A school in NSW had some places to fill, so we spun up a quick digital ad campaign in partnership with Novaflow Digital. The constraints were real. It was late in the year for an enrolment campaign, we had about seven working days to get started, and the school had little spare capacity on site.
The one thing I was sure of from the start was that the creative had to be good. Generic ad creative would have been the easy path, and with the timeline this tight it was tempting, but I made the call with the agency that this was the place to hold the line. The question was how to make something good, fast, when we couldn’t get on site for a full photo or video shoot. The best answer is usually the simplest one: get people talking. You can’t argue with someone’s experience.
I wrote the school’s marketing manager a set of ready-made questions to put to parents, staff, and students, all tied to the year levels the campaign was targeting. The questions were built with care. They asked about what a family is trying to do when they choose a school, the worries and the practical questions that come with that kind of move, and they left room for people to talk about what they love about the place.
We filmed the videos vertical, on a phone, on purpose. Rather than fight that and try to dress it up, we leant into how real it felt, did a light edit to add captions and cut it together cleanly, and ran it as the campaign creative.
It worked, too. For a tough time of year to run a campaign, enrolments for the following year picked up, enough that the school wound back its more aggressive marketing.
The part worth keeping is the principle underneath it: when the budget and the time are short, the realness is what wins. You don’t need high production value to move people. Real people talking about their own experience of a school is hard to beat, and it’s the kind of thing any school can put together. If you’re ever in a bind, that’s the go: keep it simple, and get people talking.
A set of testimonial videos, filmed vertical on a phone by the school, shot and edited inside the timeline.
Ad creative that sounded like the school's real community, not a template.
Enrolments for the following year picked up, enough that the school wound back its direct enrolment marketing.
MCCC asked for recruitment videos. We slowed it down, built an EVP around three real situations (relocators, new grads, locals), then followed three teachers through their day, Office-style, for four films and a photo suite that tell the truth about working there.
CEN had a long list of marketing goals and little capacity to deliver them, so we built a roadmap sequenced around impact, not size, starting with the levers that unblock everything else.
