The association representing New Jersey’s state colleges and universities retained CN Communications to develop a strategy and communications playbook to bring the schools together with one voice. The goal? To educate and motivate faculty, students, and alumni of the nine schools to lobby state leaders in Trenton for greater support of public higher education in New Jersey. The work spearheaded by CN in concert with the CN Foundry creative team entailed developing strategies, messaging, and a range of visual identity and advocacy material. These included staging for public events, online ads, and interactive screens that graphically showed that NJ was fighting a serious brain drain as graduating high school seniors regularly chose to leave the state to go to college—in large part because of limited space at local public colleges and universities. The campaign was just one of several tactics over the past several years that finally culminated in a $750 million investment by the state to improve and expand facilities at New Jersey’s public campuses.
