Reeves' email campaign for ScienceDirect College Edition

Over a quarter of the world's full text scientific articles available in one scientific research database: ScienceDirect. The ScienceDirect College Edition provides colleges with affordable access to dedicated subject packages in the physical, social and health sciences. Faculty and students can get access to a vast collection of high-quality journal articles online, complemented by authoritative reference works.

The company had recently reviewed its existing licensing model, which had subsequently led to an expansion of the information available on ScienceDirect College Edition. It was decided that a campaign should be developed to promote this and that would pick up on Elsevier's (a ScienceDirect College edition product known for being expensive,  and therefore not a popular option for librarians with tight budgets) bad image and promote the high-value content to faculty and students as users of the product.

Separating fact from fiction

College education is a pseudo-scientific education. The students learn how scientifically correct work is done, but are not expected to contribute to the body of knowledge of their field. One of the objectives is to teach students how to differentiate between 'real', verified information and sources lacking credibility. The campaign theme, 'Fact or fiction?' picks up on a daily mantra that students hear at school from their teachers and librarians. General statements about the benefits of additional scientific information were used. The creative included a headline and imagery for a typical illustrative style of schoolbooks, in order to refer to the educational objectives of colleges and build a counterweight to the scientific image that ScienceDirect has.