Although Capella University just celebrated its 20th anniversary, it had low brand awareness and was outspent by the competition 10:1 in a highly competitive, rapidly changing industry. By ignoring category boundaries and conducting proprietary target research, we uncovered a critical, unknown mindset shift within our target audience. We mined customer data to learn the process and motivations that lead to and support the decision to go back to school. We executed a media budget against behavioral insights that helped evolve all media channels and drove the largest brand awareness gains Capella had seen to date while continuing to deliver aggressive acquisition goals. A huge win for a small spender in a category owned by a few giants.

Drove the largest brand awareness gains Capella had seen to date while continuing to deliver aggressive acquisition goals.