Australian Catholic University

70,000 Reels views for Australian Catholic University

And counting! Find out how we rolled out a nationwide user-generated content project with ACU.

Filming 60 assets across 5 campuses to put the students front and centre.

60 assets

across multiple campuses

19

Student Ambassadors

70,000 reels views

and counting!

Timeframe

2022 - 2022

Services

User generated content

Connecting with students at scale

ACU partnered with Student Garden to roll out a country wide user-generated content (UGC) project. We produced authentic student led content for both organic and paid channels.

The assets were to be a mix of evergreen assets. The goal was to support prospective campaigns by driving applications and addressing pain points students may have in their pathway to further studies.

For a long time, content around education has come from the mouth of those selling it – not those experiencing it. ACU were looking to have the student front and centre.

The challenge was around having 8 campuses each with a specific offering, ensuring that there was fair visibility to support the University initiatives but delivering it in a style that would land future students.

A phased approach to UGC

1. Aligning content themes

ACU and Student Garden worked on content themes that captured the unique selling points of the University’s offering but still maintained an honest look at student life. This allowed us to break down the sheer volume of assets into manageable pillars and communicate the message while weaving through lifestyle content and honest testimonials about the campus experience.

2. Matching course content with the right campus

Once we understood our content themes and campaign objective, we were able to localise course specific content with the relevant campus which has the strongest offering. This ensured that visually the content would sing true to the objective but we would be able to batch film content in a single location with the right talent – optimising the work flow.

3. Sourcing student ambassadors

It was important to have the student narrative and experience leading to ensure the content was relatable and authentic to prospective students. Once we had decided on our content themes, we were able to source brand ambassadors who aligned with the desirable outcomes

4. A clear plan of attack

Filming 60 assets over 5 campuses is no easy task to navigate. In our initial workshop, we outlined our future roadmap with an actionable plan, taking into account high level business and brand objectives, content pillars and any lifecycle activity. This is important groundwork for any user-generated content agency, and provided a full scope of activity which helped us stick to the course for both content and resources, removing any miscommunication.

“Student Garden were fantastic from start to finish (and now continuing), in communication, standards and delivery. Darcy and his team worked beyond expectations to deliver high quality content to meet our growing needs. The expertise shown through the teams service has helped us to transition and adapt to the new delivery model of TikTok and Instagram Reels and as such we have been able to successfully pivot with growth cherished by senior stakeholders and beyond. Thank you team!”