How a Caribbean university became a nationwide favourite for aspiring medical students seeking a global education
India boasts some excellent medical schools, but extreme competition and high costs of education mean that most aspirants cannot get into the college of their choice. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Indian students move abroad to study medicine every year. Countries like Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and China are popular choices for their relatively low costs and the global exposure involved. With a little help from SSPR, our client – a renowned university in Grenada, in the Caribbean – successfully put itself on the map as the new place to be for Indian medical aspirants.
Our client is a medical school in the Caribbean Islands with students and faculty from over 150 countries. As one of the largest providers of doctors into first-year US residencies, it offers the ideal opportunity for ambitious students looking to practise in the West while benefiting from global education.
For the new academic year, they were looking to target more Indian students, highlighting their state of the art infrastructure, unique programs, study-abroad opportunities in places like Canada and the UK as well as the non-requirement of NEET scores. Prior to March 2021, however, their online visibility was on the low side, which meant media outlets were less likely to feature them compared to other players. They also had to break through the established preference for European medical schools and position themselves as a prime destination, especially for those with the US as their goal.
We employed a blend of tactical activities and media strategies to establish our client as a leader in international medical education. Thought leadership material was created and then converted into press notes for placement in multiple tier-1 publications. The message at the heart of each piece of content was ‘Importance of International Medical Education’, to attract students and the families of students who dreamed of studying medicine abroad. Paid media and testimonials from current students were judiciously leveraged to get mainline mentions. Regular background pieces about the university were passed on to the media so they could be featured in industry stories about medical education.
Since the campaign started, our client has enjoyed regular press coverage in The Hindu. Industry stories have mentioned the university multiple times, indicating excellent recall for the brand. Thanks to the strategic placement of thought leadership attributed to the university spokesperson, the university has been positioned as an authority on international education and its benefits. In addition, the university has received multiple media mentions in top publications prior to its August new student intake.
