The Challenge
In recent years, primary schools in Ireland have been experiencing an unprecedented teacher supply crisis. As part of its work on addressing this teacher shortage, in March 2023, the Department of Education announced 610 additional places on primary teacher education programmes. 110 additional places were allocated to MIE for September 2023.
To ensure they could take full advantage of this increased allocation, MIE engaged Alice to market the college as a modern, vibrant, and attractive institute; and to strengthen its brand nationwide. Our primary objective was to increase the number of CAO applicants choosing MIE’s Bachelor of Education (Primary Teaching) course, with a target of a 30% increase in the number of first-preference applications.
What Alice Did
We developed the ‘This is MIE’ campaign to encourage increased CAO applications and to increase MIE’s brand awareness more broadly.
Following an audit of MIE’s communications, and engagement with their senior team on key messages and target audiences, we developed an integrated communicationsstrategy that included paid, earned, and shared media tactics. The campaign spotlighted student voices and emphasised MIE's unique selling points - a strong focus on the Irish language; a vibrant campus community; a strong caring culture; an active traditional Irish music society; a thriving GAA community; and a commitment to inclusion, diversity, and tackling inequalities.
To develop impactful video content and press materials, we worked directly with students who shared their experiences of studying and living on campus. From these stories, and the high-quality photography and video we captured, we developed a bank of visual assets that would appeal to Leaving Cert students, prospective postgraduate students and student influencers.
These assets formed the basis of strategic paid and organic social media campaigns across TikTok and Instagram. We also used Google Ads to ensure MIE’s courses consistently ranked highly in search-engine results for primary education and change-of-mind options.
Student experiences also formed the basis of our media relations campaign nationally and locally. We conducted a student survey on future career preferences and secured an exclusive with Katherine Donnelly, then Education Editor at the Irish Independent, to publish the results.
Results
From July 2022 to July 2023, there was a 35% increase in first-preference applications for MIE’s Bachelor of Education (Primary Teaching), surpassing our agreed KPI. While numbers were relatively static up to April, there was a marked increase in May and June, in line with our campaign rollout. The increased demand for MIE completely bucked the national trend, whereby demand for primary teaching courses overall fell by 5%.
We secured 27 pieces of earned media coverage, with a total reach of 1.3 million nationally. This included high-profile coverage in the Irish Independent print and online, a piece on CareersNews.ie and 23 pieces regional coverage. The sentiment of all coverage was strongly positive, with references to key messages, including the focus on the Irish language, traditional music, and sports at MIE.
Our digital campaign also elevated MIE’s profile, achieving a 234% increase in website visitors, 3.8 million impressions across channels, and over 100,000 YouTube views.