A TACTICAL MARKETING STRATEGY FOR UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR STUDENTS ALLIANCE

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Contents
Foreword 01 The UWSA tactical marketing strategy
- introduction - whats in a title? - objectives
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UWSA branding adjustments Improving your awareness & visibility Future communication campaigns
- focus on first year students - blue out! - voting & elections - event management & promotion - improve online presence - unified branding

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Organisational strategy recommendations

hiring & recruitment practices new marketing coordinator graphics standard manual development promotions team UWSA presence what the budget?

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Summary - measuring success

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Foreword

For the future, the UWSAs marketing, needs to expand always, in all ways.
Dear Colleague, Welcome to OutBRANDish Consulting Groups first UWSA marketing strategy. Addressing areas such as firm strategy and operations, idea generation, due diligence and future resource acquisition. Combining wold-class capabilities with dynamic marketing expertise, our unique marketing strategies deliver customized insights to the UWSA. In the following pages, you will find several integrated topics that describe what is happening today at the University of Windsor as it pertains to the UWSAs operations, with a particular focus on awareness. We begin with a brief change in the way information must be disseminated from the UWSA in the future if it hopes to achieve maximum effectiveness for its efforts, we examine what needs to be tweaked in the current marketing direction. From there, we quickly shift to assess our recommendations for future campaigns that achieve results in the categories the UWSA values. We touch on opportunities the UWSA has available presently and the headwinds the UWSA will encounter in the next 12 months and beyond. We make no claims to be seers; our crystal ball is nearly as cloudy as yours in many respects. We do bring the facts to the table in classic OutBRANDish fashion and integrate them with our quadrigeminal years of experience working in the business and marketing space to characterize the environment all firms must navigate - not just to survive, but to thrive. We conclude by offering some insights into taking the strategy into the future and measuring its success. Its often said where you stand depends upon where you sit. If nothing else, the processes, and rules of the past may no longer apply to building a successful student alliance for the future. Through a co-ordinated effort, we can work together to market the UWSA and make the most of its opportunities - wherever they are!

Tyler F. Compton Associate, OutBRANDish Consulting Group

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Its about awareness, students need to know who we are and what we do.

Andre Capaldi President, UWSA

UWSA Tactical Marketing Strategy 2012 | OutBRANDish Consulting Group

The University of Windsor Students Alliance tactical marketing strategy

Introduction
The UWSA strategic planning report 2008, acknowledged a need for a clear and defendable vision and identify areas of strategic priority. We have developed a tactical marketing strategy to promote the UWSAs strengths. The Fact that this marketing strategy is launched against the backdrop of one of the more controversial issues the UWSA has dealt with three times in 20 years; makes it all the more relevant. The U-Pass bus referendum was intended to provide each University of Windsor student with access to the Windsor Transit system. However due to several miscommunications and an overall apathy by the commuter students estimated to consist of between 50-60% of the University of Windsor population and a lack of appreciation for the economics of scale at hand to make the price of the pass competitive with the majority of Canadian Universities with the U-Pass already in place. The referendum failed by a large margin. OutBRANDish believes in the U-Pass and sees a future with the University of Windsor but would adjust tactics if presented the campaign from conception to execution. This marketing strategy sets out a clear direction for the UWSA to take in its admitted previously fruitless efforts to increase awareness, student knowledge and participation in the UWSAs initiatives.

Whats in a title?
Change the spokes not the wheel is a reference to the proclivity of incoming executives to reinvent the wheel as it were, every term and impart their own strategies, and initiatives instead of continuing existing strategies and adjusting to fit the vision and direction of a new organisation.

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Objectives
OutBRANDish Consulting has recognized that the main aim of this strategy is to get all of the key stakeholders in UWSA to speak with a single compelling voice across campus. This will help position the UWSA where it needs to be as the representatives of an appreciative and knowledgable student body. To meet this vision it is imperative the UWSA focus on improving student awareness about the alliance including; what services they provide to the student body. We also realize that the UWSA could benefit with an increase in student involvement for the different events that they execute. Most of the student body does not know or fully understand what the UWSA stands for. The UWSAs struggle to increase student involvement with events is based on the lack of knowledge students have about the alliance and the little effort spent to market the events. Improving the student body awareness for the UWSA is a critical objective to consider. As a consulting group, we came up with various goals and objectives that fall into three key targets we wished to accomplish while working for the UWSA. The three key targets that underpin these aims: Adjust and reposition UWSA branding to increase awareness and effectiveness of future information dissemination. Improve the UWSAs existing initiatives and campaigns

Create several lucrative future campaigns that leverage the UWSAs key strengths. From these three broader targets, we have outlined and discussed five important goals and objectives for the UWSA including: improving their online presence creating a unified brand focusing on first year students how to manage and promote events how to increase awareness for elections and increase voter turnout. The main objective of these recommendations are to increase visibility across campus, while increasing knowledge about what the alliance does and how to better represent and promote the services and benefits that the UWSA provides to students.

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Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image. David Ogilvy
Author; Confessions of an Advertising man

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UWSA branding adjustments

Improving online presence
The first recommendation for the UWSA that we would like to see executed in the future would be to improve the online presence. The UWSA should take action to become the first and only advertisement to be featured on the Universitys WI-FI login page, this WI-FI login is a stark blank page that would be a prime location for UWSA advertisements. Advertising on this page would be a great way to render student traffic to the UWSA website. This also would create a constant visual cue and reminder to students about the UWSA. The predominant opportunity that is presented by placing the UWSAs advertisements, and updates every time any individual logs into the WI-FI. As an inadvertent value add; the site as it exists today has a 10 second waiting period before forwarding the user to their destination home page, they may choose to skip this, but the conscious effort to do so either imprints the UWSA in their cognitive recall or plants it in their subconscious for easier retrieval at a later date, thus creating greater awareness on campus. Another way to increase awareness is by increasing social media communications. By continuously updating the Facebook page, the UWSA can keep students informed about upcoming events and send out reminders about their services. Also by using social media, the UWSA can discuss their background and how they became an alliance which will get students thinking about the capabilities the UWSA has. To further increase the arsenal of social media mediums to better reach students the UWSA should utilize their Twitter account. By tweeting often, the UWSA will intrigue students to follow them and be increasingly involved in the events and services offered by the UWSA. When it comes to the UWSAs website, OutBRANDish has done a brief audit and discovered that urgent action should be taken ensure that all the links work properly and should provide links that redirect them to their Facebook page and Twitter page. After setting up all the links on the page, they need to ensure that they all work properly, hence, when students click on the links they will redirect them to the link indicated.

Unied branding
In past years the UWSA has struggled to represent themselves as a unified brand. This may have caused confusion among many students on campus, thus creating a unified brand among all mediums will create a strong recognizable image. The UWSA has already realized this issue and has already started working to fix it. This is apparent through their rebranding efforts in 2008 that reconfigured and updated the UWSAs logo. OutBRANDish Consulting has realized that even though the UWSA is working on this problem, we still have some ideas that would be advisable to consider. By creating a consistent logo and aggressively branding it, students will be able to better recognize the UWSA. The aggressive branding with a consistent logo for

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all sponsored events will also help with recognition of all events performed by the UWSA. This branding should also be consistent with the services they offer. Our consultants believe that the UWSA needs to clarify titles and decrease acronyms for executive position titles and campus events. Confusion is increased when it comes to council elections when acronyms are used for certain positions, as well as; students are unaware of what specific positions actually manage and perform. Often this confusion leads to decreased student enthusiasm, creating a deficiency in voting. It would be advisable to have this phenomenon communicated throughout the alliance and make it aware to candidates who are campaigning. Another suggestion is to have the UWSA create signs that can be placed all over campus on a permanent basis. Not only would the signs create a more colourful campus environment, but also create student pride and belonging. These permanent UWSA insignias should be placed both outside and inside to allow for greater exposure. The UWSA should look at placing banners in a few buildings across campus if plausible. By enhancing the

signs and banners throughout campus, it would create a constant reminder to students about the UWSA, this allows for students to see mnemonically what services they provide and the events the UWSA hosts or sponsors. Our last suggestion with branding is for the UWSA to create more memorabilia with their logo a fixed to lavish onto students. This would have to be reflexively worked into the budget, or have surplus funds allocated. The merchandise can include anything from clothing to school supplies, such as pens, notebooks, sticky notes and rulers. The memorabilia would be objects that are commonly used during daily activities; consequently, students will be more exposed to the UWSAs logo and would be more inclined to remember or learn about the alliance.

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Improving your awareness & visibility

Event management & promotion
One major concern with the UWSA events is that it often appears that students are simply not interested in the events and thus do not attend. It is advised that the UWSA talk with students outside the circle of those currently involved to see what event they would like to see in the future, what they currently like and do not like. This should be conducted, both offline and online, for a short period of time. Client testimonials and event reviews are critical for success no matter what the event is. On the UWSAs website instead of having the comment box on the home screen asking What do you care about? it should be changed to What events would you like to see, add or eliminate? Events can be advertised as heavily as they want but if the target is not interested in the event, then attendance will continue to be lackluster. If students care about the event, attend it and enjoy it then a path is set for perennial attendance. OutBRANDish Consulting conducted informal research with students regarding the best way to advertise the UWSA and student events, as well as the best way to communicate with students. An overwhelming amount of students agreed that the best way to advertise and communicate to them about events is through social media, with a strong (95+%) affinity to Facebook. Currently, the UWSA is involved in social media and promote their events via Facebook; however they are only reaching a limited amount of students. The main way to increase this outreach is to substantially increase the Likes on the UWSA Facebook page. Strategies to increase these Likes were explained earlier, and increasing Likes is the centerpiece of this proposal. Once students have Liked the UWSA on Facebook, event advertisements and information must be posted on a daily basis so that it appears on students news feeds, in which they can comment, share and get involved. An important note to any social media administrator; the sight of stale or irrelevant information can have the same adverse affects to brand image as would a negative article. In addition to advertising events through the UWSA page, a Facebook event page needs to be created for individual events, which can be done quickly and easily. All the UWSA representatives need to be added as administrators on the event page to enable them to effortlessly invite their entire network and can easily encourage others to attend the event and spread the word about the upcoming event. These event pages can also act as an active information page and provide updates in real time to attendees or invited members. These event pages will also permit the UWSA to directly inbox invitees. Also, attendees must be encouraged to engage with the event and share it to their friends. This can be done by encouraging them to write on the event pages wall, share the event and talk about the event with their network. Thus, the event will appear on a wider range of individuals walls, who were not originally invited, so they can become informed on the event and possibly attend. The culmination of these efforts is then neatly displayed in a measurable track of performance. The problem then lies with how to create buzz for your event on Facebook. Tips to create buzz for an event on Facebook include:

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Ensure to reply to any posts on the event page and respond to RSVPs whenever applicable, Periodically comment on your own wall about the event to reduce the possibility of information becoming stagnant, Upload photos/videos to give an avenue for more buzz through photo/video comments, shares and Likes, Make sure to continuously send out invites, and provide a clear gateway to current attendees; personal messages/ inboxes, The constant need to send out reminders, especially in the last few days leading up to the event, Event buzz can be paired with the @uwsawindsor Twitter account by tweeting about events, there is an option available to users of both to link them; thus posts on one are replicated on the other. Furthermore, to further push the social networking movement, the UWSA should create Share buttons on their website. Inputting Like and Share buttons on a webpage is completely free, and is encouraged by Facebook themselves. Facebook provides a description on how to input these buttons on a webpage at the following link: http://developers.facebook.com/ docs/reference/plugins/like/.

This is a simple mechanism that can greatly aid in advertising for events as well as information and awareness broadcasting. Although social media is a major part of event promotion, the UWSA should not focus solely on the use of social networks to promote school events. Below are some simple recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness of the already established event promotion techniques currently used by the UWSA. It is advised that attention be given to create creative headlines and subject titles for the UWSA emails and for all poster ads. Especially with emails, a creative headline will entice the student to open the email rather than just skipping by it or deleting it, as this is often the case with most students. In addition to creative headlines and subject titles, the incentive for attending the event should be emphasized to provide insight on the benefit of attending to the students deliberating whether or not to attend. To continue with the issue of emails, the sender should be UWSA itself, seeing the UWSA name in the dispatchers name slot would create more of an initiative for a student to read the emails. The proclivity for the president and executives to only serve for one term (one year) this can confuse students as to who is emailing them, and thus, they will just delete the email without hesitation. When it comes to poster ads, efforts need to be directed towards better poster placement if possible. The UWSA print ads need to be isolated from the clutter in order to catch students attention. We conducted a study with a small sample group of students; we found that 98% of our focus group was unaware of the fliers and print ads that were out there for

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the U-pass and for the AGM. They admitted that when there are fliers that are cluttered together on popular cork boards that they just walk by and give no attention to the posters or other ads. This should be a concern, especially considering the amount of the yearly UWSA budget that is allocated towards printing expenses. One possible solution would be to create spaces where only UWSA ads can be presented, or to place the poster ads in unconventional places isolated from other nonrelated ads. Moreover, it would be advised to attempt to establish an arrangement to encourage RAs to inform their students of events as they are impending, as well as serve as the key disseminator of all pertinent UWSA initiatives to their students. To compliment this, it is advised that fliers be distributed in residences and major areas for certain events of significance. When focusing on the AGM and how to better increase student attendance and participation we recommend that the UWSA take extra measurements to accommodate students wants and needs. Everybody loves to enjoy food and beverages at an event, thus, the UWSA should allot a certain amount of money for these extended services. Another recommendation for the Annual General Meeting is the time and date of the event itself. Thursday evening from 4-7pm is damaging to the total student attendance. Often, students have already left the campus area and have their minds set on the weekend due to the small amount of classes on Fridays. Holding the meeting Tuesday, midweek during the day is a much better time for a greater attendance of students and involvement, this is a day when the students brains are clear and ready for action.

With the product launch of the University of Windsor mobile application on Campus Technology Day May 17th the UWSA should work closely with this mobile application. What we advise the UWSA to do is ensure that events will be advertised and information about the events be available through the application. Events should be set out in a calendar for student access within the application, and reminders activated via students mobile devices.

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Future communication campaigns

Focus on rst year students
Our next recommendation for the UWSA is to focus on first year students to create an increase in awareness. First year students are the most accessible students in UWSAs target and present the most inexpensive opportunity, especially for those living in campus residence. Distributing fliers and resources to first year students will allow for immediate awareness building. In addition this will enable students to look into the possibilities on campus and could create school pride, whilst giving the sense of a comforting environment. The UWSA should target first year students and their parents during Head Start student orientation both during the May and June sessions, as well as on residence move in day. During Head Start, the UWSA should give presentations throughout the day; these presentations would give the UWSA an opportunity to educate students and promote the alliance. Through talking to students and parents at Head Start, the UWSA would be providing significant information about the alliance to what is for most their problem solving designate, it is in this vein we assert if the student fails to remember the UWSAs services the parents may. The Head Start promotions would also build awareness and give future students material to consider for future endeavors. Building awareness early on in a students mind is essential since it instills the UWSAs presence in ones mind for later potential relations. After having already given a presentation during Head Start, the UWSA should look at heavily promoting themselves during move-in

day at residences across campus. The UWSA should have booths set up with representatives as well as useful memorabilia to give away in individual freshman welcome packs. These representatives would be able to provide information to parents and students about their services and events offered each year, as well as answering any questions that the students or parents may have. During the school year, parents are going to be the ones who are likely to remember what influence the UWSA provides to help the students, thus giving them the information directly will be of significant advantage for the UWSAs future development. Similar to Head Start, on move in day the UWSA should have a few booths set up in high traffic areas across campus. Such areas include; the St. Denis Centre, CAW Student Centre and Toldo Health Education Centre. The main booth should be set up just outside of the Bookstore, since most students will look to purchase their textbooks, school apparel and school supplies. This is a great location for traffic. The UWSA should look at keeping the booth at the bookstore periodically through Frosh Week since all students will need to buy their books

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within the first few weeks of school. By having the booth at the Bookstore, the UWSA can talk about their services to new students as well as year twos and up. These booths will help the UWSA refresh more senior students on their services. On top of having representatives at campus residences and the Bookstore, the UWSA should look at getting RAs and WRIC representatives involved with them, so they can also advocate for the UWSA. RAs help first year students immensely, so having them more involved with the UWSA would be an excellent asset in grossing more student involvement in events.

positions. The process of nominations and elections are a stressful few weeks for some individuals, they want to have their voice heard and make a difference. To make this dream a reality the student body must vote for whom they deem worthy or fit to be elected into each contested position. In past years, the UWSA total student body voting has been varying levels of extreme lows in proportion to the size of the University of Windsor. 2012 voting had reached an all-time high this year, and much of that was attributed to OutBRANDish Consultings advertising efforts. This disproved any arguable effectiveness of current or past methods. The UWSA would find it in their best interest to create a greater awareness on campus of the elections and voting process, as well as what one can do to make a difference. Thus, creating more awareness about the elections along with making the process more streamlined and convenient should be the UWSAs primary concern. There are reasons to believe that OutBRANDish Consulting can create a greater want for the student body to vote for nominees by marketing the campaign with more ferocity and offering updated convenient ways to vote and discover nominee information. Within the following we will discuss some actions that should be taken into consideration in order to help create habitual voters. The first main issue is awareness on campus when it comes to elections. Many methods of reaching students havent been working as intended. For example, by holding student focus groups we were able to identify that while campaign posters have made some students aware of elections, it does not prompt positive action for them to vote. Also, an overwhelming amount of students suggested that the voting campaigning process be redesigned as they cannot see through the clutter and identify specific

Blue Out!
When evaluating the school spirit at other Ontario Universities, OutBRANDish finds that among other things the evidence of their school spirit is in their attire. OutBRANDish proposes the UWSA provide all incoming students with an article of clothing in the University of Windsor colours and branded with the UWSA logo as well as an encouraging Like button adorned on the rear; this satisfies three valuable targets the UWSA is aiming towards, school spirit, awareness and recognition, and positively driving social media membership. The UWSA already provides apparel free of charge to students during welcome week for events like Shinerama. The UWSA can either reallocate those funds to this initiative or divert some of the $20,000 surplus that is not uncommon at fiscal year end.

Voting & Elections

Winter semester of every year is the time for a new set of students to be nominated, run and be elected into a specified UWSA executive

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candidates. The first main attribute that we would like to see implemented would be to have a page on the UWSA website, as well as the voting webpage, provide job description for each council position. Currently students are unaware of what each position entails because there is very little information externally provided regarding positional functions. Also, it is advised to avoid the use of a lot of acronyms to decrease confusion as students will know what each position entitles. This would allow for the majority of the student body to be able to access the information as well as incline them to potentially run themselves. Furthermore, on the UWSA website, Facebook page, and on the voting webpage, individual candidate platforms should be summarized and presented. This can be done through creating short standardized videos of each candidate presenting their platform. These videos can be uploaded on Facebook and be shared by thousands of students. If the videos are standardized this will eliminate bias, as often students base voting on perceptual features of posters and other signage, not based on specific positions and platforms. These testimonies would include the nominees intention for the role they are running for, as well as any speeches that they would like the students to hear, this would allow for the nominees to express themselves and give each candidate a fair chance against opponents. Once the videos are recorded and posted online, each nominee should also do a write up of their thoughts, posted beside their video. This will allow for students to download the word document to see the candidates personalized summary page. Creating these candidate videos as well as a summary page of each will allow for the student body to be more involved which will create a greater need to take part in voting and elective actions.

Moreover, it is advised that on the online voting webpage short summaries should be provided that outline the basic platforms of each candidate. This will allow a student to make an informed vote even in unfamiliar circumstances. These summaries should also be provided at the on campus polling stations, to inform those not voting online. The next step in the marketing campaign would be to schedule class presentations to inform students about the upcoming elections and voting possibilities. During these presentations the UWSA representatives should do a quick run-through of where and how to vote for nominees. Online or offline, students should know what their resources are and the methods in which they can express themselves. With the addition of these new innovative election ideas, the UWSA should focus and advertise the complete convenience of voting and the ability to vote online in the comforts of your own home. With past voting experiences, the University had to set up multiple locations where students could go to vote. The voting turnout has steadily increased since 2005, this past year there was a huge jump in student voters due to increased involvement to market the elections and create a greater awareness. A main aspect of this would be through social media. If these efforts were to be continuously imitated in years to come, the UWSA could have a great spike in their voter turnout. The final phase to implement when creating greater awareness for the elections is to craft more visuals around campus. By printing and posting election posters in faculty buildings across campus. Students need to see posters that are eye catching and create a want to vote for a particular candidate.

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Organisational strategy recommendations

After identifying the current condition of the UWSAs marketing efforts, some direction recommendations regarding organisational structure and management to better assist in the implementation of this strategy are suggested verbatim. currently carried out by the Communications Coordinator. In the case that the need for a separate position is unnecessary, modifications to the job description should include that the candidate possess a strong working knowledge of major forms of social media and have proven working application of marketing strategies. In the call for applications of qualified candidates it is recommended that the notice be forwarded to the Odette School of Business. It is the expectation that students who have taken marketing classes or have had experience in marketing be encouraged to submit their name to the candidate pool. The duties of this position should include the implementation of unified branding of all UWSA internal and external communications, implementing the graphics standard manual, coordinate and hire the promotions team, and to ensure that UWSA is visible on campus. Several of these duties will be discussed as a separate recommendation.

Hiring & recruitment practices

If you wish to acquire the best talent it is ill advised to simply post the opportunity and hope the best applicants apply, you must actively recruit the best into your ranks. When looking to fill a position ask faculty members of the relevant departments who they believe the best student for the position is, then approach them and encourage them to apply. Incentivize new, current, and future employees with some form compensation. Prior to this year UWSA executives received a food allowance at the Basement pub. OutBRANDish recommends the UWSA replace the now defunct incentive with one of equal or greater value. If a company no matter the mission or not-forprofit intentions begin cut compensation the result will with little variance be; the best candidates and employees transitioning to positions elsewhere, where their expertise is recognized in conventional terms, and the remaining pool of applicants will be of a caliber less than the industry standard, never more.

Graphics standard manual development

To adhere to a consistent brand image for the UWSA on all advertisements and communications, a recommendation is to create and follow a graphics standard manual. The manual is to outline the proper and improper uses of the UWSA brand, the logo, and its derivative forms. The manual should also include the typeface to be used in official communications and the imagery to be used in different forms of media. An example of a graphics standard manual that can be used as a guideline is the manual published by the

New marketing coordinator

The first of the general strategies is the creation and implementation of a dedicated marketing coordinator position. The current communication and social media functions are

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University of Windsor, which can be found at www.uwindsor.ca/brand.

OutBRANDish allocated the following funds to our completed initiatives: Social networking was all free sweat equity Printing costs - $ 240 total In terms of budgeting, we were assigned no determinant budget, but were advised by Andre to keep in mind it is a student run organization with limitations. As far as costs, OutBRANDish is fortunate that the majority of our advertising was via social media, which carries no cost beyond sweat equity. Thus, our costs were strictly related to printing costs which only totaled $240.00. Through our campaign we were able to create definite impact for little cost, well within the perceived budget. OutBRANDish has researched the costs associated with our recommendations herein and present them as follows: Blueout Initiative Roughly $6000 per 1000 t-shirts. Pre-existing vendor relations may lessen our cost estimate Permanent signs dependent on existing partnership with Superior Signs And More Increase in advertising budget with 20% increase = $ 1136 Social media efforts - Free Voting videos and standardization - Free UWSA memorabilia - $ 4040 for 2000 notepads and 2000 pens with Festival Promotions partnership Presentations and UWSA booths Volunteer - Free Facebook event pages - Free Food for AGM - $ 200 Student Council incentives reallocation of existing funds as well as an addition of minimum $ 4000 Wifi login page Strategic Partnership dependent on negotiations with University Total = $ 15, 376 (with only 1000 shirts and no monetary value for permanent signage)

Promotions team
In addition to elected student members and staff promoting UWSA services and events, a dedicated group of students should be recruited to solely serve as a promotions and marketing team. This team should consist of energetic students who have experience promoting events and able to talk to students comfortably. Any campaign the UWSA holds should be executed through the outreach by this team and supplemented by elected student members.

UWSA presence
To promote the existence of the UWSA, recommendations to increase the visibility include including signage in the student centre commons by way of a large vertical banner with the website URL and the location of the offices. It is OutBRANDishs findings that indicate as author Malcolm Gladwell concurs the golden box technique; insists that for an advertisement to be successful it must not only be of relevance to the viewer but it must provide them with direction - hours of operation and a simple located on the second floor corridor will spell the difference between where is that? and an increase flow of incoming students to the UWSA offices. UWSA executives and elected members should strive to attend all UWSA sponsored events and represent the organisation at University of Windsor sponsored events. To increase the presence in the University of Windsor community and the City of Windsor, press conferences should be held for major announcements and campaigns such as the annual general meeting and the election results of the new executives.

What the budget?

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When advertising 1 + 1 has to equal 15. The result has to be greater than the sum of its parts. Vincent Georgie
Assistant Professor, Odette School of Business

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Summary - measuring success

It is obviously important to put mechanisms in place to measure the success or otherwise of the new strategy. The main aim of the strategy is for the potential and existing students to change any misperceptions they have of the UWSA. This will enhance the UWSAs reputation as the students advocate in any and all University of Windsor related matters that may adversely affect them. Ultimately, it is hoped to bring about an increase in Facebook Likes and both voter turnout and candidates in future elections. While it can prove extremely difficult to assess the success of a perception-changing campaign, it has been proposed that the UWSA develop a baseline in relation to the new marketing messages by undertaking independent, objective research with potential and current student members. To meaningfully measure the success of the marketing strategy, it will be important to better understand the perceptions of the alliances constituents. This will be achieved through a series of independently-run, inmarket consultations that score the UWSA on its ability to deliver on its mission statement to provide a baseline. It will then be repeated at yearly intervals during the life of the strategy, to gauge success of the marketing strategy in changing the perceptions of potential and current student members. The efforts made by OutBRANDish both via word-of-mouth and social media that contributed to the formulation of the new strategy provides a baseline against which future changes can be gauged.

Key takeaways
If the UWSA aspires to achieve winning results they need a clearly differentiated strategy of past administrations and a focused blueprint for delivering positive and lasting impressions. By way of clever advertising positioning and possible co-advertising partnerships with the University of Windsor, there is a substantial awareness opportunity to be had by occupying a previously barren but frequented space by the majority of the Universitys Wi-Fi users. To limit confusion, especially during election time, limit acronyms. Leverage the popularity of Facebook to your advantage with strategic and meaningful posts, it is used by nearly all but posts need to be meaningful lest they blend in, and become advertising noise. Convert them promptly, if you build brand awareness early on in a students University career and educate their parents on your services, the prospect they will forget diminishes. Hire a marketing coordinator that possesses both knowledge of marketing, advertising and promotion and has a grasp of the key concepts of the photoshop suite.

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Acknowledgment and thanks

OutBRANDish Consulting would like to thank all of the individuals and organisations who made a contribution to the development of this strategy, whether by providing information, responding to surveys, providing personal interviews or taking part in group workshops. The input of the following was particularly appreciated: University of Windsor Students Alliance University of Windsor Odette School of Business CAW Centre staff Staples Business Depot UWSA Executives Odette Professor Vincent Georgie As the delivery of the strategy progresses, the continued commitment of these and other organisations to advancing the cause of the UWSA will be crucial to our success. analysis of the data, or development of the strategies observations or conclusions. OutBRANDish Consulting provided this strategy and its materials to the UWSA without input or direction received from the UWSA, and maintained full control of the content of the strategy, its analysis, and conclusions. OutBRANDish Consulting makes no specific claims for the potential financial, operational, or risk factors involved with management decisions taken by a specific organisation. Please note that where the results of analysis are discussed in this publication, the results are based on the application of logic and specific assumptions. These results are not intended to be predictions of events or future outcomes and have been provided solely for the readers considerations.

Key contacts in OutBRANDish Consulting Group

Tyler Compton (comptont@uwindsor.ca) Elise Bolton (boltone@uwindsor.ca) Matt McGarva (mcgarva@uwindsor.ca) Melissa Thibeault (thibeau1@uwindsor.ca) Will Ma (ma1m@uwindsor.ca) Please direct questions and comments about this report via email.

Disclosures
OutBRANDish Consulting Group was commissioned by the UWSA and the Odette School of Business to develop a tactical marketing strategy. The majority of the students interviewed by OutBRANDish Consulting were provided and selected by OutBRANDish Consulting. The UWSA did not participate in the interviews, and was not involved in the

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UWSA Tactical Marketing Strategy 2012 | OutBRANDish Consulting Group

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UWSA Tactical Marketing Strategy 2012 | OutBRANDish Consulting Group

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Whereas every effort has been made to ensure that the information given in this document is accurate, neither OutBRANDish Consulting Group or the Odette School of Business accept liability for any errors, omissions or misleading statements, and no warranty is given or responsibility accepted as to the standing of any individual, rm, company or other organisation mentioned. The paper in this document is made from 50 per cent recycled waste pulp with 50 per cent pulp from well-managed forests. This is a combination of Totally Chlorine Free and Elemental Chlorine Free. Published April 2012 by OutBRANDish Consulting Group Copyright OutBrandish Consulting Group