Unifying an Iconic Brand’s Personality Leads to Record-Breaking Enrollment
+24.1%
growth in total enrollment
+44.4%
growth in incoming freshman enrollment from 2021-2024
The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) revitalized its time-honored brand through research-driven storytelling and attracted the largest incoming class in state history.
A storied higher ed brand tells a single, compelling story of value.
As a large, well-established institution with many facets, Ole Miss knew exactly what it stood for. The challenge was unifying its sometimes fragmented brand personality and telling its story in a more consistent way to amplify its emotional connection with prospective students.
Through discovery, quantitative analysis, and brand research, Carnegie uncovered and empowered the narrative that would mobilize enrollment success across multiple schools at the university.
The Challenge
An R1 research institution known for its history and D1 athletics, Ole Miss has a strong, well-established place in the market. But its size and complexity created a fragmented story, and their team wanted to unify the brand around a stronger sense of personality.
When it came to enrollment, they wanted to increase their pull from Mississippi and key markets in the greater Southeast area. Overall, they sought to boost applications and enrollment by creating awareness and driving leads.
Our Approach
Our proprietary brand archetype model aligned perfectly with Ole Miss’ goal of building more personalized and authentic messaging. We realized we weren’t creating a new brand identity—we were helping the institution verbalize its inherent purpose into a single, cohesive message.
We also worked together to strengthen their enrollment strategy and infrastructure. Critical investments were made in market research to identify unrealized opportunities and in a new data management system to bring all recruitment data to an optimized CRM instance.
Our breadth of expertise enabled us to pivot from creating a personified brand to building bridges between campus systems.
What Worked
- Brand strategy, strategic marketing planning, and creative workshops informed the university’s core brand expression.
- New market identification and market analysis research ensured they pursued the markets most suited to their goals.
- Architecting a new data management system, which involved a full Slate implementation and integration for both undergraduate and graduate areas, created a central hub for enrollment information.
- Expanded digital campaigns addressed the specific needs of different departments, including Ole Miss Outreach for graduate and online programs, and the School of Pharmacy.
The Results
Our foundational work empowered the Ole Miss team to produce beautiful creative work, informed by their authentic brand. With stakeholders aligned, the institution’s brand expression is now consistent across campus. A new, centralized data management system empowers Ole Miss to build on their current data and continue making data-informed decisions for years to come. From 2019 to 2024, the partnership contributed to a remarkable surge in enrollment, recently resulting in the largest freshman class in the state’s history. The partnership remains strong as we continue to work with Ole Miss to further innovate their strategies and support their growth.
+24.1%
growth in total enrollment
+44.4%
growth in incoming freshman enrollment from 2021-2024
5,973
freshmen enrollees marked the largest incoming class in MS state history
When we began our search for a company that could work with us to conduct market research, we had no idea it could blossom into such a strong partnership as we have today. Whether it be co-creating and training our campus community about our brand personality or working with our marketing team to execute national, brand-building digital campaigns, Carnegie has deepened the work of our team and become a valued partner in how we bring awareness about our university to the world.
We believe the strong partnership that we have formed with Carnegie since 2019 has contributed to the university’s record enrollment growth. From our digital campaigns to student search strategy, and even implementation of our CRM, Carnegie has provided real-time feedback and direct access to their team when we’ve needed it most. The Carnegie team understands us and continues to help us achieve our institutional goals.
Our partnership with Carnegie has been instrumental in strengthening the School of Pharmacy’s visibility and outreach to prospective pharmacy students. By enhancing our social media presence, they have helped us tell our story in a more engaging and authentic way, highlighting our community and the opportunities within our pharmacy program.
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