Strategic Brand Creative Agency Partner Services

The Vendor is required to provide strategic brand creative agency partner will receive and work directly from the brand positioning framework, audience insights, and strategic recommendations produced through that engagement.
- Requirement:
1. Enrollment campaign creative
•    Creative strategy and brief development — working from the brand positioning platform to develop audience-specific creative briefs.
•    Campaign concept development — presenting multiple breakthrough creative concepts for each audience. 
•    Concepts must move beyond generic higher-education tropes and demonstrate genuine differentiation.
•    Full asset production — developing all campaign assets across relevant channels, including digital display, paid social, streaming and connected TV, out-of-home (ooh), print collateral, and email.
•    Video and audio production — concepting, scripting, and producing video assets (long-form and short-form) and audio and radio spots as appropriate.
•    Messaging and copy — developing headline frameworks, audience-specific copy, and across all formats.
2. Visual identity and brand system
•    Logo and lockup system — design or redesign of university primary logo, secondary lockups, unit-level and co-brand configurations, and clear usage guidelines.
•    Color palette and typography — primary and secondary color systems, type hierarchy, and web-safe and accessible alternatives.
•    Brand standards guide — a comprehensive, digital-first brand guide covering proper and improper usage, accessibility standards, tone of voice integration, and governance guidelines.
•    Brand toolkit and institutional templates — production-ready templates for high-priority applications including: digital advertising, email, social media (static and animated), PowerPoint and google slides presentations, letterhead and stationery, event signage and environmental graphics, and print collateral.
•    Signage and environmental brand guidelines — guidance for applying the visual identity system to physical campus environments, wayfinding, and event spaces.
3. Creative validation and testing
•    Proposing a creative testing methodology — describing the specific tools, formats, and audience recruitment approaches the firm uses to validate creative concepts prior to production. 
•    This may include qualitative concept testing, quantitative message testing, digital a/b testing, or other approaches.
•    Integrating validation into the project timeline — testing should be sequenced thoughtfully, not treated as a gate that stalls production. 
•    Testing and iteration are built into their creative development process rather than appended after the fact.
•    Audience recruitment for testing — describing how the firm will recruit representative samples from university target audiences (prospective undergraduate students, prospective graduate students, current students, and influencers such as parents and school counselors) for testing sessions.
•    Reporting and synthesis — translating testing results into clear, actionable recommendations for creative refinement. 
•    University expects the firm to distinguish between findings that should inform revision and creative instincts that should be defended.
4. Extended capability disclosure
A. Audience research and insight capacity
•    University is interested in deepening its understanding of its target audiences over time — including prospective undergraduate and graduate students, parents, alumni, employers, and regional stakeholders. 
•    Capacity to conduct ongoing audience research, segmentation analysis, journey mapping, or other forms of insight work that could inform future creative and communications strategy.
•    Audience insight work would be structured and priced (e.g., as an annual retainer, recurring pulse surveys, episodic research engagements), and provide examples of how similar work has informed ongoing creative programs for other clients.
B. Media planning and buying capacity
•    Firm’s in-house media planning and buying capabilities, including channel specializations (digital, programmatic, traditional, ooh, streaming and connected TV, audio).
•    Higher-education media strategy and the types of institutions you have served in a media capacity. 
•    Provide examples of enrollment or brand campaigns where you managed media and describe outcomes.
•    Indicate whether media services would be offered as a retainer, project-based, or percentage-of-spend model, and provide indicative fee structures.