Prospective students rarely encounter a university for the first time in person. Long before they visit campus or attend an open day, they've encountered content. Usually online. Usually video.
Universities have realised this. The investment in video is significant and growing. But the question isn't whether to use video — it's which video formats actually move the needle in student recruitment.
Here's why video works so well in university marketing, and what that actually means for student recruitment strategy.
There are a few reasons why video has become so central:
Authenticity is harder to fake in video
Text can be carefully written and polished. Images can be staged. But video is harder to fake. A campus tour video shows what campus actually looks like. Student testimonials sound more authentic in video than they would in a testimonial quote on the website.
Prospective students, especially those making a decision about where to spend 3-4 years of their life, are looking for authenticity. Video provides it in a way that other formats don't.
Video shows the real experience
A brochure can describe the student experience. A video can show it. The difference is significant. Prospective students want to see what lectures actually look like. How students actually interact. What the environment actually feels like.
Text and images can describe those things. Video shows them. And seeing matters much more than describing.
Video is the format prospective students expect
When prospective students are researching universities, they're looking for video. They expect to find it. If a university doesn't have video content, they're more likely to move on to a university that does.
Universities that compete on video are more visible in searches, on social platforms, and in the overall student recruitment landscape.
Video allows universities to tell their story on their own terms
Student review sites and social media are going to say something about every university. Universities that publish their own video content control part of that narrative. They can shape what prospective students see and hear.
University marketing is unique because the decision is high-stakes. Choosing a university is a major commitment. Prospective students are genuinely worried about making the wrong choice.
Video addresses those worries in a way that other formats don't:
Each of these would be difficult to convey in text or images. Video makes them clear and authentic.
Universities have traditionally relied on:
None of these are bad. But they're all mediated. They're all curated. Prospective students know they're looking at the best-case version of the university.
Video — especially informal, authentic video — feels less mediated. A student talking about their experience on camera feels more real than a quote. A campus tour filmed on a regular day feels more authentic than a professionally staged photo.
Universities that are winning with video have figured out something important: polish matters less than authenticity.
The best university video isn't the most professionally produced. It's the video that feels most real. Current students talking about their experience. Campus shown on a regular day. Lectures and activities shown as they actually happen.
When universities try to make their video too polished or too professional, it often backfires. Prospective students can tell they're watching a carefully curated version. The authenticity disappears.
The universities that are seeing the best results from video are the ones making video that feels less like marketing and more like documentation. Current students talking about their experience. Lecturers teaching actual classes. Prospective students being shown what the environment actually feels and sounds like.
Here's what's happening in the market: universities that are winning with video are not the ones with the biggest production budgets. They're the ones that figured out how to make video that's authentic and useful.
A university that publishes weekly videos from current students talking about their experience beats a university with one polished brand film every time. A university that publishes course preview videos featuring actual lecturers beats a university that publishes descriptions of programmes.
The advantage isn't production quality. It's consistency, authenticity, and usefulness.
Most universities have not figured out how to do this at scale. They make some video. It sits on their website. The formats are inconsistent. There's no system.
Universities that do figure it out — that create a system for consistent, authentic video that answers the questions prospective students are actually asking — have a significant competitive advantage.
That system usually looks like:
Not all polished. Not all professional. But all useful, authentic, and consistent.
Student recruitment is getting harder. Prospective students have more choices. They're less likely to make a decision based on a single visit or a brochure. They're doing more of their research online.
Universities that can show what the experience actually feels like — through video — have a significant advantage. Not because video is trendy. But because it's the format that best conveys authenticity, and authenticity is what prospective students are looking for.
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