Dentsu Creative’s first RMIT campaign leverages student ‘freak outs’
Nearly 18 months after winning RMIT University’s creative account, Dentsu Creative has launched its first piece of work for the tertiary education provider.
The global brand campaign, titled ‘What The Future?!’, leverages “freak outs” around future uncertainty, the cost-of-living crisis and AI to connect with prospective students.
The agency was appointed as the university’s creative partner in August 2023, which marked the first time RMIT had aligned with just one creative agency.
Ben Coulson, chief creative officer at Dentsu Creative, told Mumbrella RMIT wanted to depict itself as an “action-based” university — outcome-focused and practical.
“[RMIT] wanted to stand very much against that traditional idea of a degree [as theoretical], and the dubious nature of what the degree might practically offer a person as they go out into the world,” he said. “So before we even got to work on this project, RMIT was quite clear about being an outcome-focused education institution.”
The campaign juxtaposes the anxiety young people are feeling about the state of the world, with the real-world, hands-on education the university provides.
“As we spoke to young people, it didn’t take long to work out that they are freaking out about the situation of the world they’re going into,” he said. “Uncertainty was written all over this project, uncertainty about the world, the situation of it, the cost-of-living crisis, what kind of career these young people are going to have, all that sort of stuff.”
Coulson, an RMIT alumnus himself, said this was as much a personal passion project as it was regular client work.
“This one was personal. You take on a project, but you’re also the product. Yes, I graduated from RMIT, yes I went into the world and have had a career for better or for worse in commercial creativity, but that shows the idea of what can happen if you go to RMIT,” he told Mumbrella.
“It was a really good one to roll up the sleeves with the guys at RMIT. We were in it together. The budget wasn’t massive but the ambition was high.
“It’s been a very distinctive piece, it’s one of those ones where it doesn’t happen if everyone isn’t all in on it. You can see that in the work, that there wasn’t conflict and everyone was pushing to make it an interesting, distinctive, and different kind of piece of work,” he said.
The campaign is live across Youtube, Tiktok, Meta, and streaming services. Interestingly, it will not run on TV, as Coulson said there was no necessity for this particular project.
“It’s not that the piece wouldn’t go well on free-to-air TV… We just needed to design it using mediums our audience is on.”
RMIT University’s associate brand director, Simon Cormack, said in a media release on Monday that the campaign captures the university’s “essence”.
“It’s a bold, brave campaign that doesn’t just ask the tough questions but shows there’s a way forward at RMIT. What makes it even more special is that it features our own students, alumni, and staff,” he said.
Credits:
Client: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)
Chief Experience Officer: Chaminda Ranasinghe
Director, Global Marketing: Carmen Gould
Assistant Director, Brand: Simon Cormack
Creative Agency: Dentsu Creative
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Coulson
Executive Creative Director: Sarah McGregor
Group Creative Director: Zac Pritchard
Creative Director: V. Wassim Kanaan
Senior Producer: Tom Pearce
National Head of Strategy: Graham Alvarez-Jarratt
Managing Director: Katie Firth
Managing Partner: Hayden Isaacs
Group Account Director: Catherine Nolan
Senior Account Manager: Bart Wright
Production Company: Revolver
Director: Leilani Croucher
Managing Director/Co-Owner: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer/Partner: Pip Smart
Producer: Caroline Kruck
Post Producer: Lily Warland
Facilitating Producer: Carson Ng
DOP: Andy Commis
Production Designer: Helen Fitzgerald
Post Production- Editor, Colourist, Motion Designer, VFX/Online: Scott Stirling
Additional VFX Compositing: Viv Baker
Additional Graphic Design: Madeleine-Eve Pattison
Music composition & Post-audio: Otis
Casting: Citizen Jane
Media Agency: The Media Store
Chief Strategy Officer: Sam Cousins
Senior Digital Manager: Elaina Opare
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