The Challenge
In the early 2000’s, many colleges were at the very beginning of understanding the potential scale and demand of online learning let alone creating custom online learning platforms. Leading the charge, however, were for-profit schools such as the University of Phoenix, Everest College and Kaplan College. Kaplan, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Washington Post, was looking for a better way of recruiting prospective students and reducing enrollment costs. Online advertising was still in its infancy and many schools relied on outside vendors to assist recruiting efforts since they largely lacked sophisticated digital marketing skills. To serve this initiative, the Washington Post funded the creation of the digital agency Education Connection which created a consumer site of the same name.
Education Connection
At first, the team at Education Connection (which John was a founding member of), relied on typical methods such as email, paid search and paid placement (sometimes by the hour) on the home pages of popular sites with high traffic like MSN which at the time was a gateway to information and news. As paid placement grew increasingly more expensive from other aggregators like ClassesUSA and CollegeBound competing for placement, a decision was to made to develop direct response TV spots.
Frequency, repetition and a jingle?
While the team experimented with many different formats (short form, long form, serious etc.) The most successful were the entertaining versions that often consisted of a message conveyed through a fun song and included dancing. While the team went through many iterations the early “Get Connected” version featuring a singing waitress dancing over the Ed Connection landing page was the start of “a recipe for success” and something that resonated well with consumers. The jingle and spots were so catchy that they took on a life of their own and spawned consumers uploading their own parodied versions on YouTube. As years progressed, there were rap versions, kids rap, concert versions, go to school in your pajamas, corndog, even a version with Shannon Doherty. The team doubled down on this format and its success is undeniable as the spots are still viewed on YouTube with millions of views. After all, who can forget, “Get connected for free….., get connected for free….. – at Edu…cation – Con….nect…..tion!”