Our task: make compelling college recruitment spots without filming anything.

You’ve seen one college recruitment commercial, you’ve seen them all. Open on a sprawling shot of the campus, cut to a diverse range of students smiling under a tree, in a classroom, then graduating. End on a serif logo. Well, the pandemic had other ideas. And so did we. So we called up our friends at Cream to help bring them to life.

Hello Kinetic Type

Fairleigh Dickinson University and Idea-8 identified that FDU is all about personal transformation, meaning you start out one way, experience growth and then find yourself with tons of possibilities. We set out to show transformation by animating typography, making it transform right in front of your eyes. We added fun characteristics to personify the type itself: the words “Film Lover” wore 3d glasses and ate popcorn, etc.

The bulk of the media buy was in paid social—which is often viewed without sound—so we set out to make these as bright, simple and visually compelling as possible. So 17 year-olds would pay attention. And apply.

Results usually go here.

These ads just launched this Fall, so the results are still outstanding. But we do know that FDU’s marketing numbers have already surpassed last year’s, which is all the more impressive as enrollment is way down at other universities due to the Covid-19 pandemic.