The Swiss education landscape is crowded, filled with institutions speaking the same familiar language: practical, accredited, safe. In a culture that values modesty and understatement, these messages tend to blend together. For younger audiences, it all feels… pretty irrelevant, sometimes even a bit outdated.

For AKAD, it was crucial to reach Gen Z and young Millennials – people juggling jobs, relationships, identity, and the ever-looming “What comes next?” question. Many feel restricted by traditional education paths, worried about choosing a future that feels too small or too limiting.

AKAD needed to understand how this audience perceives the brand. The goal: meet young professionals exactly where life happens – on the street, at home, in their feed. AKAD shouldn’t feel like just another education provider, but like the rule-breaker in a category that rarely breaks rules.

For this young audience, “trustworthy” doesn’t automatically mean “boring.” To capture attention, AKAD needed to align the brand with lifestyle and ambition. We focused on a mindset we saw again and again: education decisions are ways of breaking out of a pre-drawn life path.

We positioned AKAD in a new, untapped brand space where flexibility becomes the new premium. The brand territories were intentionally bold, hedonistic, and uncompromising—rooted in the real lives of our young audience and the “Brat” culture, which prefers breaking expectations over fulfilling them.

In a category defined by restraint and tradition, AKAD chose to show student life as it actually is: chaotic, funny, intense, and full of energy.

Instead of perfection, we leaned into personality. Instead of pretending education is a flawless idyll, we highlighted the real – and often exhausting – mix of learning and life.

The result is anything but trivial. It’s culturally relevant. And it works. The campaign drove attention, organic engagement, and meaningful resonance with exactly the audience we wanted. Not because it was loud, but because it was honest.

This creative platform became AKAD’s rallying call—and a clear signal that the brand is stepping away from classic education clichés.

We developed a high-contrast look built on a raw black-and-white foundation, illuminated by “Neon Matcha.” The design needed to feel street-approved and stand out sharply against the grey tones of the commuter routine.

In tone and messaging, we transformed academic acronyms into playful “Bold Codes” – inspired by gaming and tech culture – to position AKAD’s programs as future-forward and full of energy:

• HF (Höhere Fachschule) → High Future
• BMS (Berufsmaturitätsschule) → Boss Mode Start

We created an “Anti School” world for the campaign, centered on learning on your own terms. Flash photography, underground zine references, and wild-posting aesthetics helped portray the campaign’s protagonists as “career rebels” – people who don’t wait for permission to carve their own path.

The campaign ran across DOOH and social (TikTok and Instagram), precisely where the audience seeks inspiration, not instructions.