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Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Make it Memorable Case Study

How long-term partnership empowers advanced campaigns

With nearly 150 years of educational excellence in the engineering field (with the most recent 24 being ranked #1), Rose-Hulman Institute for Technology needed a new “look and feel” for their video communications. There were plenty of stats and data points to explain classroom experience and prove outcomes, but little for prospective students to watch about what it would feel like socially and emotionally as a student at Rose-Hulman.

Standalone Stats

Rose-Hulman’s ranking and educational outcome statistics almost defy comparison:

99% placement rate within 6 months of graduation (class of ‘22)
94% of students complete an internship
Graduates enjoy an average starting salary of $80,157
Top 1% nationally for return on investment

With data points like these, marketing content doesn’t need to make a logical argument as to where is best to study undergraduate engineering because the answer is clear. Instead, marketing needed to make an emotional argument which statistics can’t prove on their own.

The Challenge

Engineering school is too often seen as a “black box” where gifted freshmen enroll, and SpaceX employees walk out. With 73% of students coming from out of state, Rose-Hulman needed a video campaign which could recruit potential students on the emotional basis of who they were, and who they wanted to be surrounded by.

A Relationship Over Time

Early in our conversations with administrators, it became clear that there is no one “Rose-Hulman story” but rather dozens of individualized experiences. Therefore, we initiated our creative process by conducting on- and off-camera interviews with dozens of students about their time. Transcripts in-hand, we created a narrative driven by student voices for a campaign titled “Together, We Are Rose-Hulman.” Because our concept was driven by real interviews with real students, our presentation to administration had not only a typed script, but an edited audio version which could receive feedback rounds before filming needed to begin.

With existing stakeholder buy-in on the narrative, we created a rough shot-for-shot video version in our office. This allowed us to identify where existing library footage could be utilized, and to be extra surgical with our video production. Working with the same students from the interviews, we conducted our shoots and completed the campaign.

2020

A Modest Introduction

With world events changing up the collegiate recruiting landscape, Rose-Hulman's new marketing team was looking for a quick project that could help the institute appeal to a new generation of students.

Working within community health guidelines, Blueline captured interviews and b-roll with nearly a dozen students to create a campus experience video.

Footage Library

Student Interviews

Days of footage capture

Delivered video

early
2021

Feature Focus

After a successful rollout of the general campus experience video, Rose-Hulman re-engaged with Blueline to focus more specifically on one aspect of campus - the Innovation Centers and the KEEN engineering framework they implemented. We conducted interviews and b-roll onsite, and supplemented footage with animations illustrating various aspects of KEEN.

With production taking place in January, our previous production made it possible to show outdoor footage from a more photogenic part of the year.

Footage Library Running Total

Student Interviews

Alumni Interviews

Faculty/Staff Interviews

Days of footage

Delivered videos

Homecoming
2021

Building on History

After capturing a few alumni interviews remotely for the KEEN project, it was evident to both Rose-Hulman and Blueline that these alumni perspectives could play a major role in demonstrating the value of a Rose-Hulman education.

Taking advantage of a natural assembly of alumni at Homecoming, we spent a day hearing from folks of all eras, and produced this video. Still in use today at events, this video brings tears out of even the most matter-of-fact individuals. Additionally, we produced a video encouraging alumni giving.

Footage Library Running Total

Student Interviews

Alumni Interviews

Faculty/Staff Interviews

Days of footage

Delivered videos

Early
2022

A Full Campaign

After Homecoming, Rose-Hulman approached us about creating a full campaign for the 2022 marketing cycle. Together we determined this campaign would focus once again on students and campus experience and would show promising high schoolers what daily life could be like attending the #1 undergraduate engineering school in the nation.

The resulting campaign centered around the tagline "Together, We Are Rose-Hulman" and its banner video. Additional components included a 30-second broadcast cut, a 60-second social media cut, multiple 15-second snippets, and vertical counterparts to many of these deliverables.

While creating this campaign required numerous days of filming, our previous 3 engagements proved critical in showing a complete student experience since so much of Rose-Hulman life is seasonal.

early
2021

Feature Focus

We captured interviews with students, staff, and alumni and created 6 videos

Pilot Videos

These two videos were used as our "vertical slices" to iterate on design, illustration, and animation practices that would carry on through the series. After these videos were approved by VU's president, we shifted into mass production.

Learning and teaching together

Blueline always assumes that our clients are the experts, and it is our job to make their expertise understandable and relevant to their target audience. We specialize in learning enough to re-teach the most important pieces of information over the course of a project, and this Career and Technical Education series was an exercise in training this skill through endurance.

With VU’s provided scripts, which were based on introductory calls with instructors, we had additional conversations with instructors before production and throughout their shoot day to ensure that their instructional content was captured in the best possible way. In editing, we continued to work with the VU team and instructors to ensure that every video as accurate, clear, and understandable to a general audience.

Results

Over the course of 21 shoot days and 11 months, our team learned and helped teach topics ranging from surgical tech to agribusiness, from surveying to welding, and from piloting a plane to maintaining one. In total, we produced:

83 total videos
22 instructors represented, most with 4 videos
Over 5.5 hours of video content, all closed-captioned
Unique thumbnails and YouTube interactions

Visit the VU Career & Technical Education YouTube Page

A Team Effort

In addition to all the work performed by Blueline's team, this project could not have happened without the substantial support from many folks inside VU, as well as other vendors who provided creative, script, and logistics support. The team assembled by Vincennes set a high bar for creative partnerships in an educational setting.

And of course, we're exceptionally grateful to the nearly two dozen instructors who shared their expertise, time, and patience with us.