In these more than 10 years of history, at Simplicity we have advised hundreds of clients from different industries, and some of those cases deserve to be revisited.
Today, we launch Throwback Thursday at Simplicity, a section where we will travel back in time to review some of the creative communication strategies we have successfully developed at the agency.
For our inaugural case, we chose Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, who approached us with a tremendous challenge: to promote their liberal arts-based educational model, a method used at some of the world’s most prestigious universities.
After an intense diagnostic process, more complexities were uncovered that affected public perception (such as a focus on a single faculty, remoteness, among others), all of which shared a common element: much of the solution was already in their hands. They just needed to communicate it.
The plan was to open the university and simplify the message through the brand promise “Think Freely,” a phrase that blends academic work (thinking) with a way of experiencing knowledge to find your own answers (freely). A statement that not many competing universities could make, whether due to their association with the church, the state, or other institutions.
The advertising campaign had several phases. The first one focused on positioning and awareness, with a media plan designed for a month when the category was quiet, while addressing the broad range of relevant audiences: from a high school senior to a manager seeking to expand their network in an EMBA. The ads caught strong attention because the creativity was directly tailored to the medium.
The second phase targeted the undecided youth, opening the doors to the spectacular faculties (with several architecture awards) and showing the application of liberal arts in classrooms.
Finally, the narrative “dove” into the contribution of the model itself, through concrete cases where students and alumni applied what they had learned: designers creating solutions for people with Parkinson’s, lawyers fighting for civil rights in Africa, or engineers building structures made from algae.
This was complemented by brand work that involved “aligning” more than 200 graphic elements, creating an ecosystem that gave both internal and external personality, which became a unique and very rewarding experience throughout its development.
Several years have passed since we launched this campaign, but the professors, students, and alumni who lived through that stage always remember this era of their communications with great affection.
