Best of CASE District II Award
 

Institution: SUNY Canton College Foundation

Title of entry: Cybersecurity Commercial

About this entry: SUNY Canton's Cybersecurity program has exploded in popularity since its launch in 2017, most recently becoming the college's second-largest bachelor's degree. SUNY Canton began offering a 100% online option in 2019, in addition to the original in-person format. A comprehensive marketing campaign for the program began in Fall 2022 (and ran until Fall 2023) to coincide with an announcement that it had been selected for the prestigious National Security Agency's and Department of Homeland Security's "Program of Study" Validation (https://www.canton.edu/news/2022/cyber-nsa/).

A :30 commercial was developed to promote this achievement and emphasize the program's flexible formats.

The platforms chosen for this campaign were multi-faceted: paid social media, Google AdWords, broadcast television, YouTube ads, and paid digital placements. A dedicated url was specifically designed for these marketing referrals in order to track and evaluate data (www.canton.edu/cyber). Specific interest areas that pertain to cybersecurity were selected (when available) to narrow the target audience.

The campaign ended with the commercial earning nearly 560,000 YouTube views (earned and organic), making it the most-watched video the college has ever produced.

The ROI on investment included approximately 30 referrals for the program (requests for information).