UNSW Gateway: a 4% lift in enrolments from one campaign.

Gateway is UNSW’s admission pathway for students from underrepresented backgrounds, and the communication problem is delicate: a prospective student who can't picture themselves at university won't apply, and content about disadvantage slides into deficit framing fast.

The campaign couldn't just look good and clear the approvals. It had to move an enrolment number, and enrolment numbers are unforgiving. Either the intake fills or it does not.

We travelled across NSW to film Gateway students and their families in their own homes, schools and communities, then followed the story onto campus. Consent, child safety and stakeholder approvals were planned before a camera came out.

Students don't respond to institutions talking about themselves. They respond to seeing people like them, in places they can picture themselves, at the exact moment the decision is live. So the films ran where prospective students actually spend their attention, timed to the decision window.

The campaign delivered a 4% increase in enrolments, and the Gateway program hit its enrolment target ahead of schedule, announced in UNSW’s own social content.

The films work at street level too: high school students recognise the ambassadors from the videos and connect over shared backgrounds. Inside UNSW, other departments ask for introductions to the team that made them.