We’ve done a lot with our partners at Mercy University: a full-on rebrand, a campaign that conquered the fears of prospective students, and even one that brought a literal horse to the streets of Brooklyn. The “Made for Mavericks” platform showed what Mercy can do, but we’d yet to show exactly how they do it. The time had come to tackle a new frontier: the campus itself.

Mercy wanted to bring the student experience to life—both for the main Mercy brand and their School of Education. For undergrads, this meant digging deeper than a typical graduation moment, into the real-life journey that led there. For educators, it meant showcasing Mercy’s diversity of programs. In short, we needed to speak to two very different markets in an equally authentic way.



Finding the Thread
The best way to communicate a university’s benefits? Ask the students that benefit from them. We dug into quote after quote about the Mercy experience, hearing not only about programs and support provided to students, but also personal success stories. What stuck out most was Mercy’s knack for helping students where other schools didn’t. Those late nights, tight schedules, difficult family circumstances – Mercy staff clearly goes the extra mile for students with extra struggles. Not just to graduate, but to impart real skills along the way.

For the School of Education, we worked with Mercy to gather insights on educators’ careers. We learned they aren’t always an A to Z path, but a series of pivots in a journey of self-discovery. And Mercy has the flexibility to lead teachers to their next career move, whatever that may be.

We had our messaging. The question was, how would we communicate it for both schools at once?

Getting Momentous
After some concepting, we finally landed on the tagline “Every Moment Matters,” a statement that works two-fold. For the core Mercy brand, it means being there for students during the hard parts that most colleges don’t want to talk about. The in-between moments that lead you to the milestones. For the School of Education, “moment” means every step of an educator’s career that leads them to their next role, and in turn, their bigger impact. Mercy loved it. Now we just needed an interesting way to bring it to life in video.

Capturing the Moments
Working with the talented folks at Nightshift Productions, we arrived at an engaging visual technique that captures the essence of the moment through freeze-frame. Shot via automated camera movements, high frame rates, and talented actors that were able to convey emotion while remaining still as a rock, the camera weaves through snapshot scenes to capture moments big, small, good and bad throughout students’ experiences at Mercy.