The Institute Profile
Sikkim Manipal University (SMU) is a private-public undertaking shaped in 1995 to provide quality education to students in the north-east and eastern parts of India. It is a result of a partnership between the Sikkim Government and Manipal Education, which has more than 60 years of experience in educating India. The university imparts professional degrees like BBA, MBA, MCA, etc. SMU has a medical campus for its medical, pharmacy and nursing courses and a technical one for engineering and other applied sciences. After functioning as a top university for the students of north-east and eastern India, SMU launched many distance education courses in 2001. Today, it is one of the leading distance education institutes that has helped youngsters and working professionals to gain an edge in the professional world.
Why advertise in Kolkata?
Kolkata is the largest city of eastern India. Several students from the City of Joy, Kolkata joined Sikkim Manipal University each year. During the admissions period, the university wanted to capitalise on the huge population of the city and increase the total enrolments in various courses. They wanted an ad campaign which would bring SMU new enrolments and establish SMU as the best place to get professional degrees in the minds of the Kolkatans.
The university’s governing body chose releaseMyAd based on its impeccable record of customer satisfaction and satisfying ad campaigns.
What SMU wanted from this ad campaign?
Sikkim Manipal University expected this ad campaign to step up the admission process. Their key goals to be achieved with the campaign were:
- Increased Enrolments, and
- Brand Recognition.
The releaseMyAd Str
ategy
The releaseMyAd team soon established that the target audience for Sikkim Manipal University would be the youngsters in the age group of 18 to 25. Also, the fee structure of SMU is convenient, especially the distance education fees. So we could safely target the middle class and the upper-middle class students.
We picked radio ads for the purpose based on the following
- Radio ads have an all-pervasive capability. When any radio station plays, one subconsciously registers it.
- Kolkata is a city of music, and youngsters here spend quite some time on radio for their musical entertainment.
- Radios being available with cell phones these days serve as an added advantage as our target groups are always around one.
Since we were planning for an aggressive campaign, we decide to get two commercials made. We didn’t want our audiences to get bored or be saturated with our ads. Both the ads were in Hindi but as one elaborated on the advantages of studying at the SMU campus; the other decreed the usefulness of an SMU distance education degree. Both the ads were played simultaneously in the top radio stations of the city.
Power FM, Red FM, Aamar FM, Big FM, and Fever FM all played the SMU ads. Since the ads played for 51 days, we decided to bifurcate the time to balance our resources. The first twenty-one days of the ad campaign saw roadblocks in these stations as the same SMU ad played at the same time in all the 5 chosen radio stations. For the next four weeks, this road block technique was removed and the ads were played normally. We chose the radio stations based on their listenership statistics and programmes which appeal to our target audiences.
Our long-standing relations with these media houses ensured we clinched a few RJ Mentions at no extra cost for our clients.
Impact of the Radio Ad Campaign
Sikkim Manipal University reported a general rise in the number of students from Kolkata. Admissions from Kolkata students increased by 19% in regular courses of the university, whereas 43% increase in admissions to the distance courses was noted.
For successfully radio ad campaign contact releaseMyAd, a leading radio ad agency at 09830688443 or enquiry@releasemyad.com
