Oxford to launch poor students’ bursary drive

Oxford University is to launch its first national advertising campaign to promote a new bursary scheme for less affluent students.

The campaign breaks this month and features the strapline “It’s not what’s in your pocket, it’s what’s in your head that counts.” The marketing activity, targeting 14- to 17-year-olds and their families, includes press and outdoor advertising, online advertising, ambient executions and a direct marketing campaign. It will run for two months, with a second burst planned for September, lasting one month.

Integrated agency 23red has been appointed to handle the university’s advertising account and its first project has been to develop a press and outdoor campaign to raise awareness of the “opportunity bursaries”, which will be worth up to &£13,000 when they are launched next year.

Cambridge University has launched a similar bursary scheme, although students there can only qualify for a maximum of &£3,000 in the first year, compared with &£4,000 in the first year at Oxford.

Both bursary schemes aim to help students with their living costs when tuition fees are raised to &£3,000 a year from next autumn.

An Oxford University spokeswoman says: “We hope this campaign will encourage even more potential applicants in our target regions to find out more about what the bursaries can offer them.”

Recommended

Measuring kills the creativity it aims to repeat

Marketing Week

Alan Mitchell’s article “The immeasurable damage of our measuring systems” (MW March 3) is one of the best articles I’ve read in Marketing Week. As a fully fledged, qualified and experienced marketing manager with a proven track record in delivering growth and strategic insight, I am now considering a career change because, quite frankly, I’m […]