A new school was being launched for students aged between 3 to 17 in the heart of Downtown Dubai. Two hundred children needed to enrol by the time the doors opened.

Al Zarooni Investments wanted to develop a brand and creative communications strategy that would not only compete in a highly competitive and cluttered category challenging the status quo of institutionalised learning, ultimately providing a platform that communicated with children’s parents and the wider community but also attracting entrepreneurial business health/wellbeing and technology communities to embrace and participate in the future of children’s learning.

The objective was to create a brand strategy & communications program that built awareness and positioned the school as the no1 disruptor in the marketplace, allowing parents to not only understand the key issues their children face in later years when graduating but also give them an education differentiator to consider when choosing a school.

The creative strategy allowed us to take several principles into the design methodology, which directly influenced the result. This adaptive agile design thinking system changed and evolved through all communication.

Each child needs to be equipped with the Power of Choice to prepare for later life, which requires many different behavioural and technical competencies. This influenced the school’s visual system and communications and fundamentally served as the compass for all their innovations.

Routed in the core strategic positioning, it became a direct creative disruptor in challenging today’s education, creating institutionalised thinking. Our identity set new ways of thinking concerning brand development.

Agility

Dynamic brand identity utilising eight different typefaces based on

Iconography.

Applying the core principles of the educational pillars, Maths, Language, Science, Sports etc.

Challenging institutionalised thinking through creativity

Images of children being creative in all walks of life, choice, flexibility and agility in all design & communication assets.

We needed an adaptive identity that would change and flex over months and years as education models changed themselves.

By looking at best-practice design thinking from around the world, we embraced a disruptive strategic and creative positioning immediately set the brand apart from its contemporaries. Fun vibrant, agile and dynamic ensured that the identity couldn’t stay still and was forced to adapt ensuring that it was disruptive like the industry itself needed to be.

8 individual typefaces formed the name Citizens were created. Each letter changed at any point using a different typeface. By using a flexible design system it had a structure in which it could still reinvent itself without looking inconsistent.

The typefaces were built upon the pillars of the school curriculum, maths, language, science, arts, music and sports utilising iconography and colour.

This iconography development was then applied to a colour palette, photography and

Within six months, we successfully exceeded the planned targets, generating widespread visibility boosted by creative storytelling and authentic media inputs. More importantly, the campaign drove sign-ups, smashing enrolment targets and generating a consistent level of enquiries to the school.

KPI: 725 enrolments (KPI target 175) reporting over 300% increase in enrolments from targets 

KPI: Campaign coverage reach, impressions, and sentiments

25M+ impressions (KPI target was 10M)

$2.5M+ AVE reach (KPI target was $1M)

75% increase in brand recall

55% higher CTRs, 65% improvement in the quality of leads

Featured across leading titles, including The National, Khaleej Times, CNN, Al Bayan, Arab News, Dubai Eye 

100% positive coverage

First school to allow payments via Crypto Currency