Role Modeling

University of Calgary - Qatar | I love what I do marketing campaign

Nursing is a dynamic and diverse profession. One day you might be helping a family learn how to fight diabetes. The next day you might be taking on zombies.

Goal: Increase Student Enrollment

The marketing team at the University of Calgary - Qatar Nursing Campus was tasked with navigating complex cultural traditions to improve local perceptions of the status of nurses. It was important to understand the different needs of our audience to develop a thoughtful, compelling public relations campaign. Prospective students needed to imagine themselves succeeding in a dynamic, hands-on, high-tech program. Their parents needed to see nursing as a high-status profession that is crucial to (and influential in) the Qatari healthcare system.

UCQ_I love what I do student ad_I'm studying for a great career.jpg

Bitesize Creative Briefs: Core Campaign Tactics

Photography: Build a photo library of nursing role models, including locally recognized and significant nursing leaders and diverse UC-Q students. Show the diversity of men and women working in the nursing field in the region.

UC-Q Student Nurses

UCQ_I love what I do male nurse_I helped save a life today.jpg

The Qatar Petrolum Nursing Team

Ad campaign: Tell personalized stories of real nurses in Qatar to illustrate why nurses matter. Celebrate high-status nurses while sharing snapshots of their daily work. The bilingual campaign will act both as a tribute to the profession and a call to action for families who are making decisions about post-secondary education and future career. Book a significant campaign featuring print ads in both English and Arabic newspapers, magazines, and billboards throughout the capital city of Doha.

The internet is full of nursing stereotypes

Youth culture in Qatar was centered squarely on video games, and zombies were having a moment in pop culture. To put ourselves in the sightlines of this core target audience and nudge their expectations about nursing, we worked with a Calgary-based digital agency to develop the Nurses Against Zombieism online video game.

Nurses Against Zombieism game instruction screen. Click on zombies to grab them. Click on normals to save them. Don't let the zombies get the normals. Don't get bitten! Only you can prevent zombieism.

NAZ Web Stats May 2011 - Feb 2012

Total Website Visits: 14,489

Unique Visits: 9,708

New Visits: 66%

Time on Site: 5.48 mins

Media Hits

“ Nurses are awesome. Their job is damn hard and they need tremendous courage, skills and braaaaaaains... to do it!
They deserve recognition. It's International Nurses Day Today.
Play and share this game and this message! ”

Redditor msimoens

UC-Q Internal Team

Graphic Design: Sahwa El Nakhli and Jenny Conway Fisher
Public Relations & Arabic Translations: Iman Galal
Communications & Media Relations Specialist: John Gulka
Marketing Coordinator: Walid Al Banna

My Role

Creative direction for UC-Q’s in-house creative team, and for digital agency Structured Abstraction, and freelance photographers Sequin Miner
Copywriting, editing & content development
Graphic design and art direction
Marketing campaign strategy (campaigns included print ads, public relations events, and Out-of-Home advertising)
Website and social media content