University of Silicon Valley Website
University of Silicon Valley Website
USV Online Advertising Campaign
USV Logo Design
The University of Silicon Valley (USV), a gaming school in the heart of Silicon Valley, rolled up to Celsius Marketing looking for an assist. Their brand? Bland. Website? Wonky. Lead generation? Lousy. USV (formerly Cogswell Polytechnical College) desperately needed a makeover. So, we got to work, cooking up some seriously banging campaigns to give them a boost. From crafting a hot new logo to dialing in an awesome brand voice, we rebuilt their brand from the ground up. And let’s not forget about that legendary website and those killer videos we whipped up. Now, USV is soaring higher than ever before!
Eric Rajasalu, Vice President of Enrollment Management & Strategic Development, partnered with Celsius Marketing & Interactive to address a series of enrollment and brand challenges facing the University of Silicon Valley.
Despite offering highly specialized programs in animation, game design, digital arts, and electronic music production, USV was struggling with brand identity, inefficient media spending, and audience targeting. Paid search and social campaigns were underperforming, prospective students were not connecting with the university’s unique value proposition, and marketing efforts lacked a cohesive content strategy aligned to different student personas and stages of the admissions journey.
USV needed a partner that could modernize its brand, improve marketing efficiency, and create stronger connections with the next generation of creative and technology-focused students.
Key objectives included:
Celsius began with a comprehensive audit of USV’s brand positioning, media strategy, enrollment funnel, and audience engagement efforts.
The research revealed significant opportunities to improve campaign performance through more effective audience segmentation, stronger creative differentiation, and a more strategic approach to student communications. Existing messaging was not fully reflecting the bold, innovative spirit of the industries USV serves, nor was it resonating with prospective students exploring careers in creative technology.
To address these challenges, Celsius developed a data-driven enrollment marketing strategy built around audience personas, brand differentiation, and funnel optimization.
The strategy focused on:
At the center of the strategy was a bold repositioning of USV as a destination where creativity, technology, and innovation intersect.
A tech-forward school teaching students to work in some of the world’s most exciting industries deserves equally exciting advertising. With sweet new ad graphics and brochures, wildly colorful interactive landing pages and targeted emails, an overhauled outreach presentation deck, and a smoking hot new video, we injected every channel with rebranded content to encourage leads to get into the game and start their creative journey at USV.
Celsius completely reimagined the university’s marketing ecosystem, creating a modern enrollment campaign designed to capture attention, build engagement, and drive action.
The university’s visual and verbal identity was refreshed to better reflect the energy, ambition, and creativity of its students and academic programs. Messaging was redesigned to resonate with aspiring creators pursuing careers in animation, game design, digital arts, and music production.
A signature element of the rebrand was the introduction of a dynamic dragon mascot, symbolizing creativity, imagination, determination, and the bold spirit of the USV community.
The result was a fully integrated recruitment strategy that aligned brand, creative, media, and enrollment communications under a single, student-centered vision.
With our experience in school partnerships and artistic flair, revitalizing USV’s brand and fueling its lead generation journey was a natural fit. Celsius Marketing led the way, executing on campaigns, nurturing leads, managing social media, optimizing search engines, and more. We delivered stunning visuals, responsive design, and compelling messaging tailored to attract the next wave of creatives in animation, game design, and electronic music.
The transformation of USV’s brand and enrollment marketing strategy created a stronger connection with prospective students while improving the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment efforts.
Key outcomes included:
The project demonstrated that enrollment marketing is most effective when institutional identity, audience needs, and recruitment communications work together. By combining persona-driven marketing, strategic media planning, and a bold creative rebrand, USV was able to create a more compelling and differentiated presence in the highly competitive creative education marketplace.
Most importantly, the university shifted from simply promoting academic programs to telling a larger story about creative potential, innovation, and the future careers students could build through a USV education.
The result was a brand experience as imaginative and forward-thinking as the students it was designed to attract.
