News

Trent McCrow
Public relations editorial intern

The launch of Avondale's new corporate image coincides with a peer-marketing push as a survey continues to show students are the college's best recruiters.

According to the survey, 677 of the 990 students who have applied online since 2005 hear about Avondale at their local church, from a family member or a friend, or from a current student. These results convinced Advancement to move more towards peer marketing.

The launch of the new corporate image has also proved influential. "We asked ourselves three questions: did our corporate image incorporate the values and culture of Avondale College; did it appeal to our target market; and did it portray the dignity of a tertiary institution with more than 110 years of history?" says director Lorin Bradford. The new logo is the centrepiece of the image-the former logo had not appeared in marketing materials for 20 years. "We wanted a logo we could work and design with," says Lorin.

Charlestown-based graphic design studio Design Itch created the logo from a brief Advancement developed over two years. The process included: a brand audit by Avondale communication students; focus group research, culminating in a workshop where staff members identified the core values of the Avondale brand; and a survey of Avondale staff members and students and Avondale high school students. "The previous brand didn't appeal to young people at all," says Design Itch director and co-founder Kristine Lubrinski.

The logo, unveiled by staff members at a launch on the Lake Macquarie campus on August 26, represents values such as spiritual development, life balance, integrity, intellectual endeavour and collegiality. It also links the college more closely to the Seventh-day Adventist Church--Avondale is an entity of the church.

Students seem to have taken seriously a call to be ambassadors for the new image. Student recruiter Colin Chuang uses as an example the number of students choosing to wear Avondale-branded T-shirts. "The new logo has made it easier to market the college," says marketing officer Jo-Anne Vint.

Advancement's new mentoring and recruitment initiative, Helping Hands, is the most obvious example of the peer-marketing push. "[Helping Hands] is encouraging this word-of-mouth approach," says Colin. It is also a reward for students, whom Lorin describes as "our best recruiters." "We have realised that our current students do our best advertising, and we would like to reward them for this," says Jo-Anne Vint.

"Peer marketing is the oldest but newest form of marketing," says Jared Madden, a new media evangelist and sessional lecturer at Avondale. "Peer marketing . . . speaks in a human voice through human sounding conversations."--with Brenton Stacey