Scape Student Accommodation
Conversations into Conversions
Scape, a leader in premium student accommodation, partnered with Yango to turn a major industry challenge into a groundbreaking opportunity. Faced with a tightening market and a distracted audience, we moved beyond conventional advertising to create a new benchmark for direct response: the conversational display campaign.
“Conversations into Conversions,” didn’t just capture attention—it transformed it into tangible business results, cementing Scape’s market leadership and proving the immense power of interactive communication.
Conversations into Conversions was a finalist for B&T’s Best Digital Campaign 2025
The Challenge: Standing Out
Scape operates at the premium end of the student accommodation market. Recent government policy changes, including caps on international student admissions and rising visa fees, had intensified competition.
Yango’s custom research revealed that while price was a primary concern for students and parents, Scape’s premium offering meant we couldn’t compete on cost. Our core challenge was to effectively communicate the unique value of Scape’s high-quality accommodation and best-in-class amenities to a discerning audience.
Compounding this was the struggle to cut through the digital noise. In an era where GenZ attention spans are shrinking, traditional display ads were proving ineffective at meaningfully engaging with them. We needed a new approach—one that would not just show an ad but start a conversation.
The Creative Insight: From Passive Viewing to Active Dialogue
We realised that in a world of endless scrolling, the most valuable commodity is not screen time, but genuine engagement. The key insight was that by transforming a one-way advertisement into a two-way, interactive dialogue, we could capture and sustain attention.
This “conversational display” approach was a game-changer.
It allowed users to self-navigate their ad journey, exploring specific property features and amenities relevant to their interests. This not only created a richer, more informative experience but also inherently demonstrated the premium, tailored service Scape offers. It was about creating an unmissable and unforgettable experience that directly addressed user needs and showcased Scape’s unique benefits before they even reached the website.
Our campaign goals were clear: boost brand awareness, strengthen Scape’s market leadership, and drive year-over-year sales growth to address lower occupancy rates in specific properties.
Strategy & Execution: Building a Path to Conversion
Our solution was the conversational display strategy itself. Instead of static banners, we created dynamic, interactive ad units that guided users through a structured dialogue. This format was perfectly suited to:
- Educate: We highlighted Scape’s premium amenities and unique selling points directly within the ad unit, pre-qualifying leads and setting expectations.
- Prioritise: The flexible nature of the format allowed us to feature multiple properties within the same creative, strategically prioritising those with lower occupancy rates to drive targeted interest.
- Engage: By demanding active participation, the format inherently captured attention and facilitated deeper information absorption, a crucial factor for our Gen Zs with diminishing attention spans.
The execution involved crafting intuitive conversational flows within the ad units. Users could select options to learn more about specific properties, view amenities, or understand the Scape living experience. This self-directed journey ensured that the information delivered was highly relevant to each user, fostering a sense of personalisation and control.
The ads were strategically placed across relevant contextual placements with sophisticated audience targeting overlayed, supported by digital media channels where our audience was most active – including social media, Twitch, and YouTube, ensuring maximum reach for this novel format.
Unprecedented Results: Conversions Beyond Expectation
The “Conversations into Conversions” campaign delivered truly exceptional results, significantly surpassing all key objectives and driving record-breaking growth for Scape.
Our conversational ad units achieved an average user engagement time of 16.93 seconds. This is a staggering 5.3 times longer than the industry average for traditional display formats (3.2 seconds), demonstrating an unparalleled ability to capture and hold attention.
This higher level of active engagement directly translated into a record-high surge in search interest for all featured properties and a significant boost in brand metrics:
Soaring Website Traffic:
Traffic to the Scape website soared +22% with a notable rise of up to +144% traffic visits to key focus property pages.
Explosive Booking Growth:
Bookings to live in residence increased by an impressive +39% YoY. Digital bookings for March to June 2025 also saw a +23% increase over the previous year.
Massive Revenue Jump:
Booking revenue jumped by an astounding 41% year-on-year, showcasing the direct financial impact of the campaign.
By leveraging this engaging conversational format, Scape not only overcame a significant market challenge but also cemented its position as a leader in the student accommodation sector.
“This campaign not only addressed our immediate challenges but also set a new standard for engagement and conversion in the student accommodation sector. By transforming passive viewing into active engagement, the campaign delivered unprecedented business results and cemented Scape’s market leadership”.
Rosalind Lill General Manager at Scape
Want to learn more? Mi-3 dove into the details of the Conversations to Conversions campaign speaking with our general manager of strategy, culture and insights, Eb Yusuf and Scape’s GM of brand and marketing, Rosalind Lill.
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