Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business

Plenty of people walked past Notre Dame’s Chicago campus every day without realizing it was there. Discover how the school went from easy to miss to hard to ignore.

My roles: Creative iterations (digital & print) | Creative concepts

01. The Challenge

Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business has a campus in the heart of Chicago, yet their prime Loop location was a well-kept secret. The reason? They faced a unique challenge: all external signage for the school was prohibited.

02. The Big Idea

How could the school connect with prospective students and drive applications without ever touching the building itself? The answer: turn Chicago into the signage. Visibility wouldn’t come from one ad or one message. The campaign focused on repetition, cohesion, and scale, showing up wherever prospective students already were.

Creative was designed for each audience segment and program across transit, out-of-home, display, and social media.

03. The Execution

A cornerstone of the campaign was a targeted presence across 20+ CTA locations. Physical transit ads were placed near stations, while real-time display and social placements reinforced the message throughout the day.

04. The Creative

Foundational creative from Notre Dame was scaled into hundreds of digital and traditional iterations, maintaining a cohesive brand voice while strengthening trust and perception.

Beyond production, a large body of spec creative was developed. These revisions to the core creative assets aligned more closely with the school’s branding and strategy, and ultimately improved campaign performance.

Social ad — Reinforcing proximity as users were in geofenced locations

Display iterations - Program-specific messaging by audience

05. The Results

Over the course of the campaign, the client saw:

29% increase in Executive MBA enrollments
16% increase in Master of Business Analytics enrollments
68% increase in inquiries for MBA programs