At NCI, we're with you every step of the way.
Our latest marketing campaign brings to life the message: "You don't do it alone, we're with you every step of the way". It’s a story of resilience, creativity, and community - values that reflect the student experience at National College of Ireland. Like every one of our students, the central character is given the tools to assist them as they traverse through the challenges of academic life.
To tell this story, we combined live-action footage shot in Dublin with digital artistry, including the use of AI tools. This was a collaborative effort between professional videographers, animators, and filmmakers. AI was used to support the creative process - not to replace people, but to enhance the storytelling.
As a Higher Education Institution offering courses in Business, Computing, Psychology, and Education, we believe in using technology responsibly and creatively. This campaign reflects our commitment to innovation, while staying grounded in the human connections that define education.
Behind the Scenes: How the Campaign Was Made
This campaign was a collaborative effort between creative professionals and our in-house team with direction from the insights of market research. We uncover the foundations of the creative strategy along with the process involved which combined live-action footage filmed in Dublin with digital animation techniques, including the use of AI tools to support the visual storytelling.
Market Research Insights
This ad campaign is grounded in research sourced from students, alumni, guidance counsellors, lecturers in Further Education and businesses who employ NCI graduates. The findings showed that NCI is perceived as an innovative higher education institute leading in technology and business practice that supports, encourages and empowers its students to reach their full potential. However, the research showed that recognition for NCI is lower than other, bigger higher education institutes so the challenge for the ad campaign was to draw on the perceptions of those who know NCI to communicate the brand of the college to those who don't.
“Our previous campaigns focused on individual student voices - real stories, honestly told. That commitment to authenticity hasn’t changed, and the move away from using real students wasn't taken lightly, but the strategy to build brand recognition required a wider brush. We couldn’t paint the big picture by using individual students having undertaken specific programmes,” explains Emily Ferns, Head of Marketing at NCI. Luckily, we can continue to communicate those authentic student experiences through our blog and social media.
Director of Marketing and International Recruitment at NCI, Robert Ward, continues, “One thing clear from our research was the association of NCI with cutting edge technology, most particularly leadership in the area of technology education. However, our final ad had to tell a broader brand story: the social and pedagogic integrity at the heart of NCI, no matter what programme you undertake.”
The Creative Process
The creative process involved many highly-skilled individuals who used their expert knowledge of technical production techniques including video editing, audio engineering and animation software as well as graphic design and other design mediums to produce a piece of visual communication to craft a story that could be shared across different media formats such as video on demand and social media.
Outlined below is the stages of the creative process:
- Concept Development
Message and theme shaped by NCI’s creative marketing agency. - Live Action Filming
Shot on location in Dublin by a professional videography team. - Character Design & Animation
Origami character developed in collaboration with animators and filmmakers. - AI Integration
AI tools used to support animation and enhance visual storytelling. - Post-Production & Editing
Final footage edited and refined to bring the story together.
You can view the production credits, which acknowledges the talented individuals who brought this project to life including NCI's Marketing Team, our creative agency Eyecue, filming crew James Martin Studio, the animator James Gerde from GerdeGotIt along with other professionals involved such as the editor, sound technicians, voice over artist and more. Spark Foundry (part of Core) are the media partners involved in the distribution of the campaign.
Live Action Filming
A full crew was involved in the live action filming of the ad with a trapeze artist performing the actions of our origami character which would later be transformed into an animation using a range of techniques and processes. John Carvill, Creative Director with Eyecue, can be seen directing Nicola Moran in order to ensure the storyboard was captured in a way that could be interpreted by technology and bring the message of "We're with you every step of the way" to life.
Take a look at the behind the scenes footage below:
Embracing Technology
As the research pointed to a clear association between NCI and cutting-edge technology, it was important to embrace technology in the creative.
Having done work around AI including ethical usage guidelines for students, contributing to public debates that explore the potential for inequality and discrimination as well as research into how AI impacts business and the wider community, NCI is uniquely positioned to understand the concerns around creative authenticity and labour. However, there were more humans involved in making this campaign than in our previous campaigns that featured people
"NCI has always challenged, is always at the leading edge of innovation. If, as well as making people curious about NCI’s programmes and supports, our ad stirs discussion about techniques, skills, effort and where AI tools fit into work, then I’ll be happy", Director of Marketing and International Recruitment, Robert Ward.
National College of Ireland, With You Every Step Of The Way
