Study in Holland: distinctive in attracting international students
In the last few years, the international higher education environment has changed rapidly. Nuffic has put a lot of effort into increasing the brand awareness of Dutch higher education amongst international students. From 2012 these promotional activities will be centred around three new unique selling points (USPs): Pioneering, Creative, Connected.
Nuffic launched the Study in Holland brand in 2008. The brand identity was based on the large number of English-taught study programmes that Holland has to offer, excellent education and research, and an international study environment. However, more and more countries try to attract international students with high quality English-taught programmes. Therefore, we had to renew the current USPs to remain distinctive compared to our competing countries.
Unique Selling Points
We developed the new USPs, Pioneering, Creative, Connected, to continue to tell international students what makes Dutch higher education relevant and distinctive. But what do these three words mean?
Pioneering, Creative, Connected represent characteristics of Holland and its people in general and Dutch higher education in particular. We can think of examples from past and present: Holland as a discovering nation, the problem-solving attitude of the Dutch, space for creativity and student initiatives in the classroom, internationally-famous Dutch design…
Promotional activities
The new USPs represent Study in Holland as it is today and form the basis of upcoming promotional activities for Study in Holland through the website, online advertising, social media and so on.
We are also active on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, to enhance the awareness among students of the possibility to study in Holland. Online contests that actively use the different social media channels will be organised in 2012 to involve students in the branding activities.
Dutch higher education institutions are also invited to cooperate. We welcome practical examples of situations that link directly to one or more of the USPs. Please send them to studyinholland[at]nuffic.nl. Your example material might be used to improve our promotional activities for Study in Holland.
2012 means a fresh start for Study in Holland. We will be glad to share this start with you because, just as we tell the students: be a pioneer, be creative and get connected!