Case Study:

Dartmouth Dining

Dartmouth Dining is a unique operation. While it is a department of Dartmouth College, it is also a profit-driven center with its own goals and initiatives. Considering that its various venues mainly serve as daily gathering spaces for students, Dartmouth Dining aims to foster a sense of community while balancing the business objectives of meal plan sales, event attendance, and employee recruitment and retention.

In 2019, Dartmouth Dining launched the Ivy Unlimited Plan, the most comprehensive meal plan option yet. To sell these meal plans and combat food insecurity on campus, the Dining team needed to drive buy-in from students and their parents. With a small team juggling multiple responsibilities, they didn’t have the time and expertise to manage communication consistently across channels.

They also faced other challenges, like bringing creativity to their website, which follows a restrictive template. Plus, they wanted to increase awareness and attendance for all the fun events they host. Finally, they needed to attract candidates for open positions in their operations.

Hydrate Marketing partnered with Dartmouth Dining to craft a multi-faceted marketing strategy. Our focus was promoting the Ivy Unlimited Plan. To do so, we created videos explaining the plan’s value, emphasizing the community benefits and convenience for students living on and off-campus. We also helped design informational brochures and attended events where we encouraged parents and students to opt into SMS updates.

Secondly, we enhanced Dining’s digital presence, starting with its website. Working within its template constraints and collaborating with IT departments for technical solutions, we added more attractive, engaging, and effective content. We took a similar approach to their social media profiles and posts. These channels have been instrumental in promoting events. 

Another big push has been employment advertising campaigns emphasizing Dining’s unique perks and benefits. Our main tactic is digital ads, including Meta and Google. However, we’ve also assisted with traditional media approaches, such as TV, radio, and bus ads.

Additionally, we continue to assist with new projects as they pop up. For example, we’ve supported multiple successful launches and re-launches of campus cafés. These efforts have included branding, menu design, and promotional campaigns. We even worked together to conceptualize, design, and print Dining with Dartmouth: The Official Cookbook of Dartmouth College! Plus, we've curated content for industry award submissions, such as those given by NACUFS, and these efforts have resulted in multiple wins! 

Since hiring Hydrate Marketing, Dartmouth Dining has increased meal plan buy-in and event attendance through comprehensive communication strategies. For example, we’ve added hundreds of contacts to the SMS list (nearing 3,000 phone numbers total), improving direct engagement with students and parents. Plus, we now reach a seperate audience with similar Dining messages through the Dartmouth app, with almost 50,000 views of the ever-changing content in one year alone. Also, combined, the employment Meta ads have reached more than 2,000,000 people, generating over 3,000 lead form submissions and 150,000 visits to online application pages. Overall, we’ve streamlined communication processes, allowing Dartmouth Dining to deliver consistent messages across multiple channels to their audiences. Together, we continue to work toward creating meaningful experiences and opportunities for students, employees, and the Dartmouth community.