Problem

By articulating their liberal arts emphasis, Jesuit character, and service ethic, CRANE’s award-winning marketing for LMU had long helped attract plenty of excellent-fit students to the university and its individual colleges. But the latest freshman class, while robust, reflected an alarming trend at liberal arts institutions nationwide: an increasing imbalance of female students (65%) to male students (35%). Turning again to CRANE, the university asked us for some quick strategic help in achieving a more balanced sex ratio.

Insight

Drawing on CRANE expertise in age-cohort groups and demography, we amplified that knowledge with research oriented specifically toward this new kind of “gender gap.” We investigated the habits and attitudes of Millennial, college-bound young men: What topics draw their interest? How do they look at learning? How do they prefer to interact with others? Research shows, for example, that today’s 17-year-old guys want to be involved. In both learning and leisure, they like to keep pace with technology, love the exhilaration of physical and mental challenge, and pursue active involvement–sometimes alone, but preferably with others–even in an intellectual context. For an L.A. university already authentically branded as a place of Lively Alternatives, Leading Academicians, Lifelong Advantages, and Liberating Adventures, Millennial guys fit naturally into the LMU mix.

Solution

CRANE translated these findings into a practical and complementary marketing strategy with high-energy pieces featuring earthy colors, contemporary techno fonts, handwriting, and a few rough edges. Photos spotlight integrated student life and learning activities with bumped-up kinetic appeal (such as rock climbing, bike racing, archaeology, sound mixing, weightlifting, lacrosse, and baja car construction) as well as community service and casual student interaction. Overall, In the Mix–hip, upbeat, eye-catching–speaks strongly of the action and involvement young men find in LMU’s 400-year-old academic tradition.

Status

After launching In the Mix, LMU began to see a healthy re-balancing of its male/ female applications and consequently in the following year’s fall class enrollment: 55% female, 45% male. Just as the new materials aptly relay in the words Jesuit scholar Baltasar Gracian, “Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.” The CRANE-LMU partnership continues to bear fruit.

In the Mix was well received by men and women alike, and our new class reflects that appeal. This innovative solution from CRANE also succeeded in winning internal support for our efforts to address the sex ratio imbalance–without alarming anyone that we were suddenly changing values or practices in our recruitment and selection of students.

–Matthew X. Fissinger,
director of admission