I'll be upfront - like many students and organisers, I have a pretty strong distaste for student politics the type of person it commonly attracts - the worst political hacks of them all.
So when i was asked to do some work on a new project by the Queensland Greens to develop communications for the UQ Greens first run at union representation, I was skeptical. But in an effort to combat the post federal 25' election blues i said yes.
Quickly I discovered that, even in student politics, when you've got a team running that actually wants to bring about positive change, not just add padding to their resume, good things can come about!
Taking learnings from the recent federal election and global movements such as the Mamdani campaign, we took this opportunity to redefine how we could run a campaign on this scale, with a super short timeframe.
Our small team quickly discovered we had signed up for way more than we thought. I was brought in on a paid capacity to manage our entire communications, material, advertising, and social media strategy.
That included creating the progressives brand from scratch, defining a clear visual identity, and developing messaging and content that identified student issues and directly translated them into understandable, clear, and actionable policy. I utilised my skills in design and video to create a campaign that cut through the noise, excited supporters and voters, and put us on the map.
I also managed video production, including day to day content, a launch video, and advertising. On the final weekend before voting began we massively adjusted our messaging based on feedback and decided to run targeted advertising. Instead of adapting existing content, I planned, scripted, casted, shot, edited, and started running 7 video ads with unique copy and casts within 36 hours. This allowed us to use A/B tests of different individuals and copy on target audiences to ensure we cut through as much as we could in the final week. This included collaborating with a Chinese organiser to create an advertisement entirely in Chinese, to counter messaging by a pro-LNP group - it was so successful that they threatened legal action.
One of seven final week ads, fully produced and running within 36 hours.
The Progressives Launch Video.
This video, also produced within 36 hours for our final week ads, was produced alongside a Chinese organiser to attack a misinformation campaign by a rival, pro-LNP campaign that was exclusively targeting Chinese voters.
One of seven final week ads, fully produced and running within 36 hours
You can check out more of my work for this campaign on the Progressive's Instagram - @Progressives4UQU!