A Future Without Change
Monash University
Issue 54 | March 2020
Agency
VMLY&R Melbourne
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Paul Nagy Executive Creative Director Jake Barrow Associate Creative Directors Kieran Moroney, Shane Geffen Copywriter Blair Panozza, Jack Harrison Art Director Janice Ko Creatives Oliver Brock, Jesse Young
Production Team
Project Manager Gabriel Montalban Producers Jules Callan, Aaron Rocca Lead Designer Simon Gray Designer Tracy Fong Editor Leigh Cooke Developer Alex Case
Other Credits
Managing Partner Jon Kenyon Client Service Director Katherine Chen Account Director Louise Brugman Account Manager Jessica Parker
Date
August 2019
Background
Towards the end of every year, high school students are bombarded by universities all fighting for their attention. Monash, one of Australia’s leading Universities faced a challenge. How could they stand out and recruit students in a new way while also reminding people why they’re different from other universities.
Idea
The future always looks so promising. But with the problems the world currently faces, it’s clear that society isn’t creating the tomorrow we once imagined. So, to inspire students to stop this from happening they were introduced to ‘A Future Without Change’.
With the help of each faculty, 17 products were created for a nightmare future - things like an app that exploits human slavery, a fake news network and even lab-made food for a world that is unable to grow crops.
Each product was based on a real problem that Monash researchers were working to solve as well as courses students could study to help bring positive change.
Results
24.6% of student visitors registered to a faculty, resulting in Monash’s most successful recruitment campaign ever, making it the number one preference University in the country. By showing a future that shouldn’t exist, the campaign helped recruit and inspire the next generation to change it.
Our Thoughts
Alongside each of the 17 installations that were created for this exhibition is the message, “If you don’t like it, change it.” What a great demonstration of creativity.
Every one of the university’s faculties was involved in making these all-too-plausible products and it is clear they had fun making them. But it is also an invitation to creative minds to find alternative and altogether more civilised solutions to mental health problems, to domestic abuse, to ageism and to the dying coral reefs.
If anyone imagined that university was about learning stuff from books, parrot-fashion, here’s Monash declaring that the purpose of education is to stimulate ideas that can solve real-world problems.