Communication
Dainfern College needed communication that could support different decisions across the school community. Gala Digital developed campaigns that helped prospective families understand the College while giving current students and parents new ways to remain connected during a period of rapid change.
The College serves families at different stages of the education journey. A parent considering the early years has different questions from one exploring Grade 1 or the Cambridge programme, yet the communication still needs to feel like it comes from one institution.
The disruption of 2020 added another challenge. Enrolment activity had to continue while students, staff and families were spending less time together on campus.
Gala Digital developed campaign directions around the decisions families were making instead of sending every audience the same message. The work moved across social media, video, print and outdoor placements, allowing each campaign to meet people in the format and location most useful at the time.
The partnership also created space for stories from inside the College. The five-week Lockdown Sessions series invited students to share musical performances, giving the wider community something familiar to gather around when normal school life had been interrupted.
2020 to 2022
Communication
Digital Marketing and Communication Design
Enrolment campaigns, campaign design, video and media placements
The enrolment work was planned around the priorities of each school stage. Campaigns for early learning could speak to proximity, continuity and a child’s first experience of school, while communication for older students could give greater weight to the College environment and the Cambridge opportunity.
This made the work more useful to families because the message began with the decision in front of them. It also gave the enrolment team clearer campaigns to carry into its follow-up conversations.
The campaign system extended into the places where families already spent time. Enrolment messages appeared in estate publications, at Fourways Mall and on digital boards around Kyalami and Montecasino. Open Day communication also moved into street-pole advertising, newsletter placements and physical display formats.
The result was not one campaign resized repeatedly. Each placement was considered according to the time, distance and attention available to the person seeing it.
When students could no longer experience school life in the usual way, Gala Digital helped the College turn student performances into a five-week digital series. The Lockdown Sessions placed the students at the centre of the communication and gave families a reason to return each week.
The series showed that school communication can do more than pass on information. It can help a community continue to recognise itself during change.
Campaign reporting brought the year’s work into one view, covering the Cambridge campaign, enrolment activity, outdoor displays, community publications and the weekly performance series. This gave the College a clearer record of what had been placed into market and how the different formats contributed to the communication programme.
The work gave Dainfern College a broader campaign system for enrolment and community communication. It connected digital content with outdoor and print placements, while the Lockdown Sessions created a student-led series during one of the most disrupted periods in the school calendar.
We design campaigns that help people understand what matters and take the next step with confidence.
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