Axon Publishing | Customer Publishing Agency, London UK

Thexperience was created in order to address potential students for the University of Luton.

The University perceived that most of the material targeting schools and sixth form colleges is created in the language and style of academia. With their own prospectus continuing to focus primarily on the University’s academic offering, they wanted a vehicle to promote those aspects of life in Luton that would appeal to a youth audience.

In order to promote Luton as a choice for 17-year-olds considering further education, Axon proposed to address them in the language and style of the publications they choose to read for themselves – music, fashion, skate and other urban magazines.

The magazine was commissioned for the University of Luton by marketing consultant Sandra Malone, whose significant brand experience spans the global market place, in particular the IT sector. Sandra said, “The public sector, and the education sector in particular, now faces the dilemma of servicing an exceptionally discerning customer base – students – who have been brought up understanding customer service and choice. This forces the sector to be far more competitive in order to attract and compel students to choose their University.”

At Axon, young designers and journalists worked with a more experienced in-house team in order to combine the language and style of the youth market with the required marketing objectives. Original photography was used to capture genuine students at work and play, in a gritty, contemporary style. To promote Luton itself as a location, its urban qualities were emphasised rather than ignored, and its airport was promoted as an opportunity for cheap European weekending. Academic aspects were not forgotten; the University’s lecturers, and students past and present, were all interviewed from the perspective of 17-year-old prospective students. Finally, content such as ‘A Day in the Life of a Drinks Machine’ took a deliberately flip approach to the student lifestyle.

Advertising space within the magazine is also sold by Axon. The revenue from this helps to subsidise the costs of publication, but its primary role is to create a magazine “environment”, so that the magazine is not regarded as a brochure. The advertising is very carefully selected to be appropriate to the desired audience and to echo the positive messages being conveyed in the editorial.

In the Times Higher Education Supplement, designer and commentator Wayne Hemingway based an article around the magazine. “Just as important as a degree and knowledge, university is about a life experience,” he wrote, “and this is where Luton University’s new magazine thexperience (notice the trendy, unacademic lower case title) hits the spot.”

Hemingway praised thexperience for addressing its audience “in a visual language and photographic style that wouldn’t look amiss in youth-culture style mags Dazed and Confused or Sleaze“.

He concluded by offering “Congratulations, Luton, on understanding that there is another way to address potential students rather than the formal tones of an academic prospectus, and for looking to a publisher who understands the market.”