System1 Ad Testing Helps Deakin University Show Students the Wonderful is Possible
For 50 years, Australia’s Deakin University has been a place where innovation and technology intersect to drive education and research forward, inspiring students and graduates to see possibility, purpose and progress where they may never have imagined.
In 2025, Deakin engaged with creative agency SICKDOGWOLFMAN to help it ideate and launch a new brand campaign, ‘See the Wonderful Possible’, inspired by real-world stories — from pioneering research to personal achievement and community impact.
“We were inspired not just by Deakin’s big ideas, but by the incredible human stories that show how possibility can emerge in unexpected ways. Our goal was to capture that sense of wonder — not as fantasy, but as something very real and very now,” said James Orr, Creative Director, SICKDOGWOLFMAN.
Deakin sought to better understand whether the campaign would indeed spark pride, curiosity and connection among prospective students and the wider community, and to validate whether the storytelling approach would differentiate Deakin in the competitive higher-education landscape.
Deakin approached System1, The Creative Effectiveness Platform, to test its brand campaign. System1’s Test Your Ad platform measures consumers’ emotional responses to advertising, delivering predictive metrics based on the type and intensity of emotion that creative elicits.
The Star Rating predicts long-term brand-building potential, the Spike Rating predicts short-term sales potential and the Fluency Rating measures the strength of brand recognition. Together, these metrics, along with insights from consumers, help brands optimise creative to maximise commercial impact.
Deakin tested the ad with a custom audience of:
System1’s Test Your Ad Pro report detailed the Types of Happiness that respondents felt while watching the ad, including ‘Uplifted’ and ‘Excited’, Reasons for Emotion in the form of verbatims like “Super empowering and inspiring to high school students curious about the future” and Key Associations like ‘Education’, ‘Trusted’ and ‘Inspiring’. Insights highlighted that moments featuring real students generated the strongest emotional response, reinforcing Deakin’s decision to emphasise authentic human stories.
With the target audience, the ad secured a Star Rating of 4.9, predicting ‘Strong’ long-term brand-building potential. It also achieved an ‘Exceptional’ Spike Rating, which predicts short-term sales potential.
To fully realise the predicted commercial effects, the audience must be able to identify the brand and the campaign requires proper investment. Supporting the former, 91% of viewers correctly attributed the creative to Deakin in testing, representing a ‘Strong’ Fluency Rating.
On the latter point, Deakin committed to an integrated campaign including TV, cinema, social, digital and outdoor channels nationwide, ensuring that it would be able to reach its target audience and make them feel that anything is possible at the university. System1’s testing provided confidence that this level of investment would translate into meaningful brand preference and consideration across enrolment periods.
“This campaign is a wonderful glimpse of what’s possible when curiosity, optimism and purpose drive education and research, revealing the real impact Deakin people have across communities and lives,” said Abbie Allen, Director, Brand and Marketing Communications, Deakin University. “System1’s testing reinforced that our campaign would resonate with people looking to attend university and parents who influence their decision making, validating the strength of the creative platform and its authentic, emotionally grounded storytelling approach.”
"System1’s testing reinforced that our campaign would resonate with people looking to attend university and parents who influence their decision making, validating the strength of the creative platform and its authentic, emotionally grounded storytelling approach."
Abbie Allen Director, Brand and Marketing Communications, Deakin University
"Our testing demonstrated that Deakin’s creative resonates with audiences and differentiates the university, giving the team confidence to invest in a robust, integrated campaign. We’re proud to have been a partner on this journey."
Vanessa Cox SVP – APAC, System1
As World leaders in predicting and improving advertising effectiveness, Test Your Ad provides the most accurate/predictive metrics.