The University of Lincoln is known for its strong academic reputation, excellent student experience, and vibrant campus life. Attracting students from across the UK, the university prides itself on offering high-quality teaching and career opportunities in a supportive environment. To promote its Open Days, the university partnered with Bauer Media to run a targeted Digital Audio advertising campaign. This innovative approach ensured that both students and their parents, key decision-makers in the university selection process, received tailored messaging through precision-targeted digital advertising.
Objective
Choosing a university is a significant decision for both students and their parents. While students focus on course offerings, campus life, and career prospects, parents play a crucial role in the final decision, prioritising factors such as safety, well-being, and future opportunities.
The University of Lincoln recognised the importance of engaging both audiences in their Open Days campaign.
Their goal was to:
Reassure parents about Lincoln as a safe and supportive environment for their child.
Inspire students by showcasing the university’s academic and social opportunities.
To achieve this, Bauer Media developed a dual-voice creative approach:
Mum’s Perspective: Focused on Lincoln’s safety, strong community, and student support services.
Daughter’s Perspective: Highlighted the academic quality, career pathways, and vibrant student life.
Additionally, a custom “No Worries” music ident was created to reinforce a sense of confidence and ease about choosing Lincoln as a university destination.
The campaign ran for eight weeks across Digital Audio platforms, ensuring precise targeting and high engagement with both parents and students. Following the success of this initiative, the University of Lincoln launched a follow-up enrolment campaign in early 2024 to build on the momentum.
Targeting Strategy
Bauer Media executed the campaign through a highly targeted Digital Audio strategy, using three distinct audience segments to ensure the right messages reached the right people at the right time:
- 45+ Adults Campaign – Digital Audio Delivery. Utilised Refine Digital Audio targeting to reach adults aged 45+ based on age demographics.
- Focused on parents with children at the stage of choosing a university.
- 45+ Parents Campaign – Digital Audio Delivery. Used Define Digital Audio targeting, ensuring the advert was directly delivered to parents rather than just adults of a certain age.
- This approach meant the messaging reached those actively engaged in their child’s university decision-making.
- 18+ Adults Campaign – Digital Audio Delivery. Targeted students directly, ensuring they heard messages about university opportunities and Open Days.
What is Digital Audio and How Does it Work?
Digital Audio advertising allows brands to reach audiences across connected devices, from smartphones and tablets to smart speakers and desktop computers. Unlike traditional radio, Digital Audio ensures ads are delivered based on targeting criteria such as age, interests, or even household dynamics.
For this campaign, Digital Audio ads were delivered across all Bauer stations, all devices, ensuring that no matter where or how the target audience was listening, via live radio streams, or smart speakers, the advert was delivered accurately and effectively.
Performance & Delivery
The campaign ran from 24 September – 28 November 2023, delivering outstanding engagement:
- Exceeded booked impressions, with a total of 1,045,086 impressions delivered.
- 257,965 unique listeners heard the campaign, meaning on average they each heard the advert 4 times
- Highly engaged audience, achieving an LTR (Listen-Through Rate) of over 98%.
- Strong conversion performance, with a conversion rate of 4.39%. Thats tracking those who have heard the Digital Audio advert and visited Lincoln Universities website.
The majority of impressions were delivered on the Absolute Radio network, closely followed by the Hits Radio Network. This highlights how Bauer Media’s extensive station portfolio allows brands to reach their target audience at scale and across multiple touch points.
This highlights the effectiveness of Digital Audio advertising in reaching both parents and students, ensuring the University of Lincoln stood out in a competitive higher education landscape.