A campus surrounded by water needed more students to find it. Texas A&M University at Galveston, the island campus of Texas A&M on Pelican Island, educates nearly 2,300 students a year in marine and maritime programs and is home to the Gulf Coast's only maritime academy. WWC developed the Waters Edge advertising campaign to increase student enrollment at TAMUG, running through 2018 and 2019, and created the campaign message before producing every media component behind it, television, outdoor, magazine and newspaper placements, and a WordPress splash page that gave prospective students a clear place to land. The results came straight from the university's own enrollment data, a 16% increase during the campaign, growth built on one clear message placed everywhere prospective students were already looking.
A campus can be one of a kind and still go unnoticed. Texas A&M Galveston offers something no other Texas campus can, Aggie degrees earned on an island, hands-on marine and maritime programs, and the only maritime academy on the Gulf Coast. Yet a specialized campus competes for the same prospective students as every large university in the state, and enrollment needed to grow. TAMUG asked WWC to develop an advertising campaign that would put the campus in front of the right students and families, carry one clear message across broadcast, print, outdoor, and digital, and turn that visibility into enrollment.
WWC developed the campaign message first, one idea strong enough to carry across every channel, then designed and produced the full media set. Television commercials introduced the campus to a broad audience. Outdoor placements kept the message in constant public view. Magazine and newspaper ads extended it into print. A WordPress splash page anchored the campaign online, giving prospective students a direct next step from ad to inquiry within a university environment that manages enrollment on PeopleSoft. Every piece carried one message toward one goal, more students choosing Texas A&M Galveston.
Enrollment moved. Over the course of the 2018 and 2019 campaign, Texas A&M Galveston recorded a 16% increase in enrollment, a result documented in the university's own data. For a specialized island campus recruiting alongside every major university in Texas, that growth meant more Sea Aggies on Pelican Island and a stronger pipeline into the programs that make TAMUG singular. More importantly, it confirmed that a clear message, produced well and placed everywhere it matters, can change the number a university cares about most.
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