Read more stories from Macquarie
Find out more from our researchers and academics.
Read moreOur new brand campaign focuses on how experience shapes us and how the actions we take – even if we struggle – influence how we advance in life.
The unique campaign features strong involvement from students past and present playing key roles in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Commerce – Economics (2nd year)
Emma’s voice was an early contributor to the ‘Powered by Experience’ project as part of a focus group of students the marketing team tapped into while shaping the campaign message.
She says she was keen to get involved because she had good experience with other feedback programs where she felt students were listened to and respected, which was certainly the case in this project. “You could see the elements we talked about being incorporated into the campaign, and it was great to see our feedback being put into action.”
The most gratifying thing about Macquarie, she notes, is that any effort becomes its own reward, which is a sentiment echoed in the message. “Anyone who wants to put in something and is committed to doing that, if you try, you will get something out of it.”
Bachelor of Arts with a Diploma of Education (2011)
Key scenes in the new ad were inspired by award-winning alumna Tina’s experience as a student and elite wheelchair basketball player at Macquarie.
In another timeline, Tina may never have gone to uni. At 16, she left home to become a hairdresser. By 19, she managed a salon. That year, however, a fall resulting in partial paraplegia meant using a wheelchair to get around. Finding her passion in wheelchair basketball led her to play for Australia with the Gliders but, seeking a career after sport, she set herself a new goal: to become a primary school teacher.
“One thing I've always found is that people are really fearful of the unknown and disability can be an unknown," she explains. "Teaching would be a way to change people’s focus from the disability to the actual person and what they can offer as a skillset. That's where I thought I could plant the seed of educating the younger generation."
She chose Macquarie because she saw it as innovative, with a strong mature age entry pathway. The former Paralympian, the first of her family to go to uni, combined her determination and goal-focused attitude with Macquarie's flexibility and support to achieve a dual sporting and teaching career.
“Macquarie gave me the strength to be able to support myself, not just in my sporting career, but also my education,” she says. “I was always provided incredible amounts of support to be my best.”
It's a message she carries forward to others she mentors, teaches and inspires as a primary school teacher, in a corporate learning and development role and now as an inclusion adviser. “Through the foundation of my degree I was able to step into many places.”
Emma Bachelor of Media – Social Media and Public Relations (3rd year)
Michael Pak Bachelor of Psychology (2nd year)
Selected from a stream of students on campus, Emma had her first experience in Macquarie’s 2018 campaign. Now as one of the uni’s iconic faces, she shares her thoughts on her third time performing in the campaign as one of the lead actors.
“Being involved behind the scenes of a marketing campaign goes hand in hand with what I'm studying – social media and public relations. What I learnt first and foremost was how much effort and how many people go into making a 60-second ad; the second was the importance of representing [the uni] as authentically as possible,” she says.
Most of the faces in the campaign are Macquarie students and, as an extra, Michael has played a number of short and background roles in Macquarie campaigns since his first stint last year. It’s a fun nod to his childhood dream to become an actor, and an experience that placed him alongside professionals who gave him quick but effective acting pointers for the brief roles.
It also links him back to some of the reasons why he wanted to study psychology. “I want to understand humans, their behaviour, how the brain functions. Actors have to understand emotions, what the character should feel.”
Watch video
Ricky Studencki Bachelor of Commerce – Marketing (3rd year)
Daniel Roberts Bachelor of Media (3rd year)
Ricky and Daniel started making videos as a side project, focusing on uni topics and targeting uni discussion groups on Facebook, racking up 10K views with a good clip. “We get good engagement with targeted videos. This is how you grow; this is how social media brands do it,” says Ricky.
After seeing the callout about the campaign, the duo secured the gig to create a ‘behind the scenes’ video of the shoot. “We wanted to see what a proper production was actually like, what we could learn,” he says. “It was good to build a relationship with the marketing team.”
Daniel also saw an opportunity to enhance his media degree. “As somebody who studies media, I thought it would be an awesome opportunity to get out there and see a professional advertising campaign.”
The ad is only a minute and their video is the same length, so the most challenging part was capturing as much of the day as possible. Says Daniel: “We really tried to carry the narrative across and in doing that, I think we focused on a lot of shots that had students in it, trying to showcase ‘these are the students, this is their input’.”
Watch video