Case Study: Assumption School
Once a thriving school in the Oakland Diocese with an overflow of applications, San Leandro’s Assumption School lost an advocate feeder preschool and was in threat of closing it’s doors. In the 2016-17 year, due to financial woes and inadequate enrollment, the Diocese shut the doors to 3 schools in Oakland, 1 in Union City and 1 in El Cerrito.
In our discovery phase, some members of the board revealed that they were resistant to any kind of marketing, because they had always been a “premier” school and they did not want to appear “desperate”. Yet desperate they were, as the Diocese was eyeballing San Leandro schools as next on their cut-list.
Assumption had a dated visual identity and brand, and online presence was dismal, as well as their SEO. They were not optimized for digital, and their story was a baseline pitch about priests in the classrooms and teachers who grade homework. After extensive qualitative reviews and interviews of staff and parents, the true story of the campus emerged. The new students coming in were not all Catholic. They were open to all, and yet the school struggled with enrollment. Out of that struggle, parents and staff worked together to make every moment count for the kids’ grade-school experience. All schools strive for academic excellence, but for Assumption, that key to excellence was through community involvement. A diverse, connected community revealed itself as a differentiator in the market. When this new story was pitched to the Board and PTG, a creative director parent stepped up to develop the new visual identity, and volunteer parents helped me to implement it. The bold new brand, and the community it represented, helped bring the school back into full capacity and back to that overflow of applications.
In our discovery phase, some members of the board revealed that they were resistant to any kind of marketing, because they had always been a “premier” school and they did not want to appear “desperate”. Yet desperate they were, as the Diocese was eyeballing San Leandro schools as next on their cut-list.
Assumption had a dated visual identity and brand, and online presence was dismal, as well as their SEO. They were not optimized for digital, and their story was a baseline pitch about priests in the classrooms and teachers who grade homework. After extensive qualitative reviews and interviews of staff and parents, the true story of the campus emerged. The new students coming in were not all Catholic. They were open to all, and yet the school struggled with enrollment. Out of that struggle, parents and staff worked together to make every moment count for the kids’ grade-school experience. All schools strive for academic excellence, but for Assumption, that key to excellence was through community involvement. A diverse, connected community revealed itself as a differentiator in the market. When this new story was pitched to the Board and PTG, a creative director parent stepped up to develop the new visual identity, and volunteer parents helped me to implement it. The bold new brand, and the community it represented, helped bring the school back into full capacity and back to that overflow of applications.