How to turn a mouse into an elephant.

How good education marketing transformed a neglected degree programme.

In order to facilitate its entry into the Russell Group back in 2012, the University of Exeter needed its very own Medical School. It was just one of several factors that precipitated the end of the Peninsula School of Medicine & Dentistry, a joint venture with Plymouth. The trouble was that Exeter ended up being allowed to admit only 125 BMBS students annually by the GMC. And 95% of the JV’s researchers had been - and remained -  on the Exeter payroll. Result? A considerable financial hole, which somehow needed filling. 

There was only one other tuition fee income earner in the School at the time, a degree cryptically called BClinSci - which back then attracted just 35 students annually. And had previously been positioned as a programme for people who had failed to get into a BMBS programme.

This was clearly a serious education marketing challenge - and I got involved as the then head of marketing, attending a meeting with all the academics involved in delivering the programme. We sat around in a circle, with no table but with open minds. One education consultant in marketing who’d failed all his science O-levels and a dozen of the brightest and best medical scientists in the country.

The great thing was that we all knew the programme was high quality, we knew that the students loved it, and the academics loved teaching it. There was nothing wrong with the core programme. The problem lay largely in its presentation. Two hours later, we had achieved consensus on three major changes.  Marketing university courses is largely a matter of common sense, and there was no shortage of that around the un-table.

First, and most important in the short term, was a change of name. We decided to change the name to a degree title that was simple and understandable: BSc Medical Science. Students are conservative and want a simple self-explanatory degree title. Ronseal test passed. Education marketing ABC.

Second, we decided to recommend to the then Dean that it should not be presented as a course for BMBS-manqués. Why would students choose a course presented as a second best? Our students loved the programme, and really didn’t consider themselves as having lost out in the race to become doctors.

And third, we decided to expand the programme’s appeal by adding five specialist pathways. Including health research, genomics and neuroscience. I used the example of Heinz line extending its soup range way beyond tomato - but was never quite sure that this analogy helped. Higher education is remarkably insular and doesn’t easily see the relevance of examples of best practice from the private sector.

The net effect of these changes has been that whereas in the past, the programme occupied but a quarter page in the undergraduate prospectus, it now occupies a whole double page spread. Previously, the programme looked like an after-thought. Now it looks like the core of a medical sciences powerhouse.

Whereas in 2012, it enrolled 35 students, now it enrols more than 200. Exeter’s BSc Medical Science is now one of the most successful programmes in the sector in the UK. It is also one of the best examples of professionalism in marketing university courses.

I imagine the Medical School is still making a loss - they all do. But nowhere near as big a loss if we hadn’t spent that afternoon together - working out how to turn a mouse into an elephant. 

Academia and Marketing working hand in hand. It’s just beautiful when it works. And now, working as a specialist education consultant, it works with a wonderfully eclectic range of different universities.