2019 Bronze Best Use of Social Media
04 Dec 2019
Agency: RAPP
Client: The Open University
Campaign Name: The Open Diaries
Campaign Overview
In times of industrial change and economic uncertainty, higher education can be a life-changing experience.
The Open University (OU) identified a prospect audience who would benefit from its offering but believed universities to be inaccessible.
Time to change that view.
Strategy
Prospects had high awareness but low consideration of higher education; they were alienated by and felt shut out of education.
The answer was to leverage social proof: stop focussing on the brand and amplify voices of the people proving the OU’s claims through lived experience.
Full-length hero films were published on Facebook, Instagram and episodically on an SEO-focussed campaign landing page on the OU website.
Additional snackable social pieces emphasised different characters and features of their OU experience.
A bespoke retargeting model was also created to serve different versions based previous views.
Creativity
The Open Diaries were born: ten real stories told over five short documentaries on Facebook and Instagram, each tackling a different barrier to entry.
Featuring real students, a blend of professional and phone footage, the films showed what studying with the OU was really like and how lives have been transformed.
The cast's stories captured the challenges and triumphs of studying with the OU, using a video diary to authentically document daily experiences.
After filming, the detail behind the students' stories was analysed to determine every motivation and obstacle.
It was then reflected in the final cuts.
Results
Campaign course enquiries went up 300% year on year.
A third of these converted into paying students, ready to commit serious time, money and effort to an OU course after watching the films.
That's 500 paying students, resulting in £925,000 revenue from the first round of acquisition.
Projected revenue over the full length of these students' tenure equals £9,000,000 for the OU.
At a campaign cost of £167K that's a healthy ROI of 54:1
The Team
Tom Kennedy, Senior Art Director, RAPP - Stephanie Hottlet, Head of Production, RAPP - Suni Khan, Account Director, RAPP - Simon Berry, Account Director, RAPP - Jess Geary, Senior Channel Strategist, RAPP - Joe Hoppard, Head of Content Strategy, RAPP - Mark Henderson, Director - Al Mackie, Chief Creative Officer, RAPP - Sam Mcdonald, Marketing Manager, The Open University
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