Photo of a Northeastern billboard in the Miami bay with the city in the background.

Right Here, for You

Northeastern University has campuses worldwide. This isn’t just another online graduate program—these are on-the-ground locations, led by local leaders, with programs tailored to their cities. But how do we get the word out to prospective students?

I was tasked with creating a new campaign that would launch across the country. The ask was for a flexible ad system, built for print and digital advertising, with allusions to the campus and its specialized sectors.

Mockup of a Northeastern advertisement in a train station

Our solution was a bold, clear design that featured imagery photographed on location on each campus. I worked with our photographers to capture images of real students and alumni, came up with the concept for a three-beat, flexible approach to the copy, and built out a design workflow that our designers could follow.

The campaign spanned an enormous range of ad placements: two station-dominations in Miami, a system of transit wraps in Charlotte, and even a series of floating animated billboards. In addition to these specialty ads, we built out over 100 assets for social, digital out of home, and animated online ads built in HTML.

A brand lift study confirmed that the campaign was successful in raising not only awareness of Northeastern’s campuses, but also lifted our key demographic’s brand consideration, brand favorability, and ad recall of our grad programs.