University of East Anglia

We were tasked with a multichannel student recruitment campaign to convert undergraduate prospects. Previous efforts had revolved around highly tactical communication, often direct mail designed to suggest added value as a nudge for conversion.

Choosing a university, like any other consumer decision, is influenced by a combination of both rational and emotional drivers. Rankings, fees, employability stats all form the rational pieces of the puzzle – but the emotional is all about ‘fit’.

We understood that peer-to-peer campaigning is far more impactful than advertising for young audiences who crave authenticity – and that we had no better advocates for UEA than the students themselves.

#HomeOfTheWonderful is a user-generated content platform that showcases the diversity, vibrance and closeness of the UEA experience. Rather than a branded attempt to mediate, it is an honest and unfiltered view of genuine moments of student experience, sparked by our activation.

We activated #HomeOfTheWonderful at key moments in the student calendar, and gave audiences the tools they needed to create content. Like the photo booth that generated GIFs we launched at Graduation, #HomeOfTheWonderful also drives the influencer partnerships we create with student YouTubers.

A bespoke aggregation site pulled the best of the content together into a single destination – somewhere to send audiences through direct channels in complement to the organic activity.

And after a year of content generation we were able to produce #HOTW The Annual, a physical curation that acts as an emotive, premium direct conversion tool.

#HomeOfTheWonderful activity played a central role in our student recruitment campaign for UEA, that overall met 101% of its volume target – only one of three universities in the UK to do so in 2018. There are over 7,000 posts on Instagram and #HOTW is now a central part of the student experience.