Datisan Partners With USC For Virtual Open Day

Datisan partnered with the University of the Sunshine Coast. (USC) again to create a virtual Open Day for prospective students.

As USC’s technology and digital marketing partner, Datisan is excited to announce the return of this virtual and immersive open day environment.

In 2020, USC Australia faced a challenge: how to provide its expected personable and approachable face-to-face Open Day experience, with all of the restrictions around social distancing and the need to balance community health.

Datisan scoped ideas around immersive student experiences and connected USC with Xpon Digital and their leading web-VR and interactive 360-degree technology platform, Holoscribe.

With support from Datisan and Xpon Digital, USC Australia successfully pivoted from a traditional face-to-face campus-only event to designing an engaging and online open day experience that is able to convey a lot of information about study options, virtually. 

USC’s Open Day, this year launching on Sunday 18 July 2021, allows each user to have a personalised virtual experience. 

• Users can hear from, and chat with, lecturers, students and graduates about their study options and where uni can take them 
• Users have the freedom to plan their visit to suit their needs and study interests
• The platform also provides connected guided tours of USC’s varied campuses and facilities.
• As a virtual environment, it is available 24/7 on all devices, so that it can be explored at any time.  

The ability for the virtual open day platform to be available longer than just one day has meant that USC has more time to drive audiences through to that virtual environment.

This has allowed more people to connect to information and experiences about USC and study. 

The ability for the Holoscribe platform to be updated easily with new and engaging content means this virtual strategy is very cost-effective for the marketing of the Open Day and makes it accessible to visitors outside of the typical open day season. 

The platform also added new features to improve the overall user experience, such as the ability to favourite hotspots so users can easily return to information, plus the ability to share it to a wider network through social sharing.

This year the promotion of USC Australia’s Open Day Online is based on the messaging of ‘one small step’. developed by Brisbane creative agency RedSuit, the creative shows how Open Day is the first step to university and then to a career. 

Digital ad placements for Open Day Online include Search 360, Display & Video 360, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Spotify and digital radio.

As a full stack sales partner, Datisan connected USC’s activity to Google Cloud and Google Marketing Platform to maintain strong digital marketing and XR analytics strategy, ensuring this important activity was able to be measured and optimised.

Karyn Brinkley, director of USC Australia’s Marketing and external engagement team said: “We were really thrilled with both the aesthetics and the performance of the platform Xpon Digital built for us with Datisan’s support.

“We weren’t sure what to expect on the day, but the number of visitors – over 1,500 prospective students on launch day – matched what we’d have expected of an on-campus Open Day.

“And after that, we had an Open Day where people could explore in their own time, and return to when it suited them.

“Our long-term visitor expectations were exceeded by 46% within the first 30 days of the virtual environment going live.

Most importantly, there was really high engagement with the platform with long – 89 per cent og visitor satisfaction with the virtual experience.

It was a no-brainer to recommit to and further develop the platform for 2021.”

Datisan’s head of AdTech, Bharat Tarachandani, said:  “It was very pleasing to be able to support USC Australia’s key performance metrics for the Open Day while connecting them to new technology.

“We were able to consolidate the media implementation and engagement, which also made it easier to track a truer return on advertising investment, delivering efficiency and reducing acquisition costs by 14.5 per cent year on year.”  

Chris Rozic, CEO and Co-Founder of Datisan, said: “The primary aim of the Open Day project was to build an environment for USC to connect with visitors when it wasn’t possible to be on campus.

“However, in the back of our mind, the longevity of such an environment was also critical for the university and return on investment both in resources and audience solutions.”