Catalyst was asked to create a Cyber Monday campaign and collateral for Campus Advantage, a student housing owner and operator based in Austin, Texas. The campaign was used to market student housing properties to students (18- to 24-year-olds) in over 30 markets around the United States. The campaign needed to be inclusive of all properties within the portfolio while being universal enough to be cost effective for each property to buy-­in without having to change each piece of collateral.

Catalyst completed a Cyber Monday campaign for Campus Advantage in 2014 that was very successful, and the client wanted this year’s campaign to surpass that of last year. The expectation was to be 100 leases ahead of where the portfolio was the previous year, a goal that was surpassed during the campaign.

Catalyst filmed a video around a “sit back and relax” theme. With holidays and finals right around the corner, students’ lives were already hectic enough without a big sale going on at their apartment complex. To accomplish this, we removed the hectic schedule and instead promoted a day of taking it easy and saving big when you live at a Campus Advantage community. In order to incorporate all of the individual communities participating, throughout the video, different swag items or imagery from each property were used in subtle ways and allowed properties to promote the video with a “have you found our logo” type of game.

In addition to the video, Catalyst created social media graphics, emails and associated landing pages, posters, and flyers to allow each property to tease Cyber Monday specials leading up to November 30 (Cyber Monday). Over 172,000 emails were sent to 37,305 unique recipients with an average open rate 53.33% and a click-through rate of 17.1%. A total of 780 leases were signed over the course of the campaign, leading to an average cost per lease of $44.87 for the portfolio. This left the portfolio 40% ahead in renewed leases from the previous year, and 76% ahead in new leases and significantly surpassed the goal of being 100 leases ahead.