The College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) is a free service of the State of North Carolina that helps students plan, apply, and pay for college. Historically, their advertising efforts have focused on promoting their own services as an information provider and loan servicer, but in 2013 we took a different approach.
Following the economic downturn in 2008, there had been growing negativity surrounding the cost and effectiveness of a college education. Since the CFNC brand already had such high awareness among parents and high school students in North Carolina, we decided to move away from services promotion and instead, leverage CFNC’s existing reputation to make the case for college itself. The result was the “College works.” campaign. The campaign included outdoor, radio, TV, and online banner advertising based around a series of questions (e.g. Stronger community?, Brighter future?, Explore the world?) to which the answer was always “College works.”
To date, the campaign has garnered unsolicited media coverage, increased account openings and driven thousands of new visitors to the College Foundation website, CFNC.org.