Institute of Art, Design + Technology: Undergraduate Identity & Open Day 2022

Institute of Art, Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire is Ireland’s only institute of art, design and technology with a specific focus on the creative cultural and technological sectors. Piquant worked with the IADT marketing and communications team to develop a promotional campaign for the 2022 November Open Day. The result was a successful campaign that achieved high visibility for IADT across multiple channels, resulted in the creation of a suite of social first content, drove very strong engagement across native and advertising channels, and led to a high attendance at the Open Day, making it the biggest Open Day yet.

CAMPAIGN STRATEGY — Piquant worked with IADT to develop a campaign strategy to promote the Open Day, including targets, marketing channels, and a series of campaign initiatives across social, digital, print and traditional advertising. The 2022 Open Day campaign used a range of online and traditional channels, for an integrated campaign approach. This allowed us to reach audiences in the target areas from all sides. The campaign followed the newly developed You+ campaign identity.

CAMPAIGN IDENTITY — In developing the campaign identity it was important to develop a concept that would carry beyond the November Open Day and would facilitate undergraduate and post graduate recruitment for a sustained period across multiple channels. The development of this campaign concept began with a period of in-depth research, during which we analysed existing documentation, conducted benchmarking research of the education sector, target audience research, and cultivated continuous dialogue and an open-minded atmosphere with the client. Lead by the research, we applied our effective creative development systems to create a design solution that would resonate with students, parents, and other identified audiences. This approach was built to stand out across digital and print platforms, including social media, website, cinema, Out of Home, and editorial. The core message of the campaign, You+, underscored individual creative empowerment while establishing IADT as a sector leader in creative technology.

SOCIAL VIDEOS — As part of the campaign strategy, we identified the need to create a suite of video content that would resonate with the student audience, build on the campaign concept, and allow us to advertise on student-centric platforms like TikTok and Reels. We developed a concept for these ‘social videos’, and conducted a content creation day with student ambassadors from IADT. We created two styles of videos: Talking Head videos, where a student spoke directly to camera, with subtitles on screen, and POV videos, tapping into a common TikTok trend to create multiple IADT related scenes. We created and released a total of 20 social videos, which were used as advertising and organic content on Instagram and TikTok. The videos were particularly successful on Instagram Reels where they generated 52,000 organic views.

SOCIAL AND DIGITAL ADVERTISING — Piquant devised, placed and managed advertising content throughout the campaign across a range of social and digital channels, targeting both student and parent audiences. Channels included Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Display, and Digital Audio.

TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING — Alongside the online advertising, Piquant produced campaign advertisements for placement on billboards and newspaper ads, as well as scripting and recording a radio ad for placement across radio stations in the target area. We also produced IADT’s first ever cinema advert, targeted towards students who are applying for higher education through the CAO system.

OPEN DAY ASSETS — Assets designed for the open day included wayfinding assets, such as floor vinyls, notice boards and exterior flags, the talks schedule and map flyer, and tote bag merchandise.

RESULTS — The campaign achieved all aims and targets set out for Open Day attendance and sign ups. The campaign saw the development of a large suite of promotional assets across a wide range of new marketing channels, ensuring high visibility of IADT among audiences in the target locations throughout the campaign. In particular, the social videos were a great success – this content proved to be some of the most successful content on the IADT Instagram ever, driving a huge increase in organic engagement and reach, and was also highly effective content for advertising on TikTok and Reels, essential channels for our student audience.