Why the best creative ideas come from out of the sector
Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places. If legendary footwear designer, Tinker Hatfield, hadn’t been inspired by exposed plumbing, air ducts and wiring on the side of the Centre Pompidou in Paris then Nike Air Max would never have hit shelves, streets and campuses all around the world.
If Steve Jobs hadn’t been on a fruitarian diet that required a visit to a local apple orchard back in 1976, and if he didn’t have a burning desire to come before main competitors, Atari, in the phonebook, we might all have a completely different fruit slapped on the back of our phones and laptops.
"Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places.”
And if someone at London South Bank University hadn’t recently rewatched twee-noughties-indie-sleaze-rom-com 500 Days of Summer, the LSBU x h10 ‘Making of a Good Day’ video would have looked a lot different.
Higher Ed is unique in that our product is constantly developing and changing, stats and rankings going up and down, new USPs and initiatives being introduced and repositioned, but what we’re actually selling remains the same; and that’s the lifestyle that prospects will be buying into.
This is the case across the sector. All universities are unique of course but we’re all trying to solve the same problems, frame similar USPs and speak to the same audience. For anyone to truly stand out, and avoid the dreaded HE Echochamber, it’s imperative that we find inspiration from outside the space as much as possible.
"For anyone to truly stand out, it’s imperative we find inspiration from outside the university space”
London South Bank University: ‘Making of a Good Day’
Original reference for LSBU video : ‘500 Days of Summer’
My first creative concept in the industry was for Lambeth College back in 2019. I was new to education marketing and had no real precedent for the ways things had been done before, so I just fell back on my love for music, art and fashion, in particular I-D Magazine’s 2017 feature on Frank Ocean.
The end result took the low-fi, candid aesthetic and made it work for a Further Education brand. It could never have worked as a direct copy (and rightly so, inspiration and homage is fine, stealing ideas isn’t cool), as this was a full-scale ad campaign dedicated to selling the experience in a way that was not only authentic and engaging, but also brand safe.
"As creatives we shouldn’t be following trends, but finding ideas in the places our audiences are active”
Lambeth College : ‘Free to Be’ TV spot
Free to Be became a campaign about the belonging, friendship and community that young people would find at Lambeth, as well highlighting an environment where they could be their true, authentic selves. Through getting to know the students we were able to put their stories front and centre, making them the stars of the campaign, while also weaving in the key selling points that make Lambeth College such a valuable place to study.
The same is true for the Making of a Good Day video. Helen Marshall, Senior Manager for Creative at LSBU said ‘The context in the original reference scene and the context in the final product could not be more different, but the idea remains the same; how does life feel when everything’s going your way?’. As creatives we shouldn’t be following education trends, or even each other but finding ideas in the places our audiences are active, whether that’s gaming, meme culture, viral marketing or even using references like this from cult classics.
Then the real creativity, and the real fun, comes in finding a way to make it work for students. Something we think that our team here at LSBU and the guys at h10 absolutely nailed!
This approach is that it helps the work to feel fresh and exciting, as it acknowledges the fact that marketing to students is just youth marketing. Youth culture is an endlessly fascinating melting pot of subcultures, creativity and self expression, always shifting and changing with new trends and references. If we can successfully reflect it back to our audience, or better yet, directly contribute towards it, then the results will speak for themselves.
Fresh and original
We should also want to make our work as fresh and original as possible each time. For me that’s where the fun is. How can I make this Clearing campaign feel different to the one I produced last year? What references can I draw on to best communicate the benefits of this engineering degree? How can I bring the way I view the world into this work? These are the kinds of questions that have kept me engaged these last six years and continue to drive me to get better and learn more about our audience.
Beyond any reference material, your biggest inspiration will be the students themselves. There’s energy on a university campus. This is where futures are being made, lessons being learned and people are growing into truer versions of themselves. There’s work being done in science, art, history, social justice, literature, almost any conceivable field of human expression you can think of. If that doesn’t inspire you just a little bit then I don’t know what will.
Of course Blue Sky Thinking without proper respect for the craft is useless. If all we did was focus on cool references then there would be a lot of empty Open Days up and down the country. The best thing creative leaders in this industry can do is give their team space to think broadly, while also challenging them to refine these ideas as much as possible, working and reworking until they feel tailor made for a student audience.
Easier said than done a lot of times, but as we approach this new recruitment cycle these thought exercises and conversations around creative inspiration become more and more valuable. You never know what might come out of them…
About the author
George Metcalf is a Writer, Cultural Strategist and Multimedia Creative working in the Higher Education industry. He specialises authentic and impactful advertising campaigns, content strategy and cultural insight, and is spending his summer working on a number of projects with one of his favourite universities, London South Bank University.
This article was taken from the 2025 UniTrackr report...
...a unique study exploring video-first social media trends and rankings in UK Higher Education, put together by a dedicated team from h10 agency...
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