The Brief

HKU SPACE Community College offers an alternative route to a local university degree for those who do not get an offer. As a subsidiary of prestigious HKU, HKU SPACE is perceived to offer quality education but has a higher requirement compared to other community colleges. It is often seen as a lesser priority of the students’ choice as they worry they might not get in. Our challenge was to help HKU SPACE engage senior secondary students by building an emotional connection between prospective students and the brand to drive early admission applications.

Creative Execution

For students, final examination is the most stressful and anxious period. From exams, results release to course enrolment, peer support is important to ease their stress. This was the brand’s opportunity to connect with prospective students by engaging them in the same ‘space’ and be part of their examination community. Our Facebook application aided students in building confidence via peers support throughout the examination period. By signing up to our exam calendar, we gained their trust and collected contact details that gave us the opportunity to influence their choice, especially as they step into the course enrolment selection phase.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We created a customized Facebook application (exam calendar) for students to connect with each other by providing them a community to discuss upcoming exams and gave each other support during those nerve-wracking tests. By inputting their exam schedule in our calendar, they can instantly see their Facebook buddies who are taking the same exam, locate exam halls they or their friends will attend on a Google map. Students can personalize their calendars to receive email/SMS reminders. They can even join discussions with others and shared exam preparation tips to cheer for each other, all through our application.

Results

The campaign broke the category norms with the 1st Facebook application ever developed by an education institute in HK. Early admission applications grew by +50% compared to last year. 12,000 applications received in total out of a pool of 86,000 exam students. The engagement level went beyond expectations. On day one, 2,000 users downloaded our application with zero media support that quickly grew to a total of 12,000 users (database). Over 64,000 pageviews on Facebook and over 11,000 views on forums’ posts were registered. Over 51,100 eDM and 29,000 SMS personal connections (reminders) were also made.