There are five impressive shortlisted entries for the 2026 Future Campus Best Tertiary Education Marketing Campaign, outlined below.
RMIT University
Creative risk is not something that many universities are comfortable with, so it was quite an achievement for @simon Cormack and RMIT University’s Global Marketing team to get their What The Future! brand campaign through internal approval channels.
But this campaign, shortlisted for this year’s Marketing award in the 2026 Future Campus Awards, was about way more than grabbing some extra eyeballs. Internal data analysts told the team that awareness of the university had fallen by about 10% over four years to 2024 and fewer students were considering RMIT as an option. The campaign didn’t have to just claim attention, but also enable the university to stand out from the crowd, in a really tightly-contested tertiary education market.
The campaign is another clear leader in the trend to re-orient messages around contemporary concerns of students, who were expressing higher levels of uncertainty and concern about what their future would hold, not just with employment, but also climate, global security and technology change.
The What The Future! message clearly hit the mark. The University turned around awareness, with a 10.4% increase in 2025 and a 10.8% increase in preferences. Their video content was viewed 12.7 million times and importantly, their YouTube video completion rate (the number of people who watched to the end) was an impressive 87%.
This is another great example of excellence in execution from a marketing team over the past year. Watch their brand video for a taste of the campaign here : Watch It Now.
UNE
What’s Green And Bold and screams surprise success all over?
The University of New England’s Like It? Lock It In. campaign was bold in colouring and execution, but tailored beautifully by Michaela Lobb and the team, as well as agencies Tag and Carat.
Shortlisted for this year’s Marketing Award and also Best Agency Partnership Award in the 2026 Future Campus Awards, the campaign is a great example of creating a community of professionals inside and outside of the organisation all hell-bent on driving serious improvement in results.
The process was a textbook execution of building great results out of market insights, and the surprise was not so much for the team – who realised they were creating something great not only in their campaign execution, but also their community. The surprise was really for the wider UNE world – and a pleasant one at that.
Research showed that UNE weren’t getting as many early entry applicants as some competitors, and prospective students liked the concept of locking in a uni course before they had finished their exams.
The campaign resulted in an 11% year on year growth in Early Entry applications and critically was achieved for a modest spend. Watch the campaign video here: https://youtu.be/Z619zJFf3_M
Award Winners will be announced at the HE FEST conference dinner on 22 September: www.hefest.com.au
UTS
@Tracy Chalk was drawing on decades of experience in leading marketing teams in the sector when she said the next @UTS campaign needed to break the "standard 'smiling student' formula" and build narratives around how and why a student should study at UTS rather than trying to convince them on ‘what.’
Tracy, @David Rogan and the University’s Marketing and Communications Unit have been shortlisted in the Marketing category of this year’s Future Campus 2026 Awards for their campaign ‘It’s not just a university, it’s UTS.’
The team realised that a central, authentic message was required to “Reconnect our staff and students with a shared sense of purpose and reignite pride and passion in the institution during time of significant change.”
After a challenging year of headlines for the institution, the marketing team leaned into the theme of unconventional excellence, building on the perceptions that prospective students held about UTS and focusing on the institutional differentiator – comfort and pride in taking unconventional routes to outstanding outcomes.
The campaign was very successful against the backdrop of a challenging year, with a 7% increase in brand favourability for industry and a strong consolidation of the university’s brand at a critical moment in the institution’s history.
Watch the team talk about the brand campaign’s development here: https://youtu.be/6Wc2MIKeGuU
University of Canberra
The University of Canberra had long appeared to struggle with being the capital’s number two university, but a new campaign "U CAN @ UC" turned that issue on its head.
Shortlisted in the hotly contested Marketing category for this year’s Future Campus 2026 Awards, the UC campaign helmed by Renee Murphy was delivered by the UC Marketing Team but also Vice Chancellor Bill Shorten, who took the time to sit on the panel selecting Born The Agency and their vision to reclaim the university’s accessibility as a virtue.
This is a cracker of a campaign, not just because it worked, but because the rationale and work to bring it to life was squarely grounded in evidence and marketing nous.
“By 2025, the University of Canberra had a problem. Not an awareness problem. Not
even a reputation problem. A belief problem,” Renee writes in her award submission. UC had gone through restructures, deficits and student growth was essential, not just an aspiration.
The team were aware that the ad campaign needed to start to rebuild the university brand not only in the eyes of prospective students, but also of staff. Research indicated that UC could gain affirmation by not only owning its accessibility and its pride in students who didn’t usually fit the elite school leaver mold, but also building an ‘emotionally resonant identity’ around that concept.
“We did not set out to create another university advertising campaign. We set out to
rebuild belief,” Renee said.
The UC campaign was built around the value that education belongs to everyone and shot on some unforgiving January days with the mercury nudging above 40 degrees.
The effort paid off. Applications to UC increased 10% year on year and domestic CSP demand rose 60% in Semester 2 2026 alone.
But there were additional, telling metrics that demonstrate the power of an outstanding marketing execution.
“Some of the most meaningful outcomes, however, were not found in dashboards.
The campaign launch in the UC Refectory brought together staff, Council members
and partners to a resoundingly positive reception. People were moved to tears. Staff
who had previously struggled to articulate what made UC special suddenly saw their
own values reflected back to them,” Renee said.
You can sample the UC campaign here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYtH_dqlgj4
University of Sunshine Coast
Having less cash and a smaller brand footprint seems to have become a super power for Justin Laing and his marketing team at University of the Sunshine Coast.
The team has won two Future Campus awards before and have been shortlisted again this year, with a high impact, low budget campaign that they created in conjunction with a production company, covering 18 locations in five days but always making real students the centre of the frame.
The judges shortlisted the team for this year's Marketing award amidst an incredibly strong field because of the tight brief, crystal clear alignment with the university's character and values and great results – a 30% increase in consideration and a 7% increase in preference for the university following the campaign launch.
By listening to students each year, Uni Sunshine Coast are part of a group of universities taking the course choice discussion to the student, rather than trying to tout status and lure students without recognising cost pressures, graduating job worries and a jump in scepticism about the value proposition of HE.
Justin and the team will dive into the details of their campaign and what made it work in a presentation at HE FEST. This video made to accompany their Future Campus Award submission is a great taster.
Watch here: https://lnkd.in/eFctKZVk