The Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) at the University of Cambridge offers an opportunity to widen access to the university through its programme of online learning and short courses in a broad range of disciplines.
The brief
ICE has strong ambitions to widen its appeal and reach beyond its traditional student profile, but realised that a lack of understanding of its current position in the market meant that the Institute did not have the data it needed to measure progress.
Insightful Research was commissioned to run a benchmarking survey which would help to provide data about current levels of brand awareness and brand perceptions amongst the Institute’s core audience and those learners it hopes to target in future.
Our approach
One of the strengths of Insightful Research is our ability to put together agile teams of researchers with the best skills and credentials for any particular project. For this work, we combined our education knowledge and expertise with the quantitative brand tracking experience of Cake Consulting. Working together we were able to provide the solution that ICE was looking for.
We ran a quantitative survey targeted across the UK and the USA, targeting existing ICE students and alumni, and a wider panel of prospective students with an interest in further learning. We tested brand awareness and brand perceptions of the Institute.
The end result
At the end of the project we were able to provide clear insights to the Institute about their awareness in the market, how they were perceived, and how they measured up against their competitors. Further analysis showed differences between certain demographics. Our report also gave the Institute an insight into which of their core values resonated strongly with their target audience, and where they still have work to do on improving perceptions and changing the narrative.
What they said
“Insightful Research provided very thorough research and analysis. It is very helpful not only to have a benchmark of where we are in terms of brand awareness and perception, but also in terms of our portfolio development. This was a very useful piece of research.”
University of Cambridge, Institute of Continuing Education
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