Shifting perceptions about community college in Santa Barbara.

Overview

Shifting perceptions about community college in Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) had a perception problem. While the community generally had positive sentiment about SBCC, higher education and community colleges, as concepts, had less positive views depending on the audience. There was also a disconnect for people who were aware of the school but didn't fully understand SBCC’s educational and cultural offerings, and they value they brought to the community.

Approach

Working with the college, 3fold focused on the career-propelling programs available at SBCC, positioning them as the NEW higher education: flexible, affordable, cutting-edge and directly tied to personal and community success.

To tell this story, we created a cross-channel, cross-community approach. This campaign blended paid search, display, and Meta ads with website-based storytelling. We placed ads at gas pumps, as well as reached potential students during their Spotify time. Additionally, to reinforce SBCC’s place as in the community, we partnered with local businesses to display walkway decals and wrapped a popular local transportation icon, the Santa Barbra Trolly.

21,000

The campaign brought 32,000 visitors to SBCC’s website to consider enrolling for courses, with 21,000 of them being new visitors to SBCC.

Outcome

The campaign made a big impact for SBCC’s reputation and position in the community. We saw a:

8% increase in familiarity with SBCC
10% increase in people ranking the college as Excellent or Very Good
21% increase who thought the college had a very positive impact on the community
11% increase in those who would recommend the college to someone they know

62%

of adult learners recalled seeing an information about SBCC during the course of the campaign.

Overview