DeVry Brasil developed an app that helped alleviate the tension and uncertainty around the university application process, creating meaningful relationships with prospective students in the process.
Objective and Context:
DeVry Education Group Inc. is a global provider of educational services, offering a wide array of programs in business, health care, technology, accounting, and finance through its institutions.
The U.S. higher education system continues to work its way through a challenging time. The current economic environment has depressed demand for postsecondary education, with many prospective students still unwilling to commit to college. For the first time in a generation, fewer Americans are going to college than went the year before. DeVry felt the impact of this trend, as revenues decreased five percent to $1.96 billion, and net income declined 25 percent to $107 million.
DeVry wanted to counteract this decline by extending its programs to Brazil, a quickly developing country that could benefit from an increase in career-focused higher education options. However, entering a mature market with well-established competition would be no easy task for a relatively unknown brand in Brazil. The brand’s goal was threefold: introduce DeVry to the Brazilian market, increase student enrollment rates, and increase DeVry’s consideration among potential students.
Target Audience:
DeVry’s target audience comprised of young males and females, ages 17 to 25, from upper- and middle-class backgrounds. DeVry wanted to connect with technology-savvy, cosmopolitan, ambitious potential students who believed great education could transform their lives, guaranteeing a bright future.
Creative Strategy:
DeVry wanted to diverge from the traditional marketing tactics of Brazilian universities, which consisted of self-promotion based on high approval rates and superiority of infrastructure and faculty. Also, the application and admission process in Brazil is significantly different from that of the U.S. In order to apply to a university, the first thing potential students must do is declare a major, and then take a test to establish their aptitude on the subject in comparison to every other student applying for that major. The students who score highest on the exam are accepted based on available space in whichever major they chose. This presents two significant issues for Brazilian students: they must make a lifelong career choice at a very early stage in life, and sought-after career tracks such as medicine can have more than 100 candidates vying for a single vacancy. DeVry focused on providing solutions to these problems as a way to differentiate from the competition and engage potential students.
Overall Campaign Execution:
DeVry developed an app called DeVry Monitor that helped Brazilian students solve the two biggest challenges regarding higher education: being confident about a choice of major and having an idea where they stood in relation to other students vying for the same major at the same school. DeVry Monitor provided students with an aptitude test to help them determine which careers best suited their natural abilities and interests. Then, it administered three different tests to give students an idea of where they would rank in entrance exam scores. DeVry collected data from the students and cycled that data back through the program to give students an idea on what the most popular majors were, and the average entrance exam scores of students competing for those majors. Prior to this, students could only compare their scores to other students at their school, resulting in a skewed perception of their general standing.
Mobile Execution:
Mobile was the primary channel DeVry used to drive and enhance the campaign, and it received 50 percent of the brand’s media budget. Leveraging mobile helped DeVry engage more students and collect more data than would have been possible on any other channel, and the brand was able to cycle that data back to benefit students, schools, and the DeVry administration.
Throughout the run of the campaign, new student enrollment increased 19.7 percent, and revenue nearly 15 percent compared to the prior year, recruiting a total of 33,013 students.
