The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2020–2021
Monash recruited students by showing a future that shouldn't exist
While rivals promised perfect futures, Monash exhibited 17 dystopian products; 24.6% of student visitors registered and it became No.1 preference university.
Monash University
the move
Every year Australian universities bombard school leavers with recruitment ads showing the same bright future. Monash University and VMLY&R Melbourne chose the opposite: a future that shouldn't exist.
With the help of each faculty, the team created 17 products that shouldn't exist — a museum's last piece of reef, a fake-news channel, cereal for children's depression — and staged them in multi-sensory installations people could touch, hold, smell and taste, backed by digital OOH, films and VR.
More than 12,000 people engaged across two activations, and 24.6% of student visitors registered with a faculty, making Monash the No.1 preference university in the country. The One Show recognized the installation in 2020.
why it works
- A dystopian object is concrete in a way a slogan isn't: visitors could hold the problem, so the solution felt more real.
- Showing the future without change gave school leavers agency, a reason to choose beyond prestige.
- Faculty involvement produced 17 exhibits, each ownable by a department, multiplying content and shareability.
what transfers
When every competitor makes the same positive claim, invert it: a vivid future-if-nothing-changes recruits more than another glossy promise, because it hands the audience a role.
what came after
The campaign continued through the pandemic with VR experiences. The One Show honored it in 2020 and VMLY&R won WPP's Extraordinary Award for the Experiential category.
references
- VMLY&R: Monash University A Future Without Change — case study
- The One Show 2020 archive — A Future Without Change
- VMLY&R Melbourne's 'A Future Without Change' one of five winners in WPP's first Extraordinary Awards
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.