University of East Anglia

Thinking without borders

The University of East Anglia (UEA) challenged us to create a super-narrative that would sit above all of their marketing to consistently tell the world how they collaborate with colleagues, students, alumni and partners from a diverse range of fields to tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time.

Brief

Like many universities, UEA make a real difference to people’s lives locally and nationally and impact on the world around them in such important areas as climate, health, resources, equality and culture.

We worked closely with the team to create the ‘Thinking Without Borders’ super-narrative that tells their story and shows how people from across their learning and research community are working collaboratively and across disciplines to change the world for the better. 

Solution

We created a distinct name, logo and brand identity to connect with everyone. At the heart of UEA’s storytelling from prospectuses to social, we’ve brought Thinking Without Borders (TWB) to life through a variety of media.

We’ve created a series of 60-second videos that focus on collaborative stories relating to such fundamentals as Water, Words, Guts, Data and Carbon. Instead of focusing on traditional linear research areas, such as science and engineering, we show how their diverse learning and research community is taking on global challenges from different perspectives and making an impact on the world.

Each of these videos has five hero stories that are featured on their website. These cover everything from climate change and future foods to poo transplants and human rights law.

TWB features in the prospectus, and to keep it front of mind and inspire more new thinking and collaborations, we’ve created artwork on a large scale for their new Science Building. Eight of the building’s walls have stunning designs that each have NFC tags embedded into the full stops, so people can discover more about their science research and breakthroughs.

We’ve also produced pull-up banners using the TWB brand that are touring the globe to attract international students who share the University’s purpose of making the world a better place.

We also keep the momentum going by creating a wide range of engaging social media content for the University’s main channels that tell lots of different stories. This included a 12-month #ClimateOfChange campaign to promote UEA’s climate research.

Awards

2019 HEIST Gold Award – Best Marketing Initiative to Promote Research Excellence

2020 HEIST Bronze Award – Best Brand/Reputation Campaign

Judges’ comments

“Thoroughly researched and well-considered, the University of East Anglia’s ‘Thinking without Borders’ campaign is intellectually creative and brings to life complex research ideas in a truly innovative way.”