University of Warwick — Christian Buncher

Transforming a physical open day during the coronavirus pandemic.

With the University of Warwick’s campus closed, they needed a new plan to execute the 2020 open day.

The University of Warwick was seeking a digital strategic partner to advise them on the best way to conduct a global open day, showcasing the university and what it has to offer to both domestic and international students. The project was carried out throughout the UK lockdown and had an eight week implementation timescale.

Approach.

A rapid discovery was key to this project. Our eight week timeline included the build and development of a platform to execute a virtual open day. Getting to a strategy and direction of travel quickly, was essential.

I spent some time reviewing the content that Warwick had available and then compared this to the content other universities had available. It was evident that Warwick’s content wasn’t on par with some of the UK’s ‘modern’ universities that have relied on rich content to attract students over the last few years. Warwick is a top UK university - no. 9 in the UK and no. 65 in the world - seldom struggling to attract the brightest minds. They had not previously needed to heavily invest in virtual tours, 360 videos or other rich media-based content.

There were a large number of stakeholders involved in the project, so I split the project into two tracks… Marketing or content and technology. I ran workshops with a group of people from both, creating a customer map in the process. I further engaged with the university’s technical partners that had integration requirements, such as their CRM provider.

After a detailed a discovery phase, I made the recommendation that Warwick should ‘hold the high ground’ and ‘own the academia’… in other words, put their top professors and students on show, let them engage with prospective students and give them the opportunity to tell them why they should come.

To do this we needed a new tech stack. Warwick’s existing technology wouldn’t work, and to build something from scratch would be time-consuming and expensive. I conducted a technical review exercise and settled on a US events platform called Bizzabo. I contacted the supplier, conducted an assessment on its abilities to deliver what we needed, and concluded it would be suitable.

Warwick took the recommendation onboard, and together the wider University and McCann’s project team delivered a truly remarkable online event that was incredibly well-received by those who attended.

**Agenda to register for the events of interest.**

Outcome.

The University successfully ran 652 live events over a jam-packed two weeks, and engaged with over 10,000 potential students. The live sessions ran with a mix of both professors and students in order to provide a balanced view on what to expect from the courses and subjects that prospective students were interested in. Other student ambassadors focused on different aspects of student life, such as accommodation, the campus and nightlife/social aspects.