StudyAdelaide is aiming to attract international students to the city with the use of Adelaide City Council’s marketing campaign “Designed for Life”, with the hope that a consistent campaign across sectors can be “visually impactful”.
The council recently voted to spend $150,000 on advertising, with StudyAdelaide promoting the city in just over 10 international markets, according to its chief executive Karyn Kent.
“It’s translatable, which is essential for our activity in China and other key and emerging markets”
“In a global marketplace where there are thousands of destinations with a similar grouping of traits, consistency of message is essential to provide education agents, students, parents and partners with a distilled concept of Adelaide, to succinctly express the variety of appealing attributes about the city offers,” she said.
“Only this week, a student commented to us that in their view, Adelaide was designed for students and we couldn’t agree more.”
According to Kent, in 2017 almost 36,000 international students from 130 countries were enrolled in the city. While the diversity of student population is wonderful for their experience, it presents a significant challenge in promoting the destination, she said.
Kent added that the ability to leverage global marketing investment undertaken by complementary sectors, such as tourism, is important.
“To have any chance of achieving cut through in an increasingly cluttered and competitive global environment there is a critical need for consistency in brand and messaging,” she stated.
Consistent marketing brands across sectors can make “a striking visual impact”, and this campaign is translatable.
“The brand story is inspired by the past, but is a thoroughly relevant representation of the Adelaide experience today and what we aspire for Adelaide in the future,” she explained. “It’s translatable, which is essential for our activity in China and other key and emerging markets.”
Councils can play a significant role in student engagement, Kent suggested. StudyAdelaide has been working with the City of Adelaide to deliver the Welcome Dinner Project in the city for newly arrived residents, which includes international students, she explained.
StudyAdelaide plans to engage other local councils to extend the project to areas where it knows international students reside.
In the past, StudyAdelaide has invested in building awareness of the positive liveability factors of the city. It now plans to grow awareness of other advantages for students such as industry connections and career opportunities.
“We see ‘Designed for Life’ as the umbrella positioning that will take this work to the next level.”
