From September 2012 The College is bringing its expertise and unique approach to the undergraduate market by launching a new Bachelor of Laws degree – the LL.B.

This accelerated, two-year, focused undergraduate course is different to traditional law degrees. Not only is The College of Law’s LL.B rigorous and academically challenging, but completely focused on equipping students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the modern world of law.

The brief
Our brief was to launch and communicate these unique aspects of the two-year LL.B, to create awareness and attract students, by reaching and convincing a broad audience of schools, prospective students, parents and other influencers in the profession.

It was clear from our initial research, that prospective students had very different motivations from, say, parents and careers advisers. By focusing on the core needs and motivations of each of the different audience groups, we devised a campaign that used real case studies and endorsements from real law students, real teachers, real parents and real lawyers to convey the benefits and strengths of The College of Law and its new LL.B course.

The results
The case studies formed the basis of the launch campaign, which also involved developing The College’s strong visual identity to create a distinct visual language for the LL.B. and differentiate the course from its other postgraduate programmes. This was implemented across an integrated media mix including a prospectus, on-line and print advertising, event graphics and digital.

Using real people, rather than hired models, was critical to the authenticity of the campaign. To reinforce this, during the advertising photo shoot we filmed a behind-the-scenes video showing the students, teachers, parents and law professionals talking about the key benefits of the course to demonstrate where the endorsements came from. The film is featured on The College of Law’s YouTube channel.

The new identity had its first outing at the Citizen Power: Peterborough launch on Monday 19 July at Peterborough’s Norman Foster designed Thomas Deacon Academy.

Thirdperson has been working with the RSA to help develop its thinking, messaging and brand language around the programme, which will now be applied to a range of innovative local engagement tools.

“The Citizen Power Peterborough programme is all about giving local people the power to shape the future of their city. But we had a big problem: we were finding it tough to turn big ideas like these into communications that people can understand and actually inspire them to get involved. Thirdperson are our solution. I wouldn’t go to any other business doing what they do. First class in every respect”.

Sam McLean, Director of Public Participation, Head of Citizen Power programme RSA Projects

Links
http://www.citizenpower.co.uk/
http://www.thersa.org/projects/citizen-power

This piece of brand communication work is part of our ongoing role to help reflect its position as the UK’s leader in legal education. We’ve helped shape confident brand messages and visual identity to help the College compete in an increasingly competitive legal training market.

It’s been a fantastic journey through reinvigorated marcoms, a complete overhaul and redesign of the College website, student recruitment advertising, direct mail and now a new prospectus. We’ve taken The College of Law a big step forward and we’re very proud of the result.

The results of these workshops drove a complete restructure of the College’s website overhauling the sitemap, design, generating fresh engaging content, navigational logic and improved user experience.

We conducted a full literature audit, looking at the entire range of communications, what they said about the company and, most importantly, what the company wanted to say. We then worked together with Smith & Williamson to refresh its literature output creating a new, contemporary look and feel.

We developed a series of flexible templates, all supported by a set of clear, usable guidelines which covered everything from choosing photography to tone of voice. Using these digital templates, Smith & Williamson is now creating its own acclaimed professional communications covering over 30 titles per year.