Lip Dubs for Private Schools and An Example from Yale

Marketing your school should inspire and ignite your creativity. With so many tools available for your use and creative people all around you, there are many innovative ways that you can market your school.

Take the idea of a “Lip-Dub” for example. A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video.

Just over a year ago, the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was featured in a Lip Dub in response to a Newsweek article identifying the city on the list of “dying cities” in the U.S. Having spent 18 years of my life in this great city, this was not my experience. So, in response to the poor showing, more than 1,000 people participated in this lip dub sung to the familiar song by Don McLean, “American Pie.” Take a look at the video and it will inspire you (and you will be singing along). It will also show you that the city is alive and well.

Pretty cool huh? Especially with nearly 5 Million views!

Well, you will want to take a look at some private schools that are using lip dubs in their marketing effort (I am using “marketing” very loosely here). Madeline Riley from EdSocialMedia showed a video from Assumption High School. The lip dub begins with Mom dropping her daughter off at Assumption High School for a day-long shadow experience. This “Day in the Life of an Assumption Shadow” inspires the viewer to consider the fun and excitement that can be experienced at the school. Over 41,000 people have viewed this video on YouTube.

One of my school clients, Calvin Christian School in South Holland, IL, produced their own lip dub this past Spring to show at their 100th anniversary celebration. While this project took nearly an entire day to produce for this school with an enrollment of 200 students, it provided an opportunity for the students, faculty and staff to work together on a creative project that could be shared with others. And it worked! Take a look at their video: “We must run!”

Recently, I was meeting with the Lane Rice, the admissions director Covenant Classical School in Fort Worth, TX. We were talking about the use of videos in their marketing effort and she asked me if I had seen the Yale video. I actually had seen it and she reminded me that I wanted to share it here. When you see this video, you may not expect this approach from an Ivy League College! They describe the video as “An Introduction to Undergraduate Life at Yale College. The project was an independent collaboration between Yale undergraduates and recent alumni working in the admissions office. All filming, editing, and vocal recording was done on Yale’s campus exclusively by Yale students.” Nearly 1.2 Million people have viewed this very creative and often funny video answering the question, “That’s why I chose Yale.” And if you are looking for some more fun, check out the parody video put out by students at their rival Harvard!

If you want to explore the concept of a lip dub and see some other examples, just go to YouTube and type in “school lip dubs” or “Christian school lip dubs” and you will find a bunch of examples.

Consider the benefits of doing a video like this at your school:

• Everyone will want to get involved.
• Everyone will be excited about the result.
• Everyone will want to share the video.
• Many people will see your school video online.

It sounds like a perfect marketing initiative to me and much better than any print ad you could buy!

So do these videos inspire your marketing creativity?

Have you done a lip dub at your school? If you have, please share your link here.

Have you seen any other creative school videos that you want to share here?