Our Work

Maximising new course success

Plymouth College of Art

Plymouth College of Art wanted to test a new range of courses and better understand how applicants make their choices. We ran a large 3-day community and quantitative survey with prospective students and parents. The results (delivered in a report and onsite workshop) also provided an evaluation of the College's best performing course titles and insight into the role of parents in decision-making. 

The research gave the client a practical toolkit and set of tests that measure the launch success of the new courses - a toolkit that could be applied to all future course launches and portfolio changes. Our client told us: "This is one of the most useful, impactful and widely used pieces of research we've commissioned."

Reshaping the recruitment strategy to boost enrolment rates

New College of the Humanities

YouthSight worked with the New College of the Humanities (NCH) to unpick why prospects were not converting. We conducted research, supplemented with insight from our Marcomms Success tracking product, to identify how NCH could achieve greater cut-through with applicants by providing the information they needed, at the right time and through the right channels - packaged in a personalised way. 

Beyond this, the research also identified an opportunity for the University to improve awareness around graduate employability - a key driver in applicants' decision-making. The project gave NCH actionable insights, delivered through a comprehensive retention plan that improved NCH’s accepted to enrolled rate from 63% to 98%.

Our client told us: “YouthSight always gives us fascinating insight to help us evolve and refine what we’re doing. This project was one example of how incredibly useful their research is, which went beyond it’s original purpose." 

Filling the Gen Z knowledge gap

The Guardian

The Guardian wanted to better understand Gen Z - a demographic that their readers want to know more about. To help bridge this knowledge-gap, we ran an online survey and focus group with 16-24s about their day-to-day lives, their hopes for the future and the issues that are holding them back. We looked at six key areas: university, politics and outlook, career, money, media consumption, fashion/brands, identity, and their lives in general.

We illustrated the findings with a detailed report on how this group differs from their generational predecessors and included 25 myth-busting facts about them. This helped the client become experts on Gen Z and gave them knowledge that would help better support their clients.

The client commented: "The project was a huge success, it created many new contacts, helped us to understand the audience we were trying to engage with and the feedback we received informed future projects that we embarked upon."

Improving open day conversion

The University of Manchester

The University of Manchester wanted to know more about what makes a successful and impactful open day, uncovering visitor expectations, competitor performance and understanding how their own events measure up. To get these answers, our client subscribed to the insight tracking product Open Day Success, which provided instant and powerful tracking data along with a tailored workshop that addressed the University's specific challenges. 

The insight from the dashboard gave our client the robust evidence needed to change the way open days were run to better align with prospective student needs; this included more personalised talks and tours on the day with more interaction. The University said: "Open Day Success gave us the data we needed to understand how best to modify, improve and personalise subject talks and departmental tours on the day. We're pleased with the results. Overall, subscribing has been a big benefit to improving our open day impact and conversion."

Getting young people active

Sport England

Sport England wanted to understand why young people's interest in sport and physical activity had diminished and what they could do to change this. We ran a series of projects with our client spanning over several years. First, we identified six personas based on attitudinal segmentation of young people and recruited a panel that represented these different personas.

We then built a set of principles on how Sport England should engage with each group to ignite their passion for sport. We developed an online co-creation project to generate new ways of getting young people active and we identified that there was an opportunity for the client to connect with their audience by offering extra support during the transition from school to college/university.

The research contributed to a culture change at Sport England and sparked the thinking behind their Towards and Active Nation strategy. Sport England said: "YouthSight helped us start a dialogue with different types of young people, including those who are less active. They have been key in enabling us to effectively engage with this audience." 

Busting myths about alumni relations

University of Oxford

In previous research we identified a low level awareness of alumni services at the University of Oxford. The University wanted to work with us again to find out how their alumni were feeling towards the University now and how age, location and life stage played a role in this.  The results revealed that former students had just as much affinity with the whole university as they did with the individual campus they studied on, which presented the opportunity for subject departments to engage more with alumni. 

The results also highlighted that alumni are keen to attend events, but often struggle to travel to the university, which supported the case for getting more academics in the field and making the University more accessible.

The University of Oxford said: "Understanding of alumni's connection to the university is helping us build a more nuanced communications and outreach programme based on people's experience and lifecycle stage."  

Coming soon

Channel 4

Maximising applicant conversion

University of Arts, London

We worked with the University of Arts London (UAL) to uncover the reason behind why applicants withdraw and what will boost conversion. We conducted a quantitative survey with the University's withdrawers and decliners to explore their experience of the application process, what competitors do differently and the barriers to enrolling.  

The results fed into UAL's recruitment strategy and we were invited to run the survey again the following year with the addition of SnapMe videos (bringing unfiltered, honest opinions to the research directly from applicants). This research helped each of UAL's colleges improve the entire applicant experience and identified the opportunity to address the concerns identified in the research around the cost of living in London. In the second wave we saw a 10% point increase in the number of applicants saying they had a positive experience with UAL. 

UAL commented: "We have a really nice, collaborative relationship with YouthSight. We've been impressed with how professional they are, but at the same time, they're very friendly and approachable."

Revolutionizing the student offer

Art Fund

Art Fund wanted to expand the reach of their Student Art Pass to a national scale, making art more accessible to everyone. But they knew that in order to successfully roll this out, it was necessary to base their launch strategy around robust evidence that ensured the programme met the needs and desires of their prospective audience. 

We ran an online survey with students (nat rep) with a 'boost' of art students, exploring their various attitudes and behaviours, from social media use to free time activities, favourite brands to existing visits to cultural institutions. The results revealed that there was an appetite for the programme - with art students, but also among the wider student population.

The research helped inform Art Fund's pricing and promotion models and attracted sponsorship for the roll-out. Art Fund commented: "YouthSight's research was crucial to the development of our nationwide Student Art Pass. We were delighted with their work and are now delighted with the outcome: a fast-growing scheme helping more and more students discover culture, save money and engage with the arts."

Making the right first impression

Queen Mary University of London

Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) subscribed to three of our four tracking products from our HE Success Suite with the aim of improving their activities and communications with prospective students.

The data from the dashboards provided the university's market intelligence team with unrivalled competitor and market intelligence, allowing them to design targeted campaigns that meet the needs of their unique student profile and improve the impact of their open days. 

Our client said: "We knew what the demographic makeup of our students was, but we didn't know what that meant for how they think and behave. YouthSight's analysis has helped to enlighten us about the characteristics of our particular student population."

Getting face-to-face with the audience

Bucks New University

Bucks New University wanted to gain insight into the role that the prospectus plays in applicant decision-making and how it's impact can be maximised. We organised two focus groups with undergraduate students who fed back on a range of competitor prospectuses; discussing which ones stood out, what their expectations were and how Bucks New University measured up.

We also leveraged data from our Marcomms Success dashboard to provide robust, sector-level evidence on how the prospectus compared to other information sources.

The research gave our client tangible recommendations that were implemented in the design of their new prospectus, which subsequently went on to win a HEIST award. Our client commented: "The results have helped us develop our tone of voice and brand guidelines for this audience."

Getting more from celebrity ambassadors

Puma

Puma was looking for ways to raise the profile of two of its celebrity ambassadors, rapper Professor Green and Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero. The sports brand came to us to find out how young people perceived these figures, what role they fulfilled for the brand and how authentic their messaging was coming across. 

We ran an online community and a co-creation workshop, putting young people directly in front of Puma's brand team and PR agency. The research gave Puma the insights they needed to raise their sponsorship value and get more from the programme.

Shaping the offer strategy

University of Bristol

When the University of Bristol decided to review the way it handled offers, the recruitment team first needed to get a better understanding of how the offers themselves influenced perceptions of the university for applicants.

To uncover this, we ran an online community with applicants and explored: how they felt about the offers they received from different universities; perceptions around these competitor universities; and attitudes towards particular communications sent by the universities. The results provided robust and evidence-based insights that enabled our client to shape their recruitment strategy to the needs of their prospective students and maximise success.  

The University of Bristol said: "People who work in universities build their working lives around around evidence and research. To engage and influence them, we need high quality research, presented in a clear and concise way. That's what YouthSight gave us. We're now looking at working with them again, and would recommend them with no hesitation."

Positioning as experts on student life

Sodexo

Sodexo provides food and facilities management services to universities throughout the world and their aim is to establish themselves as global thought leaders in this space. 

We worked with Sodexo to provide the data for their International University Lifestyle Survey. This included the full global survey project in all six countries, from recruitment and sampling to fieldwork, analysis and reporting. This project resulted in a unique piece of global research, revealing fresh, valuable insights into university life globally, and enabling unique international comparisons. The findings generated significant press coverage for Sodexo, and the study continues to help maintain Sodexo's reputation as one of the most authoritative voices on global student life.

Our client commented: "YouthSight are always brilliant to work with: helpful, responsive and efficient. They just get on with it. Global projects can be quite challenging and they really helped to make the project run more smoothly."

Recruiting future leaders for the public sector

Transform Society

Transform Society builds strategic relationships with universities to inspire students, increase their employability skills and build the value proposition. The Transform Society Alliance members collectively are the UK’s largest recruiter, but to get substantial seed funding, investors needed evidence that their programme would be successful. Our research tested the Society's offer with prospective graduates, exploring the salience and appeal of the concept - would the idea resonate with Gen Z? What incentives would motivate applications? And where would the sweet spot between ‘head and heart’ reside?

Our research highlighted the importance of ‘loan forgiveness’ in the new offer.  It also gave a clear steer of product feature preferences. The founder of Transform Society, commented that our insights provided a powerful foundation to the Transform Society offer, adding “I couldn’t have got Transform Society off the ground it if hadn’t been for the insights brought to life by the YouthSight research… their insights have been instrumental to Transform Society’s emerging success, giving strategic clarity and unlocking 2 years of funding."

Influencing the global appeal of accountancy

ACCA

ACCA, a global professional body for accountants, wanted to better understand the appeal of accountancy in three key markets: Malaysia, India and Nigeria. The brand recognised that they needed to better understand the motivations of future accountants and commissioned us to run a series of online communities in the three target markets, charting participants' first interest in accountancy through to their decision to pursue it as a career.

We mapped the decision-making journeys taken by accountant students in the three countries and recommended, by market, how best ACCA can communicate the value proposition of accountancy to each.

The future of tuition fees during political uncertainty

Predicting Tuition Fees

In the run-up to a general election, the future of tuition fees was uncertain with political parties making contrasting promises. One plate glass university wanted some certainty around how prospective students would react if their fees changed after the election. 

We took a sample of sixth-form students and constructed a choice-based conjoint study to analyse how people balance different factors when making decisions. 

The survey gathered reactions to various combinations of course offers and fee levels by asking respondents to make trade-offs between different packages. From these results, we built a simulator which allowed the client to vary hypothetical course offers and fee levels, and to judge how appealing different packages would be to different groups. 

Our simulation of student choices gave the university’s senior leaders the evidence they needed to plan their pricing and recruitment strategies in an uncertain environment.

Bridging the STEM gender gap

Imperial College London

Imperial College London wanted to adapt their recruitment strategy to attract more female applicants to STEM subjects and bridge the gender gap. The College was exploring the idea of developing an online platform tailored to the needs of female applicants and wanted to ensure this would have a real impact on attraction and conversion.

We recruited a sample of female applicants who were intending on studying a STEM subject, and provided the College with a clear picture of who this audience is; what their attitudes are; what their motivations are; their feelings towards studying STEM at university; and what barriers they may encounter. We also tested the effectiveness of the College's existing comms, and got in-depth feedback about their appetite for a dedicated online platform.  

Our research gave Imperial the evidence and validation they needed to develop the platform with relevant and authentic content, aligned to their audiences' needs. The College said: "We structured our new website around the findings of the report and developed specific sections to align with what was unearthed in the research."

Evaluating brand resonance

University of Southampton

The University of Southampton wanted to identify the emotional drivers of prospective undergraduates (beyond the rational factors such as reputation, course and employability). We recommended a multi-stage approach, starting with an online community of target (high-achieving) prospective undergraduates from the UK and international markets. Participants completed a variety of tasks, ranging from personification exercises to video uploads, which revealed their key emotional drivers in university choice and challenged preconceptions of the needs of high-achieving undergraduates. The next stage of the research tested different approaches for the new campaign. We conducted creative workshops to evaluate each concept and determine the benefits, drawbacks and the overall potential of each territory. We then segmented the undergraduate market in order for the university to deliver highly targeted comms with the most relevant messages, delivered at the right time. 

This led to the development of a new marketing campaign which had real emotional resonance, reflected in an increase in the numbers of high quality applications. Our client said: "YouthSight was our chosen market research agency throughout the entire project and were instrumental to the success of the campaign. They became an extension of our team and without them we wouldn't have been able to develop the campaign."