G. OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION – TEACH WA:
ADVERTISING: INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN
OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION – TEACH WA
The Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction hired our team to develop and implement a marketing and communications campaign to recruit individuals to become K-12 teachers. With a focus on three distinct audiences:individuals inside and outside of Washington State earning a teaching degree; individuals with a teaching degree who no longer teach; and individuals seeking a career change. We went to work to determine how to communicate and encourage these audiences to consider a career in teaching in Washington state. Over a short five-month engagement, we were responsible for several elements of the campaign, including: messaging, visual identity and collateral development, video and photo production, social media and website-content development.
STRATEGY
Research
The work began with an intense period of research to fully understand what motivates individuals to choose the teaching profession. We reviewed and compiled an audit of national, state and local teacher recruitment campaigns to determine successful approaches, tones, and messaging being used to recruit teachers. Additionally, we conducted more than 30 stakeholder interviews with educators, principals, parents, deans of higher education and other stakeholders to hear their insights on what attracts and retains individuals to the teaching profession in Washington state. Through the research, we identified three core reasons teachers enter the profession – to inform, inspire and engage.
Messaging
We then developed a campaign theme: “I teach for the love of…”. This theme centered around the use of the key findings to be incorporated into the campaign messaging, like use of real teacher stories. Within this theme, nine “For the love of” taglines were developed with accompanying images served as the cornerstones for the campaign.
Visual Identity & Collateral Development
A full visual identify for the Teach Washington campaign was also designed by our team, which included sourcing images, creating a logo, and compiling brand guidelines. We also designed and provided copy for collateral materials that were distributed to teacher job fairs across the country, including two rack cards featuring attributes of living in Washington state, and the benefits of a teaching position in the state, a folder to hold the rack cards, and several banners for a display booth at the job fairs.
Video and Photo Production
Additional elements to the campaign included the production of four videos: one overarching 60-second campaign video and three 30-second videos targeted to specific audiences. The videos highlighted the unique landscapes and benefits to living in Washington, and were narrated by Washington state teachers. In addition to interviewing 13 teachers for the videos, we also took portrait pictures of each teacher for use on the campaign website, social media, and collateral materials.
Social Media Management
We developed and managed the social media campaign for
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeachWashington/, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachwa/?hl=en and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrJIUB_-d-nF8mRtiTzCsvw for Teach WA – establishing their online presence, managing and creating unique content, and overseeing user engagement (accounts have been stagnant since our engagement in the campaign ended in June 2017).
Website Content
Finally, we provided guidance and strategic advice in the design of the Teach WA website framework and wrote all website copy and sourced all images for the Teach WA website, www.teachwa.org.
RESULTS
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is still reviewing data on specific number of recruited applicants from the 2017-18 school year. This said, within the five months we were involved in the development, launch and management of the Teach WA campaign, the campaign generated the following results:
Social Media Campaign
• Social Media Platforms: Facebook Static Ads, Instagram, and Facebook Video Ads
• Total Reach: 1,751,603 people
• Total Actions: 588,168 (i.e. likes, comments, etc.)
• Best Performing Demographic Group: 67% of the ad responders were women, with the best performing age range between 25-34 years.
• New Followers: 3,181
• Daily Page Engaged Users: 895 (top-performing posts)
Website
• New or Unique Users: 21,644
• Sessions: 25,758
• Pageviews: 68,224
• Pages/Session: 2.65
• Avg. Session Duration: 00:01:38
