Year: 2020
The client for this project was the Ferris State University College of Business Marketing Department. The task was to create a marketing tool that would increase enrollment.
Current State of Enrollment
Enrollment is steadily declining and fewer people are attending college every year.
Let’s Go Marketing is a board game that is designed to be brought to high schools for students to play and learn about marketing and the different programs offered at Ferris State University.
A board game gives students the chance to role play and discover what marketing career would fit them best based on their choices within the game.
Many students are aware of Ferris State University but are unaware of what program would fit them best.
Current promotional strategies are static; brochures, presentations, t-shirts. They do not provide different information depending on the student's interests.
A Ferris Faculty member brings the game to a high school and hosts an event.
Students play the game and learn along the way.
When the game is finished students have a better understanding of where they would fit in best.
Students receive a handout about the program that interests them the most.
The handout encourages students to visit the Let’s Go Marketing website and schedule a campus visit.
Each student picks a game piece. Each game piece represents a different form of marketing.
The game pieces are made out of solid steel which gives players a tactile and memorable experience.
All players start at the beginning and spin the spinner to move along the spaces.
The spinner has been designed to ensure players can finish the game within an hour (the typical length of a high school class). Unlike a standard dice, the spinner is more likely to land on a high number than a low one.
The game has 7 different sections, all representing different marketing programs. Each section has Did You Know? cards that tell facts about that specific program.
When a player passes a You're The Boss space, all the participants are presented with a marketing scenario and given a list of options for solving the problem. The option they choose correlates with a specific program.
Players collect coins that correlate with the option they choose on the You're The Boss card. The goal is to collect a range of coins.
When a player reaches the end of the game they are presented with Job cards. They align their collected coins with the combination required for the Job card.
We did many rounds of testing different game mechanics both internally and externally. We went to high schools and tested it on actual students and recorded the way they interacted with the game.
We had a booth at the Ferris State University DECA event where we created interest with high school teachers.
Even though the physical board game creates a tactile and memorable experience, we would also like to create an online version of the game. This would greatly decrease production costs and make the game accessible from anywhere.
Currently, the Let’s Go brand is only for the marketing programs. But in the future we hope to extend it to other Ferris programs such as Let’s Go Optometry or Let’s Go Engineering.
