Monash recruited students by showing a future that shouldn't exist

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.

Sell the future worth changing by showing the one to avoid

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.

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.

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.