The University of Melbourne: Made Possible By Melbourne [image], 3

Credits & Description:

Agency: Mccann Melbourne
Client: Lara Mckay
Chief Creative Officer: Pat Baron
Executive Creative Director: Matt Lawson
Copywriter: Charles Baylis
Art Director: Caity Moloney
Art Director: Matt Lawson
Group Account Director: Charlie Mcdevitt
Account Director: Emma Van Den Berg
Account Manager: Rob Patterson
Account Manager: Meg Andrews
Strategic Planning Director: David Phillips
Strategic Planner: Charmari Kariyakaranage
Media Planning Director: Jane Walshe
Media Planning Manager: Emma Black
Media Planning Manager: Sam Enshaw
Agency Producer: Victoria Conners
Digital Director: Tony Prysten
Social Director: Chris Baker
Digital Producer: Joe Guario
Editor: Tom Mannion
Senior Designer: Dave Budd
Director: Travis Hogg
Production Designer: Jackson Dickie
Production Company: Airbag
Managing Partner: Adrian Bosich
Line Producer: Nick Venn
Concept Artist: Xavier Irvine
Electronic Engineer: Ben Boniface
Digital Designer: Guilherme Pocai De Almeida
Producer: Martin Box
Synopsis:
Despite being Australia’s leading university, market research identified a limited awareness of the University of Melbourne’s research projects.
We had to change the perception of the University within Australia, to establish it as a centre of world-changing research. This would help drive more investment and also recruit higher quality students.
Made Possible By Melbourne was a campaign that transformed an entire city into a free exhibition of the University of Melbourne’s world-changing research.
By creating exhibits in poster sites within the city's free tram zone we took research that is usually published in academic journals, and placed it directly in front of the people that might invest in it.
Running for one month, the campaign used the existing advertising infrastructure in Melbourne's CBD to host an interactive exhibition.
First, special builds turned outdoor advertising sites into interactive exhibits.
Each story was selected to demonstrate the University’s research endeavor and place it in front of a relevant audience. For example, a story about breakthroughs in prenatal drugs was placed outside the city’s leading pharmaceutical office.
A mobile site used GPS to direct our audience to nearby exhibits, and then streamed audio content, providing a guide to the work spoken by the researchers themselves.
A transit takeover provided a free exhibition shuttle, designed to move people seamlessly through the citywide exhibition.
An activation provided a pop up cafeteria with research people could eat and drink.
Supporting outdoor, social and digital communications raised awareness of the exhibition.
A call-to-action on each exhibit drove people to online to donate. Creating a citywide free exhibition meant that people were already open to our message and strengthened the University’s relationship with Melbourne’s public.
By highlighting the contribution the research projects are making towards global welfare we were able to elicit a response – we drove people to discover and donate to further research projects.
During the month long exhibition, Made Possible By Melbourne met every measurable objective in raising awareness of the University’s research projects.
The campaign reached 44 million, globally, through PR. The exhibition was featured in 22 international media outlets.
The content hub received over 1,036,453 hits within 2 weeks of launch. Estimated foot traffic through the exhibition was 3.2 million.
In a tracking study 1 in 3 Melbournians said the campaign changed their opinions of the University, enhancing their understanding of the importance of research and its economic and societal impacts.
Ultimately, this exhibition led to an 80% increase in commercial research enquiries, worth hundreds of millions of dollars in investment.
Made Possible By Melbourne is now being used as a touring exhibition across Australia, and has become an ongoing publishing platform for the University’s research stories.