The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Special Events, Projects, Programs, or Campaigns - Bronze
The Ohio State University College of Medicine developed a multichannel digital campaign, “My Dream, My Decision, MD,” highlighting our own medical students to attract future generations to achieve their dream of becoming a doctor. The campaign’s goals were to raise Ohio State College of Medicine MD program awareness on digital platforms and increase the number of student applications, with a special focus on students underrepresented in medicine and promotion of specialty programs: the Medical Scientist Training Program and primary care. The Ohio State College of Medicine’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion was strongly demonstrated in the campaign by featuring the stories of students with diverse backgrounds, by targeting various audiences through different platforms and databases, and by geotargeting Historically Black Colleges and Universities. We promoted the unique strengths of the college through the storytelling by our inspiring students. The campaign creatively employs the repetition of the letters M and D to directly tie into the MD program and the phrase “My Dream, My Decision.” We conducted five student video interviews and created 22 video variations, six new webpages, and more than 100 ad graphic variations for the campaign. The digital campaign includes two phases — awareness and consideration — using Google Performance Max, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.
What was the most impactful part of your entry?
This campaign launched May 2, 2022, and as of Oct. 10, medical school applications were up 4% at Ohio State (6,908 verified applications) compared with being down 5% nationally. In addition, our Primary Care Track received a record number of applications — 35 in 2022 versus only 19 total applications in 2021. The website campaign pages have brought in over 40,000 new users to the website, with the story on diversity by student Evans receiving the highest number of unique page views (over 11,000). By the end of September 2022, the campaign received over 3.7 million impressions and 58,000 ad clicks.
What is one thing you learned from your entry/experience?
One thing we learned from this campaign is how passionate our students are about sharing why they chose Ohio State for medical school. We realized their storytelling can be one of the best strategic tools we can use in marketing, as these students tell relatable stories, share their passions and goals, and truly inspire others. We learned that not only did the original five students we worked with want to share their stories, but also many other students wanted to participate through social media. This campaign has been a great way to increase connectedness and student morale.
Contact:
Wal Ozello
wal.ozello@osumc.edu