With two beautiful campuses and a wide array of exceptional programs for scholars, athletes, and artists alike, Valley Christian boasted some impressive stats that should've made any advertising campaign easy to pull off. But marketing a school requires more than just numbers and bulleted lists of accomplishments, as the newly minted Director of Marketing Kim Ellefsen discovered. In the end, her original “I Am a Warrior” campaign both inspired the on-campus community of teachers and students, and attracted outside acclaim.
Kim is a Warrior herself, having graduated from Valley Christian. After college, she worked a decade in the private and government sectors before returning to work at Valley Christian. When the Head approached her to lead the school’s first comprehensive Marketing Office, she jumped at the opportunity.
To revitalize the school’s message, Kim went to work with the end goal in mind. “I tried to approach [the campaign] from the parent’s perspective,” Kim explained. “I wanted to show that, yes, VCS offers a wide range of opportunities, but our goal is to educate the whole person, developing well-rounded students of depth and character. I want parents to look at our materials and see their children in our students.”
One aspect that needed a facelift was Valley Christian’s presentation of its information and statistics. While the information was important, bullet-point lists didn’t really reflect the school’s “Quest for Excellence”—the school’s challenge to its students to “aspire toward lives of character, service, and influence.” The students are more than numbers and statistics—they accomplished spectacular feats and could tell amazing stories about their time as Valley Christian Warriors.
The inaugural piece of the “I Am a Warrior” campaign was the President’s Report. The booklet still offered the information once contained in bulleted lists, but it also featured stories and anecdotes from students emphasizing the breadth of their experiences at Valley Christian. The portraits show current students in the typical “uniform” of a particular label—sports gear, scholarly outfits, artistic costumes—but feature unexpected captions. A swimmer’s photo might say, “I am an actress”; a musician’s portrait, “I am a scientist”; a student’s smiling face, “I am a Warrior.”
That year’s admission packet followed the same format, while tall banners featuring a variety of students' portraits with the mix of captions appeared on both campuses. Combined, the juxtaposition between picture and story in these campaign pieces achieved Kim’s ultimate goal: To show that no student could be pigeonholed into a single role in the school’s story, yet they were all Valley Christian Warriors.
The campaign was unlike anything the school had tried before, and it clearly resonated with local audiences and beyond. The President’s Report won a gold CASE Award of Excellence, and the advertising campaign overall won the silver. The Admission Office also reported a 20% increase in submitted applications in the two years since the campaign went active, as well as a 10% jump in enrollment.
Perhaps more importantly, the Valley Christian community loved the new initiative. Kim says that teachers would come up to her, thanking her for the banners and the campaign’s message. “They’d tell me that they’d hear the kids start to label themselves as one thing or the other, as Conservatory or AMSE students” Kim told ISM, referencing school-offered programs. “After seeing their pictures up on the banners, [the students] started calling themselves warriors.”
As they saw how excited and motivated the student body had become, Valley Christian program leaders strengthened the campaign’s depth and breadth. The hashtag “#ImAWarrior” was born for school events, for example, though Kim confessed that she doesn’t use Twitter much. The Lower School campus even printed the tagline on its t-shirts for trips and special events!
Kim is modest about her achievements, attributing the campaign’s success and accolades to her “incredible school” and a different perspective. She feels that anyone could repeat Valley Christian’s success if they “step away from what they’ve always done and look at their school through a different lens” to distinguish themselves from the pack.
Statistics have their time and place, but the real difference is in your school’s mission and student body. Valley Christian's "I Am a Warrior" campaign stopped focusing on itself to put the students' stories first. The results speak for themselves, showing that good marketing isn't all about you—it's about your audience and how you connect with them.
ISM will feature a new school each month to share stories of student, programmatic, and administrative success with nearly 30,000 private school administrators every month. If your school has a success story you'd like the world to hear, contact our e-letter editor today!
Additional ISM resources:
Research: The 21st Century School: Student-Led Conferences and Planning
ISM Monthly Update for School Heads Vol. 12 No. 9 Attracting Exceptional Teachers
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 11 No. 2 How to Get People Talking About Your School
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 32 No. 3 Marketing Your Purpose and Outcome Statements
I&P Vol. 37 No. 13 The Student's Role in Re-recruitment
I&P Vol. 31 No. 5 Purpose and Outcome Statements: Capture the Essence of Your School
