Press releases - Underwired news, wins and launches
City Lit hires Underwired
29th July, 2008
Underwired has been awarded the development of City Lit's new website following a four-way pitch. Europe's largest adult education college, City Lit was established 88 years ago and caters to over 23,000 students.
Underwired will start by planning and designing a new website aimed at potential new students. The new site will provide information on over 3,000 courses using a content management system (CMS) that will be implemented by the agency.
City Lit's head of marketing, Liora Ives, said, "We chose Underwired because they demonstrated, from the outset, a real understanding of our business needs, and also had the best vision of our opportunities and requirements in the future. We were excited by their strong creative work, married with a focus on sales, and we are looking forward to seeing the difference this makes to City Lit's on-line presence."
Emma Nicol, head of client services at Underwired, comments, "City Lit is a huge institution, and creating a website that reflects the brilliant culture and atmosphere at City Lit is a lovely challenge, albeit one with a serious commercial edge. Ease of use and accessibility are also going to be critical here, which suits us down to the ground both in terms of our experience and our development standards."
City Lit's audiences range from busy, web-savvy Londoners taking a course after work, and retired people exploring a favourite subject in the daytime, to those who may traditionally be excluded from learning. This presents an additional set of challenges, says Nicol. "Attracting students across a vast range of courses – which include languages, visual and performing arts, counselling and complementary health, as well as courses for deaf adults, those with a stammer and learning difficulties – means keeping information relevant and up to date, as well as marketing courses that remain to be filled."
Underwired's other academic clients include Thomson Corporation's Biz/Ed, NESTA (The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) and the Institute of Cancer Research, a client since 1999. The agency also provides websites, online campaigns and eCRM for Peugeot, Philips, McCain Foods, Nickelodeon and News International.