Great results from batyr’s BCII Industry Innovation Project!

It’s Awkward But…

The campaign was created by students Sabrina, Lily, Mikayla and Steph as a part of their 4th year Industry Innovation Project (IIP) in the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII). The Industry Innovation Project is an opportunity for teams of students to work closely with an Industry Partner over the course of one semester on a real-world problem presented to them. Sitting within the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, the BCII equips students with the ability to work within and across the boundaries of traditional disciplines and to approach problems with innovative and open minds. The result? Projects that offer fresh and unexplored insights to the highly complex problems our Industry Partners are experiencing.

batyr, a small social enterprise focused on stimulating conversations with young people around mental health, began their BCII journey as an Industry Partner in 2019.  They presented a project brief to the team– how might emerging technology be used to impact and influence batyr’s future business strategy?

The team took their project brief through a series of steps in order to properly understand the problem space and ensure their proposed initiative remained relevant and useful to batyr and their audience. They researched, experimented, created, developed and prototyped, using methodologies learnt throughout their BCII journey. From this process, the team developed a brand activation strategy to increase awareness of batyr as a brand, and encourage young people to talk about their mental health whilst acknowledging the stigma and awkwardness around starting these conversations. The power of starting the conversation around mental health lies in three words – it’s awkward but…

Excitingly, the team’s campaign was launched by batyr for their Mental Health Month campaign in October 2019. Thrilled with the work that came from the Industry Innovation Project, batyr took the team’s campaign recommendations on board, and It’s Awkward But… was brought to life. 

Since the campaign’s launch, batyr has received an incredible response from a range of individuals, organisations and key stakeholders. Several key Instagram influencers who are advocates for mental health jumped on board and shared the It’s Awkward But… message with their audiences (photos below), and the strength of the campaign has opened up a range of other opportunities for batyr, including:

• A full-page colour advert in Men’s Health magazine, donated for free by Pacific Magazines
• Interest from Pedestrian TV to include editorial content on their website
• Free digital media inventory from Seven West Media to promote the campaign, for which batyr has had the students’ assets turned into animations!
• Further exposure of the campaign in batyr’s school programs, with stickers and other promotional materials being made to compliment the campaign and share the message amongst students

Congratulations to Sabrina, Lily, Mikayla and Steph!