Rising above all

An arbitrary belief travels around - "Private Universities are disarticulated with the culture of Bangladesh". Over the years, this belief has been exaggerated and rocketed at a lightning speed whenever a social disturbance took place. Following a terrible national crisis in July 2016, North South University, started facing a crisis which was severely affecting the reputation of private universities.

After the Holey Artisan incident, NSU was directly accused by many in the media of ignoring an apparent growth of terror on campus. North South University, however, emerged from its low to an even higher ground. The biggest asset of NSU was its own true story, its journey of more than a couple of decades, which stood as a testament of its attachment to the cultural spirit of Bangladesh, blended with pure love for the country. NSU needed to tell this true story and uphold its authentic identity, but the question was- how?

A group of Alumni under the banner NAASBE (NSU Alumni Association of School of Business & Economics) came forward to stand by their alma mater – which included industry experts from different fields, including Marketing & PR. NSU started progressing through facing everything that came at them, with patience and passion. They apprehended a hard way of proving their capability and recognitions through staging a 360 degree campaign.

The gurus behind the campaign made the best use of social media and at the same time, flourishingly managed to keep the message and information dissemination through television channels, radios and newspapers.

The idea of this month-long campaign was simple- engaging with the users. The process was integrated with delicate strategy that had to be well carried out. The first activity was the Human Map of Bangladesh. Tributes were paid by over 5000 gatherers out of which 1000 students created the Human Map themselves. The gallery, adorned with green and red - took pride of their nation, Bangladesh - "NSU er buk e Bangladesh."

On the digital platform, the team optimised strategic and creative posts to cater to the youth with special Audio/Video content. The visual content explained the philosophy behind that event, including the hashtag "#NSUForBangladesh". The media content covered the publicised topics related to the human map that NSU formed along with talk shows on television and radio Stations.

With the support of 7 television channels and 6 newspapers- North South University had a user engagement of about 1 million. The talk shows over televisions composed of prominent opinion leaders around the country. The show details and video clips were posted on a regular basis on social media which earned NSU a viewed rate of 3,13,000.  Their organic engagement furthermore introduced profile picture filters that were uploaded by over 700 users in the span of 30 days and over 11,000 users availed the hashtag. North South University, moreover, put the limelight over holding the possession of 15,000 graduated alumni, 2,200 students in 16 departments and over 750 staff pool. These were their USPs that earned them higher rate of entrants during the fall admission.

"NSU For Bangladesh" campaign won the award of the "Best PR Campaign" in the "World Marketing Awards" which took place in India in 2017.

NSU still stands in all its pride and glory- setting an everlasting example of not only how to transpire from a catastrophic experience but also how to combine digital marketing and PR to fight adversaries.

This year on July 1, we will be observing two years of one of the most gruesome massacres ever. We remember the innocents and pray that the youth continue to putting the country on the map for all kinds of positive ideas and innovations.