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    Taking St Andrews to the world

    University of St Andrews

    Experience excellence from anywhere

     

    Brief

    How does a university with more than 600 years of history take its modern online offer to the world? For the first time ever, the University of St Andrews asked a creative agency to support them with a marketing campaign. We’re incredibly proud to say – they chose Waterfall!

    As part of an ambitious strategy to grow student numbers they wanted to promote their expanding portfolio of online postgraduate courses to new audiences worldwide. We needed to capture what makes St Andrews distinctive while showing students they didn’t need to leave home to experience it.

     

    Solution

    Naturally the University of St Andrews has an excellent story to tell, founded on an unrivalled heritage of academic excellence and a high-quality learning experience. Our challenge was to capture the essence of studying at St Andrews and highlight the benefits of online study to a global audience through short videos, digital banners and social adverts.

    We brought the heritage and flexibility of their offer together through confident headlines that included:
    • St Andrews to the world
    • Experience excellence from anywhere
    • 600+ years of academic excellence behind every course
    Real student voices added another layer, bringing the flexibility of online learning to life through the experiences of people already doing it.

    Visually, we needed to make this online study feel unmistakably St Andrews. So, we blended people and recognisable University imagery to connect the place behind the education with students wherever they were in the world. A simple graphic inspired by the distinctive St Andrews skyline became a visual thread throughout, supported by a refined blue-and-white palette.

    Together we created a digital and social campaign of statics, GIFs and short videos to take St Andrews to the world.

     

    Results
    • Google campaign (launched summer 2026) – generated over 2 million impressions and achieved a median CTR of 3.06%.
    • Meta campaign (in just one month) – achieved 681,000 impressions, 25,000 unique link clicks and a CTR of 4.66%.
    • Online landing page – significant improvements Y-O-Y with views up 489% from 73,300 to 431,973 and average session times increasing by 80% from 54 to 97 seconds.
    • Lead generation – up 85.3% Y-O-Y from 1,075 to 1,994 leads with more leads expected as the campaign is ongoing.

     

    “It’s been fantastic to work with Waterfall and to have them as the first creative agency we’ve partnered with at St Andrews. A huge thank you to Andrea, Charlotte, Rich, and the wider team for all their creativity, support, and enthusiasm throughout the project. We knew we needed a fresh, distinctive approach to help us stand out in a competitive market, and we’re already delighted with both the new creative and the results we’re seeing. The team were there every step of the way, making the whole process smooth, collaborative, and enjoyable. We love the new look for our online portfolio and can’t wait to see even more positive results as our campaigns continue!”

    Hannah Reid, Digital Marketing Manager, University of St Andrews

     

     

     

    Info
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