Student Housing Marketing that Gets Extra Credit
Strategy & Positioning, Messaging, Campaign Creation & Development, Adaptable Creative, Copywriting, Website & Voice Development
The Challenge
Looking to get a foothold in the student housing industry at Ole Miss, Homestead Development Partners reached out to our team to create an inviting brand for their newest student housing initiative in Oxford, Mississippi.
Since the Oxford community has a hyper-local culture, Bigeye designed a student housing marketing brand that respects the traditions of the town while looking into the future. To effectively blend the old with the new, we developed a brand identity with a rich narrative and dynamic personality.
Our Approach
As a college marketing agency, we set out to honor the integral features of the Ole Miss student experience. Our team put a modern twist on this historic, literary, and passionate college town to build student interest and awareness.
Leveraging a combination of quantitative secondary research and qualitative research undertaken in-market, we identified subtle differences in the types of Ole Miss students that tended to live off-campus. Demographic and socioeconomic segmentation of the data pointed to an under-served audience of focused and ambitious students. We divided our student housing audience into two targetable segments: Driven Female Students and Studious Men.
Results
Our student housing marketing expertise enabled us to create an engaging balance of traditional Oxford and the modern student body of Ole Miss. ARCHIVE developed into an amazingly inclusive brand that resulted in unprecedented pre-leasing as well as an impressive grand opening. Still leasing well above Homestead Development’s average, ARCHIVE’s intricately woven brand has proven to be a resounding success.
“Seeing firsthand how impactful the campaign and branding was for the success of this district has only made me want to collaborate with Bigeye on future projects,” said Jared Miller of Homestead Development.
Building the Brand
As Oxford and Ole Miss are intertwined, we developed a complex brand that pays homage to all that Ole Miss is and all it can become. Like an archive itself, Oxford is full of rich history that shapes its future. Our team visited Oxford to be fully immersed in the history, vernacular, and culture of the city before beginning the creative process. Delivering two comprehensive campaigns, we crafted a full set of designed deliverables in stationary, bus wraps, window clings, and brochure mock-ups that explored two branches of growth for the ARCHIVE brand.
The first campaign was centered on building new traditions inspired by the monuments of the past, while the second focused on writing your own next chapter. The first paid homage to the traditions and culture of Oxford and emphasized an immersive, historic culture for ARCHIVE residents. The second avenue looked to the future of Oxford. For this campaign, we made growth the core of each piece. The team portrayed prospective residents as the building blocks of something bigger. As an integral part of creating a modernized Oxford that’s in command of its incredible potential.
Finding the Perfect Community Name
Rich history surrounds Oxford and Ole Miss. The area is full of soul, character, and echoes from the past that are still defining the story of today—through its people and the spaces they inhabit. The home of William Faulkner and more recent famous writers like John Grisham, Oxford has a literary angle that our team knew we could use to connect this property with the city on a higher level. Diving deeper, we searched for a name that encompassed both cherished memories and the idea of moving forward. An “archive” is a collection of important and historical documents that one protects even while focusing on the future, which was perfect for our student housing marketing purposes.
To learn more about our creative process with property projects, visit bigeyeproperties.com.