Motio has announced a major new partnership with the University of Sydney Union (USU) ahead of the launch of Motio Campus.
Designed to help universities, unions and student-life operators communicate more effectively with students, Motio Campus will bring together digital media, content, experiential, social, email, offers, competitions and brand experiences. The network is expected to have close to 100 digital displays active by O-Week in February 2027.
Motio CEO Adam Cadwallader said: “Campus starts with the student experience.
“Universities and student-life organisations are already communicating with students through social, email, events, physical spaces and digital displays. We want to help connect those touchpoints and create something more seamless, useful and engaging.
“We’ve become very good at understanding audiences within trusted places, why people are there, what matters to them at that moment and how communication can improve the experience.
“We think we can bring something genuinely different to campus.”
The University of Sydney Headlines the Footprint
The partnership will see Motio work with the University of Sydney Union, which operates many of the major hospitality, social and student-life environments across the campus.
Jane Coles, director of marketing and partnerships at the University of Sydney Union, said: “Student life happens across so many different touchpoints.
“It might be an event, a club or society, something happening on social media, an email, a café or bar, or simply one of the spaces students spend time in between classes.
“Digital signage gives us another important channel to do that – particularly because it reaches students in the physical environments where they are already spending time.”
Joining as Campus launch partners are the University of Wollongong and the University of Southern Queensland. Motio also has a presence in café and bar environments at the University of Western Australia and University of Melbourne, with additional partnerships across colleges and specialist tertiary and vocational education settings.
Beyond Packaging Rectangles
The student experience approach underpins how Motio plans to work with advertisers.
“We want to create amazing experiences for brands by genuinely understanding the audience, the environment and what the brand is trying to achieve,” Cadwallader said.
“The display is absolutely part of that, but it isn’t the whole opportunity. It’s about finding the right idea, at the right time, in a place that means something to the student.”
Motio enters a well-established campus media category in Australia, notably through oOh!media’s long-running Study network, and Cadwallader said oOh! has played an important role in developing university media and demonstrating its value to Australian advertisers.
“oOh! has built a terrific and well-loved Study network over many years and has done a great job establishing the value of this audience and these environments,” Cadwallader said.
“We’re not pretending we invented campus media, and nor do we need to.”
The network focuses on high-dwell student environments including cafés, bars, student hubs and social spaces.
Student Experience Network adds national reach.
Motio has signed as the exclusive media partner of the Student Experience Network (SEN), whose members span universities, TAFEs, unions, guilds and campus organisations across more than 100 locations.
Paul Clayton, CEO and board secretary of the Student Experience Network, said: “Our members are responsible for many of the things that make student life what it is.
“The opportunity with Motio is to create ideas that can connect some of those communities while still recognising that every campus is different.”
Starting the Conversation Ahead of Orientation 2027
While O-Week in February next year will provide the first major moment for the network, Motio is launching Campus into the advertising market now.
Cadwallader added: “We want to be in conversations with brands now.
“Orientation is obviously an extraordinary moment. Students are discovering a new environment, new people, new experiences and new brands, and we have some incredible ideas about what partners could do.
“But Campus isn’t just an O-Week product. This is about the entire student experience across the year. We want brands and agencies to understand that there is another credible option in this market.”
All Campus campaigns will be measured through MOVE and available across major programmatic buying platforms, alongside direct media campaigns and integrated partnerships.
