Mike Leon President and Chief Brand Hero Brand Heroes Inc. The university/college experience is a lot like a reality television show. The excitement! The drama! In this one hour interactive session, Mike Leon, President of Brand Heroes – a Toronto based digital agency – will provide tips, tricks and share some tales about approaches to create a direct experience to help win the hearts and minds of potential students. We will show you some experimental recruitment practices that provide potential students with a low commitment way of experiencing a program. Learn to use former students and current students to make applicants feel as though they are part of the university/college experience in two minutes or less.

1. Experiential Recruiting
Recruit With Not At
Mike Leon
mleon@brandheroes.ca
1.416.543.5292

2. Let’s be honest!

3. We want our
recruitment to efforts
to yield this…

5. But sometimes the
process of getting
noticed feels like this…

8. Your Experiential
Recruitment
Survival pack

9. But first a little
about you and a
bit about me…

10. Who am I?
• President and Chief Brand Hero of Brand Heroes
• Integrated Marketing Consultancy
• Brand Strategy and Design
• Marketing Communications
• Branded Content
• MBA and BBA Branding Instructor @ WLU
• BBA Social Media Instructor

11. A Little Shameless Self Promotion

12. The Skinny on Experiential Recruitment
• Use your stars
• Both in and out of the institution
• Market like a networker – what’s in it for them, not you.
• Make your content matter and make it big!
• It’ll cost less than you think
• Say it loud, but don’t you be the one to say it!
• Find your greatest influencers and get them to speak about you.

13. Use Your Stars
• Find the folks who best relate to those you’re targeting
and show their stories
• Their story first, your story second
• Show them in their element doing exactly what it is
you’re selling

14. Example: York Alumni

15. Another Example: U of T Housing

16. Market like a Networker
• Think about what’s in it for them, not you.
• Don’t just advertise yourself, otherwise you run the risk
of turning your campaigns into:
• A flat, one-way marketing channel that simply copies existing
content from your brochures, rather than generating anything
new and interactive.
• Unauthentic, boring content that actually serves to erode and
destroy brand credibility rather than grow and re-enforce it.
• Simply advertising, rather than engagement.

17. Market like a Networker
• Instead think about what makes them tick
• What’s important to them and how can we show, not tell
them, that our opportunity is meeting those needs head
on.
• Example:

18. Make Your Content Matter and Make
it Big
• Provide on-going industry and subject matter thought leadership.
• Provide an on-going 2-way communications channel that puts your
consumers in control.
• Provide real-time info on what people are saying about you and
insights on how this can impact key business decisions.
• Provide competitive differentiation and an on-going, interactive source
of company engagement that can boost employee recruitment as well
as business development.

19. Example: Sleepless

20. Sleepless In-Depth
Hired a Broadway Rooftop Patio Party
set designer to create Overlooking Times Square
a unique branded set
to act as a backdrop
Sleepless connected Software
Developers with their idols:
Created fully branded Microsoft Product Leads,
campaign featuring: media personalities and world-
-Website Leading trainers
-Reality TV Videos
-Branded swag
(t-shirts, padfolios,
bags, wine)
-Blog

21. Viral Marketing Integration
Opinion Leader Blogging: Sold opinion
leaders on the event, inspiring them to
blog about it.
Developed the Sleepless blog
Created key
at the start of the events as a
promotional
source for videos, photos and
partnerships
participant reactions. Since
including a leading
there were multiple events,
developer Podcast
the blog served a major role in
and a top blog site
building momentum from one to
the next.

22. Or even give them an ability to
influence your offerings:

23. Say it loud but Don’t be the One to Say it
• Find your greatest influencers and get them to speak
about you. Ideas include:
• Guest blog for major influencers
• Include re-postings of your blogs
• Pursue customer testimonials that you can post on several social
media platforms
• But don’t stop there - find creative ways to get your
customers to tell your stories.

24. Example: The Fiesta Movement

25. The Program
• A grassroots social media campaign to promote the new
Fiesta model
• Placed Fiestas in the hands of 100 social “agents” and
had them promote Ford’s new vehicle through Twitter,
blogs, videos, and events
...all without spending a dollar on
traditional media.

26. Results After 6 Months
- 4.3 million YouTube views
- 500,000+ Flickr views
- 3 million+ Twitter impressions
- 50,000 interested potential customers, 97% of which
didn’t own a Ford at the time
- Sold10,000 units in the first 6 days of sales
• 38% awareness by Gen Y about the product, without
spending a dollar on traditional advertising
• New chapter - http://www.fiestamovement2.com/

27. Summary
• Make it the “right kind of viral”
• Thousands of fans off target, way less useful than a
hundred raving fans who are on target
• Empower your raving fans
• Find your opinion leaders and empower them to spread
the good word
• Think hard about the role you want Viral to play. Is it
necessarily the right tactic for what you want and are set
up to do?

28. Thank You!
Mike Leon
(416) 543-5292
mleon@brandheroes.ca
brandheroes.ca
@brandheroes