Why being brave with online video pays off

About this time every year, universities across the UK prepare for ‘clearing’: a space of  chaos where students who didn’t get the grades they expected hurriedly try to arrange to get onto a different uni course.

It’s big business for some universities because it gives them a chance to snap up students (and therefore cash) who were originally going somewhere else.

Now, the marketing teams spend thousands of pounds producing glossy adverts, like this one and this one, and then spend tens of thousands more to get it on television.

It’s the numbers game that ‘old’ marketing is based on: shout in the face of enough passing strangers and some will buy your product. What an outdated, expensive and arguably ineffectual way of doing things.

Take a look at this lo-fi approach by the University of Lincoln.

The humour speaks directly to the prospective students, and was clearly made by students at Lincoln, rather than a distant production company. It was a very brave decision by the university’s marketing team (especially when you understand all the clearance/bureaucracy that goes with universities) but I think it’s paid off.

No surprise this one’s gone viral, getting the University of Lincoln more attention than a glossy ad on television.

That’s why you should be brave with your online video.

Hattip: Dave Lee

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