Prior to using Red Paper Plane, the team at Chadron State College used a traditional approach to their marketing. That included glossy brochures, postcards and other printed collateral that touted the campus’ residence halls, food plans and scholarship deadlines. While all that proved useful for admissions, there was one thing the College’s marketing seemed to be missing: that “sticky factor”.
These are prospective college students, after all.
Enter Marcella Luton, graduate assistant for College Relations at Chadron State College. She was searching for a fresh approach to higher education marketing and found it with Red Paper Plane’s Flapper® design.
“We chose to go with [the Flapper®] because it is a unique marketing piece that’s a little bit different than what we’ve done previously,” she said. “It allows us to put a lot of information and photos of campus without being too busy. Plus it’s interactive which causes students to play with it and keep flipping through all the information instead of just reading the first couple of paragraphs and then throwing it out.”
The Flapper®, one of Structural Graphics’ patented designs, is like a great book you can’t put down. Its ingenious four-panel design provides ample space for marketers looking to tell a story, show progression or take recipients on a journey. The best part? Each panel folds in on itself to reveal information the more it’s played with.
“In our piece, there’s one large image on the front,” Luton said. “It shows the campus landmark, so I think anyone who’s familiar with Chadron State College instantly recognizes that. Then, you know, if you hold it in both of your hands, it’s kind of easy to navigate yourself through it.”
What does it take to design an interactive and dimensional marketing piece?
On Red Paper Plane’s online interface, users can select their template, then drag and drop creative elements like copy, brand messaging and graphics to make the piece truly one-of-a-kind. Luton said that being able to virtually “flip” through the piece made the process easy. This feature allows designers to understand how the piece will move and they can see how the creative elements they’ve added will line up.
While designing the piece, Luton and her team made sure to keep their target audience in mind. The piece, she said, would have a regional focus and would be distributed to prospective undergrads in western Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming.
“I think that these will likely go to students who maybe have shown interest early-on or sent SAT scores to the college,” Luton said. “We kind of hope it’s one of those things that students kind of leave around and maybe their friends see it.”
As of this writing, the piece, itself, hasn’t gone out to prospective students, but the team at Chadron State College is already buzzing about it.
“I think everybody’s happy with the quality and it definitely met our expectations,” Luton said. “It kind of has that ‘sticky factor’, you know. You always want to kind of pick it up and mess around with it. For instance, when I showed it to the President and Vice President, they immediately started thumbing through it and looking at different elements within the Flapper®. I think ‘intrigued’ is a good way to describe the effect it’s had on the team.”
