The Campaign

There are very minimal restrictions in Australian broadcasting for both traditional and digital media. However, the real challenge lies in targeting Australian teenagers. They're largely detached from traditional media, spend a lot of time online and have a razor-sharp sense for what's relevant to them.

Results

On the 15th of December, 50 000 Australian high school students wait. They wait for a single number. It’s a number that decides which University they go to. It can make their dreams come true, or crush them. It’s called the ATAR score. From the moment students get their score, they have only seven days to change their preference of University. During those seven days, every University aggressively targets students to increase enrolments. But Deakin University wanted to be different, they didn’t want to make an ad, they wanted to start a conversation. So they made a video worth talking about; They asked 30 students to film their reaction to their ATAR score. To capture the content we sent GoPro's to 30 students with instructions to film themselves 10 mins before their results came out at 7am. Then, capture their reaction and the reaction of their parents. Immediately afterwards, we picked up the Go Pros, downloaded all the footage and overnight edited together a powerful montage of their reactions with a simple message to all final year students facilitated by Deakin University. “Congratulations Class of 2014. You Made it.” The video was posted the next morning to popular pop culture website pedestrian.tv, where all kids their age go to get their content. The article was simply titled: Watch year 12 student react to their ATAR score. The video caught on immediately, and by the end of change of preference week it had reached the number 1 trending video in Australia.

To draw our audience in, we utilised the audience's own voice. By casting people from their own community we were able to attract attention. We also didn't fake the content, so there wasn't a foothold for cynicism. This was seen through our audience's interaction with the content which was entirely positive. We also seeded the content organically as an article on one the most popular content sites for the target market: pedestrian.tv.

The piece instantly connected. Within the week it went live, it was the number one trending video in Australia. During the seven day window to change University preferences, the video was seen over 400,000 times. And the comments on the video, from students past and present formed the moral of Deakin’s story: Finishing school is just the beginning. It was a lasting message of optimism from our audience, by Deakin. Thanks to our 30 amateur film makers, Deakin more than doubled its 2013 student contact, propelling it into the top three Universities preferred by students.

We had a small window to talk to our young, discerning audience honestly and empathetically in order to establish a relationship. To do this in such a short space of time, we worked with our audience to create an online video that captured the experience of finishing high school. key branded content elements - Deakin