It’s almost impossible to capture the attention of college students. Between attending lectures, cramming for finals, work, friends, relationships, and parties, they just don’t have time. And when they do have time…good luck, you have 3 seconds before the next swipe.
So, when EF Ultimate Break had important news to share with undergrads—the launch of a brand-spanking-new Campus Ambassador program—the only option was to do something that raised eyebrows.
Our objective was to stop the scroll on social by organizing an on-campus stunt that highlighted the Campus Ambassador program in a fun, shareable, what is she doing?! kind of way.
We knew that traditional ads promoting the Campus Ambassador program wouldn’t hack it. Not with this audience. That’s because our competition for this ad was everything else on social media, not simply other travel brands.
The strategy was simple: stop college students in their tracks on social media by stopping them in their tracks IRL. We wanted to go to campus and interact with real college students, telling the story of the new Campus Ambassador program. But how do we get them to look up from their phones on their walk through the quad? How do we get them to care that there’s a new way to earn bucket list travel for free?
Bucket list. Hm. Bucket. Bucket. Bucket… 💡
Enter the bucket. Yes, like a Home Depot bucket. Scrappy, organic, hilarious, and just interesting enough to capture attention while linking to our product in a seven-degrees-of-separation kind of way. So, we bought a bucket, painted it our primary brand color, strapped it to our Social Producer, and off she went.
The on-campus bucket stunt and subsequent TikTok and Instagram posts got us the attention we wanted. The content contributed to 667 Campus Ambassador applications in the first month of the program, and 2299 to date.
Impressions: 5,005,492
Engagements: 22,874
New followers: 1,345
Shares: 823
