For the first time since the early 2000s, St. Thomas launched a new TV marketing campaign.
The commercials, running under the “We are Tommies” campaign, will be aired for seven non-consecutive weeks from mid-February to the first week of May in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Duluth and Rochester. The campaign will target adults ages 35 to 65 who can influence prospective students.
St. Thomas Chief Marketing Officer Kymm Martinez said that television is an effective way to reach a large audience at a lower cost.
“TV is one of the best ways to go about it,” she said. “The TV campaign that we just launched will reach over 80 percent of our target in Minnesota.”
The cost was also lowered by using in-house talent instead of hiring an advertising agency. Martinez said that it was “a fraction of” what a major corporation might spend on an ad campaign but declined to disclose the exact amount St. Thomas paid.
The campaign includes three commercials featuring stories of successful Tommies to raise awareness about St. Thomas academics, specifically the science, engineering and entrepreneurship programs.
“Everything we do here is basically to get students to come here and view this university as a place they can fit in and belong to, so we really wanted to highlight the special features that we offer here,” Creative Director Pete Winecke said.
One of the commercials featured Sarah Millholland’s experience at St. Thomas. Coming in as a math major, it was her professor’s influence that switched her career to the study of physics.
“It’s a perfect celebration of personal attention that we have here at St. Thomas, where your professors know who you are,” Martinez said. “Because of that, they’re able to actually make an impact in your life in really differential ways.”
Last August, the department of marketing, insights and communications distributed surveys to people in Minnesota correlated with the demographics of the population. It revealed that less than 50 percent of Minnesotans could say that St. Thomas had a school of engineering or a school of entrepreneurship.
“What we think would be great is to have a campaign, an awareness campaign, focused on telling some strong academic stories that we have but also with the idea of elevating the visibility of some of our key schools,” Martinez said.
The Schulze School of Entrepreneurship commercial features a couple, Susan and Michael Wuollett, who developed Protégé Biomedical through the support of St. Thomas.
The School of Engineering commercial features current students senior Austin Lorch, senior Amanda Tenhoff and junior Milad Audi. The students have been developing heart energy-harvesting devices.
Tenhoff said that in her personal experience, she’s dealt with people not correlating science and engineering with St. Thomas.
“I think St. Thomas is an appropriate competitor,” she said, “but people don’t think of St. Thomas when they think of strong science and engineering.”
Tenhoff enjoyed being a part of the campaign.
“I feel very honored to say the least,” Tenhoff said. “I’m never going to have this opportunity again.”
Samantha HoangLong can be reached at hoan1058@stthomas.edu