Overview

MicroCollege, an extension of Honors Pathway, started as a pilot project in 2017 and established itself as a social venture. As a higher education institution, it is committed to helping first generation college students graduate high school. Their mission statement is to help students to complete college to launch a professional career.

MicroCollege’s vision is to build brand equity by leading college pathway program for high school students. As students undergo the program, coaching and guidance are provided to students every step of the way, until they earn an undergraduate degree and launch their professional careers.

MicroCollege successfully partnered with a number of high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. With proof of concept successfully completed, the organization needed to build a higher education branding strategy with the goal of developing a strong brand identity. The development of the brand was a process.

Pace Creative worked with their executive team to develop a unique higher education brand promise. The idea is for prospective or potential students to emotionally connect with the brand promise and all of the elements that make up the brand. This includes, but not limited to, the logo design, typography, color palette, positioning statement and values.

Today, MicroCollege’s venture is growing and is expanding all over the USA.

Challenge

How do you create a unique higher education brand promise? How do you market a new and unique online educational program?

Challenge

MicroCollege is setting up its own institution model through a social enterprise model. How to develop a higher education branding strategy that is aligned with the business goals?

Solution

Our team developed a higher education content marketing strategy to understand the decision-making process for first generation high school students. From the data, research and information gathered, our team developed a persona.

Solution

Our team then developed a mood board for MicroCollege to share with its focus group to see if prospective students could connect with the brand emotionally, while in line with the business goals.

Solution

The executive team picked the abstract and minimalist theme to represent the unique programs that MicroCollege offers.

Solution

The logo is fresh and young, with a contemporary aesthetic that is attractive to millennials.

The shape of the circle pairs represents a strong foundation for students. The overall look and feel is minimalistic and clean.

Solution

This concept uses the color blue, the same hue and tone as the Honors Pathway’s logo to symbolize their relationship. From there we developed the color palette to create the brand look.

Solution

We established the photography’s creative direction to match the established brand.

Result

The first marketing asset we developed after the logo is the website.

Result

MicroCollege’s website is their #1 marketing tool with it specially tailored for lead generation based on a higher education content marketing strategy.

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