Your college days: Are they ahead of you or behind you?

For some of us, they’re further away than we’d care to admit. Or acknowledge. Or accept.

In the case of Paul Smith’s College, they’re behind us. But that’s okay, because it leads us to this first installment of Quilted Squirrel REWIND: the blog series that chronicles our commitment to high-quality work for super cool clients.

So let’s revisit the marketing campaign that put the Paul Smith experience into the hands of prospective students, visitors, and guests… literally.

Related: A map of your future at Paul Smith’s College

And oh yeah hey real quick: Even though we’re looking back, we’re not living in the past, okay? We’ve got eyes for the future, too. So if you happen to have a voice at the table in a higher ed setting, let us know! We’d love to work with you.

Until then, here’s a look at all that other stuff we were just talking about.

The Client

Paul Smith’s College is a private college in northern New York State. The college serves approximately 1,007 undergraduate and graduate students at its 14,000-square-foot campus in the Adirondack Mountains.

The Situation

The college wanted to open its campus to target organizations (such as corporate retreats, church groups, and youth sports), so they could escape the busy life or bond by the lake, on the trails, and in the town—but it needed help advertising the opportunity.

Related: School’s in session: Marketing in education

The Challenge

While it’s traditionally difficult to reimagine a college campus as a universal setting for freeing your mind and settling your spirit, this “challenge” turned out to be the college’s biggest differentiator.

The story wrote itself, but we still needed to:

• Explain how a college campus could be an ideal place to unwind
• Promote the most rewarding elements of group outings
• Develop marketing materials that captured these benefits beautifully

The Solution

In our “Unwind & Reconnect” integrated marketing campaign, we created a promotional video, designed and developed a custom landing page, and created gift packages for people who would participate in group outings at the college.

Landing Page
We wrote copy, captured images, and embedded videos that painted the perfect picture of the Paul Smith’s experience. Visitors were able to use the landing page to learn more, contact campus leaders, and explore other college offerings with ease.

Promo Video
We combined brilliant animations, beautiful photos, and a spot-on voice-over to create the warmest, most inviting welcome video for potential visitors. With a complete list of activities to choose, no shortage of reasons to make the trip, and a clear-cut call to action, this video was the backbone of our campaign.

Gift Package
We created hyper-relevant, practical gift packages for visitors, each of which included:

• A specially designed adventure guidebook
• Detailed maps of areas to explore
• Custom PSC pencils
• All hand-wrapped in twine and topped with a gift tag

The gift package was especially relevant because so many students, visitors, and guests would be spending their time hiking, discovering, and exploring new adventures.

Forward. Backward. What’s the difference?

There is none. It’s all good! Stay tuned for more great work or give us a call for some of your own.