Case Study: How Spur Created a Marketing Toolkit That Could Flex for 125+ OLLIs
The Spur Marketing Group delivered a marketing toolkit with creative concepts that could be localized and adapted based on the marketing resources each independent OLLI had available. Wrapped around a new and modern creative campaign tagline, “Stay Curious,” the modular toolkit included graphic design, audio, video, photography and other assets that could be completely customized – or used right ‘out of the box.’
🔍 The Opportunity
“Why isn’t there a national marketing campaign on behalf of The Osher Institute?”
For years, Steve Thaxton had heard a variation of this question, typically from marketing leaders at one of the 125 Osher Institutes around the U.S. As the Executive Director of the Osher National Resource Center (NRC), he and his team lead a center of excellence aimed at making individual Osher Institutes successful through consulting and collaboration.
However, a top-down, one-size-fits-all campaign would have never worked for the individual OLLI institutes. Each OLLI – which can be found in all 50 states – is as different as can be when it comes to the types of courses offered, or even in their ability to take on new students. In order words, a singular national marketing campaign could potentially inundate OLLIs that were over capacity while failing to serve still-growing institutes that needed turnkey campaigns.
So a national campaign was out, but there was still clearly a need for intentional, localized marketing tools and promotional materials to serve every Osher Institute in the manner of their choosing. This included those OLLIs with dedicated marketing teams as well as those operating in more resource-constrained environments.
And that’s why The Osher NRC and Northwestern University brought on Spur Marketing Group to build a creative toolkit that would flex to fit the needs of any local OLLI for years to come.
“The varied experiences The Spur Group team has in big agencies served us well on this project. They understood our needs and brought that ‘big thinking’ to the project, but in a personal and fast-moving way. As a result, they could bring any needed adjustments in hours, not weeks.”
💡 The Solution
Spur kicked off the project by working with the NRC Leadership team to hone in on a creative concept that would serve as the campaign’s tagline and messaging framework. After a thorough creative discovery process where the team interviewed stakeholders and reviewed existing marketing assets, a creative concept quickly emerged.
“Stay Curious” was a tagline that captured the common thread shared by every OLLI: a commitment to ongoing curiosity.
Spur quickly went to work bringing this concept to life through a full-fledged brand campaign, including both copy and visual design. This was an effort that required a careful approach to complement the Osher Intitute’s existing visual identity, including the distinctive curved “Osher O.” However, the team wanted to modernize the brand’s application, using custom photography of real learners, a friendly tone of voice, and modern graphic design elements that reflected the depth and quality of OLLI programming.
The resulting toolbox included print, audio, video, and other assets for OLLI institutes to use in their own promotional efforts. Each category of assets included three variations according to the level of customization desired – “plug and play,” basic (which allowed for a few tweaks) and advanced (which gave the user full creative control). In other words, a lone marketer could create a custom digital ad for their institute by simply adding their own logo in PowerPoint, while an experienced graphic designer could have access to the raw design or video files that they could use to customize photos, design elements, copy and more.
It was crucial for each Osher Institute to have access to the intellectual property rights required for marketing efforts in any channel, be it a local newspaper, a podcast ad, YouTube or social media. That’s why The Spur Group’s team oversaw the creation and curation of original audio, voiceover, video clips and still photography for the express purpose of the campaign.
The final result? A toolkit chock full of templates with a consistent look and feel while allowing for numerous customizable aspects depending on the OLLI’s needs.
“The Spur Group’s creative concept matched and surpassed our expectations for this project – from the photos and print, to the social media, video and other assets. The concepts and materials were very professional and of high visual quality.”
📈 The Outcome
After finishing the toolkit, Spur partnered with the NRC Leadership to host a national webinar to introduce the project to key leaders at the Osher Institute network. It covered the creative rationale for the theme and walked participants through the available assets, including print, video, musical, voiceover and other digital assets. There were also real-life user tutorials that showed resource-constrained teams how to quickly adapt the assets for their own marketing needs using PowerPoint and other basic, user-friendly software.
As soon as the webinar was concluded, the feedback from individual institutes began to pour in.
“We are (now) self-reliant in regard to our marketing, while being able to represent USF positively and professionally.”
– Ara Rogers, director of OLLI at University of South Florida
“The designs are so eye-catching and vibrant. The slogans are creative and on point. [And] we like the flexibility of substituting the images with folks from our own membership.”
– Jennifer Disano, executive director of OLLI at George Mason University
The materials were quickly embraced and used across the network. From Sonoma State University on the west coast to Tufts University on the east coast; from print ads to digital video, the toolbox from Spur has left its mark as a flexible, forward-looking campaign that will have significant longevity for years to come.
Steve Thaxton
Executive Director at the National Resource Center for Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes
“The process with The Spur Group was very much collaborative and communicative. The timeline was well done, and we always had visibility into when things were coming. We were very pleased with the final product.”