In ten years time, 75% of Australian jobs will require a knowledge in Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths (STEM).
The problem is, the number of students taking STEM subjects is rapidly declining because they’re perceived to be boring and not immediately relevant to their lives and passions.

As a leading tech brand and as part of their CSR programme, Samsung sponsors Questacon, the national centre for science and technology. The brief and objectives were the following:

CSR Goal: Increase the number of Australian students studying STEM subjects in high school.

Behaviour Change: Stop young Australians dropping STEM related subjects and have them WANT to study them until the end of school.

Role of Brand Activity: Actively engage High Schoolers in STEM in a way that’s exciting, relevant and personally rewarding today.The strategy was to reframe the outputs of studying STEM from boring and irrelevant to exciting and ‘relevant to my passions’ as well as personally rewarding today, not in the future.

Target Audience: 13-17 year old students who are about to choose subjects for the next year.

The Key Insight was that they have short term horizons and are motivated by things of direct, personal impact to their lives.

While they love technology, they don’t see themselves as creators of it and therefore they see knowledge in STEM as an issue of tomorrow, but not a personal problem for them today.

So our platform needed to show them that STEM is relevant to them, their passions and ideas, today, not tomorrow.

It also had to be mobile first/social campaign to target this hard to reach market.

The Make My Idea competition.

A promotion that asked students to enter an idea they were passionate about, and if it made the cut, we turned it into a prototype, 3D design or illustration. All thanks to STEM.

The campaign launched one month before students had to decide on what subjects they were taking the next year.

We promoted the competition through a targeted, mobile first campaign on Snapchat, posters at schools, and EDMs to teachers and parents, all driving students to the website where they could enter their idea.

Two weeks after the call for entries, we then broadcasted their ideas to the world on The Make My Idea Show on YouTube Live, a one-hour special where a range of experts talked through the subjects needed to make their ideas happen.

Hosted by influencers with a massive following from our target, they also helped drive traffic to the site.

Most successful Samsung STEM campaign yet.

Over 6000 entries.

30% click rate, smashing projections.

A 77% increase in consideration for STEM subjects.

Samsung - Make My Idea

CREDITS

Nigel Clark

Adrian Ely

Bryan Wilmot

Chris Summers

Grant McAloon

Nathan Richman

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