Aberdeen, a port city in northeast Scotland, is big on energy. Fifty years of drilling in the North Sea has made the city seasoned experts in everything from safety to subsea. The industry there is brimming with innovation and cutting-edge engineering. 

Aberdeen is also home to two world-premier oil, gas and energy universities--Robert Gorden University (RGU) and University of Aberdeen (UoA). While very different universities in terms of tenure and construction, they both have the same goal--to promote Aberdeen’s pedigree in energy education to new markets. To realize this goal, they turned to The Union, WPI Partner Agency based in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

The Union is very familiar with these schools, having worked with them for several years. They’re also very familiar with the Scotish market, relying on a deep understanding of the local culture, economy and media landscape to help the schools recruit new students within the country. However, to promote Aberdeen’s energy education to new countries, they decided to leverage Worldwide Partners’ network of independent advertising agencies to find a local partner.

Before they could identify the right partner, however, they had to decide which was the right market. Should they focus on a neighboring country that would make logistics simpler? Choose a country that is already familiar with Aberdeen and its energy reputation? Not likely! The Union had to pick the best market for the schools, and they never shy away from a challenge.

Mexico turned out to be the best market for RGU and UoA for two key reasons: 1. the country is heavily reliant on Oil & Gas; and 2. the Mexican Ministry of Energy had recently started offering scholarships to Mexican students to study overseas, at Postgraduate level, in Oil & Gas specialisms. 

With the market selected, the next thing The Union did was reach out to ActivaMente, WPI Partner Agency based in Mexico City with more than two decades of experience in digital. Together, the two Partner Agencies got down to business, researching the audience, mapping out campaign elements and identifying challenges. 

And there were no shortage of challenges. First was the distance--Scotland is some 5,000 miles from Mexico. This is a huge separation for any student, but especially for this audience who are often more family-oriented and don’t like to travel too far. 

Houston, Texas was presenting a major problem, too--this long-standing oil capital, home to a massive infrastructure of universities and energy companies, is just a short two hour plane ride away. Houston become their biggest competition due to the close proximity and industry focus.

Then there’s the issue of climate. Mexico hace mucho calor. Scotland hace mucho frio. How could they convince young Mexicans that they would survive the cold and it’d all be worth it?  

And finally, they didn’t want to just accept anyone that applied. Aberdeen and Robert Gorden want all of their students to succeed, and thus they had to ensure they were recruiting only high-grade applicants, those that were passionate enough about their studies to move abroad for them, well enough educated to complete them, and had sufficient English language skills to actually take the classes. The two target audiences were Current Undergraduates and Young Professionals. 

The Union relied on ActivaMente to provide the local insights to ensure they were reaching the right audience in the right mediums with the right messaging. ActivaMente’s insights revealed that the audience was an adventurous and ambitious bunch, which guided campaign messaging and imagery, and that they were heavy users of social media, leading to a comprehensive content strategy to educate, validate and engage. 

Even armed with these insights and strategy, they knew it was a lot to persuade Mexicans to travel 5,000 miles to a city they’d never heard of. So The Union and ActivaMente used online creative testing to drill deeper into the audience’s motivations and improve performance. 

The physical distance to study abroad is far, and they knew they couldn’t sugar coat that. So they turned the distance between Aberdeen and Mexico into a positive, encouraging prospective students to “Go Further” to get their much desired career boost. This tagline along with the rallying cry, “How far will you go for success?” was used throughout all content. 

A fictional Mexican student, Héctor González fronted a hero film, which took viewers on a tour of all Aberdeen has to offer Mexican students, including a glimpse into the industry and university facilities, the night life and cultural attractions. 

A dedicated microsite was developed around four pillars--work, study, live, apply--providing all the required information, reassurance and entertainment needed to convince prospective students that Aberdeen was the very best choice for them. The majority of content on this page was in English, with small amounts in Spanish, which the audience found endearing according to testing. 

This microsite was the hub for all online and offline media activity, which included a  comprehensive social media strategy, active email automation campaign, sophisticated CRM platform, in-person recruitment fairs across Mexico, and corresponding paid media, retargeting and creative testing. 

Studying abroad is a huge decision that can take a long time to finalize, so once the microsite was live and campaigns launched, the teams prepared themselves to wait at least six months to really see results. But they didn’t have to wait long. 

RGU’s enrollments are up +367% over the previous year and UoA’s have increased 49%. Considering the enrollment fees for these schools, ROI hit 4.51:1 in the first year alone. New students shared that they were inspired to apply by the Go Further campaign, and two students have already won a place in their StartUp Accelerator competition.

The students aren’t the only ones being recognized for their efforts. The campaign was named a finalist in the 2019 Marketing Society Star Awards in the International Marketing and Digital Strategy categories. 

Source: The Marketing Society Facebook

Collaboration and localization were key components of this campaign’s success. With ActivaMente’s partnership, The Union had a direct line to local insights on demographics and culture, and an experienced media buying partner. Now that the Mexico campaign is well underway, The Union can set their sights on different markets and work with other WPI Partner Agencies to Go even Further.