to the Wednesday after classes start in September, he said.

That six week schedule is similar to the one created before the start of every quarter.  In that time, the college will run about 450 commercials, each of them 30-second spots during each of the four television marketing schedules throughout the year: one for each quarter, according to Scott.

According to Clark’s Director of Business Services Karen Wynkoop, the overall budget for college advertising is about $250,000.  That is in addition to about $700,000 in office and operation costs for the marketing department and $230,000 in publication spending.  These numbers are based on the 2009-10 base budget for the college.

As a comparison, Green River Community College in northern Washington spends about $55,000 on advertising, a reduction from previous years budgets of about $100,000, according to John Ramsey, director of Public Information for Green River.  Green River has stopped running all television and movie theater ads, he said.

Scott says his department has gone through two budget reductions as part of the overall college reductions.  He said he is concerned about the budget and the possibility of future reductions and he considers that when making advertising decisions.

When Clark’s television advertising campaign begins in August in advance of fall quarter, the ads will show potential students in a challenging situation in their career or environment and Clark college as the solution to their troubles.

The ads will feature actors hired through a Portland agency surrounded by actual Clark students and professors in campus locations and various local venues.