STUARTHOLME SCHOOL
An Open Day campaign that threw out the school marketing playbook and took its cues from Wes Anderson for "Step Up to Stuartholme"
Stuartholme is one of Queensland's most established girls' schools, with a long history of producing students recognised for their confidence, intellectual ambition, and grounded character. Part of an international Sacred Heart network, it blends a long tradition with a forward-looking approach, built around faith, learning and the development of confident young women. The campus has personality and so does the community inside it.
Brisbane's private school sector is fiercely competitive and families are making enrolment decisions earlier than ever. Most schools reach for the same messaging: gleaming campuses, top-tier curriculums, impressive alumni. The effect is a sector that blurs together in parents' minds, where many schools market themselves like universities and lose the human texture of an actual school community. There was a gap nobody was filling. No school was leading with personality. No school was making prospective families feel what it's like to belong. Stuartholme's real strength was never just its facilities. It was the spirit and warmth of the place and that's a far harder thing for a competitor to imitate.
We set the traditional school tour aside and took inspiration from an unlikely place: Wes Anderson. His films are built on meticulous visual style, charming quirk, and stories told through the eyes of young characters. It was the right lens for a school with this much architectural and cultural character. At the heart of 'Wesholme' is a simple story. A nervous Year 7 student is stepping up for her first day and is welcomed by a confident Year 12 guide. Together they move through the school in playful, rhythmic dialogue, revealing Stuartholme in a way that feels personal and immersive, and nothing like a standard tour.
"We have watched on repeat for the last 12 hours and they keep getting better! Thank you all for bringing this to life!"
LEADERSHIP - STUARTHOLME SCHOOL
At a school of Stuartholme's calibre, parents take the academic results, the facilities and the extracurriculars as a given. They're the price of entry, not the deciding factor. So rather than recite a checklist every competitor could match, we built the campaign around the spirit of the school and let the audience feel what makes the place itself.
That shift from what Stuartholme offers to who Stuartholme is, moved the school out of a feature comparison and into a category of one. Facilities can be matched. Identity, warmth and a genuine sense of belonging cannot. 'Wesholme' was made to stay with an unfamiliar parent long after the Open Day, less a campaign than a portrait of the school's character.
Three things made the reference the right one.
The Aesthetic: pastel palettes, symmetrical compositions, and meticulously framed shots, drawn from the look of The Grand Budapest Hotel, turned the campus into a character of its own.
The Students: the charisma and confidence of the girls at Stuartholme is among the strongest we've worked with, so we built the narration as a call and response between them, letting the tour feel authentic and full of life rather than scripted.
And the Disruption: a Wes Anderson film refuses to blend in, every frame unmistakably its own, and the campaign borrowed that same conviction. The result was impossible to confuse with any other school's marketing.
The energy on this one was different from the start. A film inspired concept for a commercial is exactly what a team of cinephiles wants to be handed and weaving Wes Anderson's style into something fresh brought the best out of every department: scriptwriting, storyboarding, art direction, editing, and colour grading.
On set it was the usual ShareStory atmosphere, light and fun but tightly run, with a production schedule built so the long days held no surprises. What made the difference was trust. Trust in the vision, trust across the team, and trust from Stuartholme, who gave us the room to execute without restriction. That freedom is why this remains one of the projects we're proudest of.
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