Work

THE APPROACH: The Youth Lab conducted research on the modern education landscape, on global learning and career trends and with Griffith College students themselves (past and present.) Through this work, we identified that the world of careers and learning is increasingly changing, where students now need the best academic and soft skills available to take on a career in a world driven by AI, Automation and Robotics. At a time in Ireland where 1 in 5 students drop out of 3rd level education before year 3, the system is already creaking to support the multi-dimensional, new perspective of the modern Gen Z student. These are the next generation of students who view success in relative terms, need to make their mark on the world and need to do so in a way which is creative and unique to them.

In this context we identified:

1. Griffith College is a college where those who want a more flexible approach to learning all round gravitate towards
2. Griffith College leverages industry-firsts in blended and digital-first learning, providing some of the most interesting, unique and future-focused education experiences available in the market.
3. Griffith college genuinely equips their students with the right mix of academic and soft skills which are needed in this new era of education and education; it is in its DNA.

From this work, the Thinkhouse planning and creative teams came together to develop a new positioning area for Griffith College, and a new comms platform with which to bring it to life for the consumer:

Brand Platform: Griffith College, An Eye On The Future

THE OUTPUT: The Thinkhouse channel/media planning, creative and specialist service teams worked with Griffith College and their Media partner agency Zenith to develop a deeply engaging, creatively-bold and conversation-driving campaign activation to bring An Eye On The Future to life. The concept featured a modern student with a strangely familiar / not quite right extra eye, one on the lookout for the right future opportunities in this new era of careers and learning. The third eye visual itself alludes to the evolution of human/hybrid via robotics, and speaks to the changing nature of what a modern student for a modern college actually might look like in the future! Creatively, Thinkhouse developed a new brand look/feel for the new comms platform and shot and created multiple audience-specific iterations of creative assets - featuring models, language and messaging to appeal to the CAO audience, the mature student audience and the post-grad/masters audience. The campaign was brought to life for the consumer across DOOH/OOH, Print and PR, with a heavy strand of digital and social DR and engagement-led content to ensure consistent pulsing of applications.

THE OUTCOME: The campaign was launched in September 2019, so it is currently at early stages. However, the response from students and (the diverse) faculty alike in the college has been phenomenal. Head of Marketing at Griffith College, Steven Roberts, said: “The College was impressed with Thinkhouse’s knowledge of younger audiences, which are a perfect fit with Griffith’s learners. Their team’s ambition, creativity and track record of developing outstanding campaigns was key to the decision to bring them on board. At Griffith, we’re as ambitious as our students are. For this campaign, we wanted an idea that represented us perfectly – future-focused, innovation-centric and welcoming. This campaign perfectly does that.”