There are so many good things to say about ARU’s undergraduate courses. But how could they do it in an original way that wouldn’t get lost in the noise? They asked us to collaborate with them on a series of 15 impactful course films that would increase awareness and grow conversions.

Brief

To engage and connect with future students, ARU set out to capture the authentic voices of their students talking about their courses in their own words. They wanted us to showcase the facilities, ARU’s learning experience and what it’s really like to study there. This would involve filming over 50 students across 4 campuses and a variety of facilities and locations in just 13 days.

Solution

Creatively we wanted to produce a suite of course films with a difference. As we were flipping the narrative and putting students in the hot seat rather than having ARU talking about their courses, we positioned the videos as real student guides to the courses. The focus was on storytelling not selling. We asked the students to talk about their courses and highlight what they enjoyed the most and why other students should join them. We achieved high production values throughout and added b-roll footage of the students to show the facilities and welcoming community at ARU.

Style-wise we added vibrancy and ensured consistency with the video thumbnails by using ARU’s bright brand colours and showing images of the students who starred in the videos. To give the series added personality, we also introduced a bright yellow branded chair for all the students to sit in. We worked together with ARU’s marketing team to plan and run the shoots and create a vibrant series of films that help students choose the right course for them.

Results

We gave future students a genuine insight into why they should choose ARU’s courses through honest and engaging interviews with current students who talked passionately about their student experience. Together the videos have attracted over 3,200 views on YouTube so far and we were delighted to be asked back to create one more video to promote their Education course.

“From the planning and creative vision, to execution and delivery, Waterfall delivered at every stage of this ambitious project. They helped us to understand the scale of the challenge (15 videos for very different courses, over 3 campuses, over a tight timeline with a large stakeholder group) and what would be required to deliver on time and to budget. Communication and project management from Marieke and the team was exceptional, providing a clarity of focus and drive to keep the project on track.
We produced a bank of content at scale and speed with hero videos, social cutdowns and footage reels to create future content as well as playbook to keep us on brand. We also learnt a lot as a team to shape how we can deliver future projects.

The videos have delivered excellent results across multiple channels clocking up nearly 250k views on YouTube with an exceptional average watch rate of 68%. We hope to be working with the Waterfall team soon.”

Sarah Jones, Senior Faculty Marketing Manager, ARU