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University of Salford takes to Tinder with alumni

In a week where students will start moving away to university, the University of Salford met its match with video production and content marketing agency – Tunafish Media.

The team launched two profiles on the popular dating app – Tinder – to encourage social interaction with future undergraduates who have changed their mind about their next step or are applying late enabling them to explore the options available to them through clearing across the university’s seven academic schools.

The integrated campaign – which was brought to life through video, social and PR – saw blanket national media coverage and more than 50,000 video views which led to direct enquiries about applications. The three founders of Tunafish Media Sam Jones, James McDonald and Ric Brooks all graduated from the University of Salford in 2009 and had all found their way to the university through the clearing system.

Manchester PR agency, Petal & Co. partnered with Tunafish Media, with Jessica Wilkinson leading the media relations for the initiative.

At the university, the campaign was led by Hannah Burchell Associate Director of Marketing and AJ Handley-Rowe who is Digital Marketing Manager.

Speaking of the campaign, Sam Jones said: “After studying here, it is great to back and working with the University of Salford. The clearing process can be extremely stressful and confusing for young people and we wanted to create a campaign that approached the subject in a playful way. The response has been great and underneath the fun of the profiles there is a serious message that students need to be choosing courses and universities that they are truly compatible with and that it’s not too late to change their minds.”

The campaign was launched to complement the university’s ‘Matchmaker’ course finding site (http://www.salford.ac.uk/matchmaker), which was launched during the A-level results period in August 2015.

AJ Handley-Rowe, Digital Marketing Manager said: “After the success of the MatchMaker last year we wanted to build on our recent history of innovative marketing and take it a step further. Clearing can be an anxious time and so we wanted to let some of our personality shine through to make it a bit more fun, light-hearted and reassuring.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tunafish Media .