A Different Lens allows you to build your own documentary based on your interests. For the first time ever, we didn’t dictate what our audience watched. They told us. We put them in the director’s chair and let them create bespoke documentaries from their perspectives. To do it, we needed a massive bank of material. We recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with world-leading academics, cutaways and music tracks. Within seconds, a user could generate his or her own documentary that presented interesting and intellectual perspectives on the world’s most pressing issues. Thousands of documentaries were made, giving Monash the ability to engage with potential students on a deeper, more targeted, more effective level.

This bespoke website was built from scratch. It used the most cutting edge of emerging web technologies to handle hundreds of hours of footage, cutaways and music tracks in order to deliver a unique documentary based on the users’ requests, immediately. Every single element was meticulously coded to ensure they would be arranged in an order that ensured a seamless viewing experience. At the conclusion of the documentary, the users’ data was converted into a personalized information kit, containing a Monash course guide that suggested degrees relevant to the users’ selections. A Different Lens was promoted on social media, through the university’s owned channels, and organic PR.

So far, thousands of high school students and industry professionals have created their own documentaries and shared them on their social networks. Users engaged with the website for an average of six-and-a-half minutes – a huge increase of time invested with any form of university content. The Monash course information website saw a surge in visitation, with traffic originating from the bespoke Monash course guide generated at the end of each documentary.

A Different Lens used individuals’ data to create bespoke documentaries in real-time. Each time someone engaged with the site and selected their insights and preferences, they were served a new piece of dynamic content. This gave Monash University the unique ability to serve highly tailored pieces of content to every single visitor of the site, which created meaningful consumer engagement and a powerful brand narrative. This data was also used to generate a tailored university course guide for each user immediately after viewing their documentary.

High school students are served hundreds of university ads. The problem is, these pieces of content are all too similar and barely scratch the surface of real world issues. Monash however, wanted to show off its forward-thinking approach to shaping the world. It wanted to talk about preventing terrorism, the ethics of neuroscience, the true impact of artificial intelligence, and much more. So, we created A Different Lens to give potential students the ability to engage with – and create – highly specific content. This is the first time a university has allowed its audience to create the content, rather than serve it to them en mass.

Monash University is Australia’s largest university. With ten different faculties, and many researchers who are leading the world in their respective fields, a traditional online film wouldn’t serve justice to the innovative thinking and action taking place at Monash. We needed to have a deeper conversation with potential students about the issues shaping the world. To do that, we needed to re-think how to serve content to each individual.