This project is the story of an advertising brief that led to an academic research project, that led to the launch of a world-first product. Sans Forgetica is the world’s first typeface specifically designed and proven to help you remember more. The ultimate study hack; created for high school students and delivered to them at the exact time they were studying for their university entrance exams. The perfect way for a university to directly engage with their audience and actually demonstrate why they should study there.

Every October, RMIT University and forty-two other Australian universities compete for the attention of teenagers studying for their final high school exams.

RMIT is a university grounded in technology, design and innovation. Based in Melbourne, but with a global footprint of extended campuses, RMIT needed to reinforce its brand credentials as a cutting-edge university to an increasingly globally-minded audience of prospective students. But with seemingly little differentiation between university offerings, how could RMIT stay top-of-mind and reinforce the reasons to study there?

Our task was to develop a campaign that would reach school leavers at the very time they were making the decisions about their choice of university – during the revision window before their final year exams.

Our solution would be judged both on brand metrics (reach of branded communications) and engagement metrics (brand interactions and lead generation).

Rather than using traditional advertising which distracts students from their study, we found a way to actually help them. We created Sans Forgetica: the world’s first typeface specifically designed and proven to help you remember more.

While investigating ideas for study hacks, we discovered previous research into the concept of cognitive disfluency: the principle whereby creating small obstructions to learning results in deeper cognitive processing, and subsequently better memory traces are created. This provided the inspiration for our idea.

We brought together RMIT academics from the fields of design and psychology to work with the agency to design, refine and test the font; then gave it away to students studying for their exams as a download or Chrome browser extension. The ultimate study hack delivered just when students needed it.

Our primary audience was final-year high school students and their parents (as key influencers to student university choices). The secondary audience was potential international students. With these audiences in mind and a very limited paid media budget ($30,000AUD), the following elements were developed:

- A PR strategy targeting general news, technology, design, psychology, education and youth media in both the local Australian and global markets.

- A search strategy developed by reviewing all key subjects and study texts for the upcoming exams and building a keyword strategy that targeted people searching for study notes relating to those very texts.

- An organic and paid social strategy that targeted students in their ‘downtime’ when taking a break from study.

- A school outreach strategy, where hard copy ‘font books’ were sent to school principals and career advisors, putting them in the hands of those who can influence many.

The font was launched in October 2018 as a free download for Mac or PC, as well as a Chrome browser extension. The heart of the campaign was the website, where people could learn about the font and its development, download the font or Chrome extension, sign up to receive more study hacks and advice over the exam period, or test the font for themselves with an interactive function that allowed them to save study notes.

The project launched at the start of October to coincide with the key exam revision window. Given the topical nature of the idea, which was framed as ‘the ultimate study hack’, it quickly caught fire and delivered huge reach, engagement and response in the crucial first four weeks after launch.

Sans Forgetica has captured imaginations both locally and globally, and has proven to be a groundbreaking success from both a brand and acquisition perspective. While data for university applications cannot be shared due to client confidentiality, all lead indicators show that by finding a way to be more useful, Sans Forgetica has delivered a truly memorable result.

Brand reach

• 700 million earned media impressions

• $7 million earned media value

• 27 million social impressions

Brand engagement

• 250,000 font downloads (1,111% of target)

• 36,000 Chrome extension users (480% of target)

Direct response

• 87,088 leads generated (1,935% of target)

• Cost per lead $1.49 (benchmark CPL $58.50)

By creating a compelling product we drove an unprecedented response. The university had to upgrade their Salesforce licence to handle the volume of leads, and the campaign smashed all benchmarks for reach, engagement and response.