KING’S RECRUITMENT VIDEO WINS CASE GOLD Working with King’s communications and admissions teams, Rob Bahou ’11 conceived and directed “This Could Be Your School Too,” the school’s most successful video to date BY VERA AZAR
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ast summer, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) named King’s Academy a gold award winner of its 2017 Circle of Excellence awards program. King’s was recognized for its video, “This Could Be Your School Too,” created by Robert Bahou ’11 in collaboration with the school’s communications and admissions teams. The video, which to date has been viewed more than 28,000 times on YouTube and 14,000 times on Facebook, was selected by a panel of
experts in the short recruitment video category from among 65 entries from schools around the world. According to CASE President and CEO Sue Cunningham, 2017 was the most competitive year ever for the awards program that recognizes outstanding achievement in educational advancement: some 715 higher education institutions, independent schools and nonprofits worldwide submitted more than 3,364 entries for consideration in nearly 100 categories. Judges gave 366 awards: 118 bronze, 125 silver, 107 gold and 16 grand gold.
“These awards acknowledge superior accomplishments that have lasting impact, demonstrate the highest level of professionalism and deliver exceptional results,” Cunningham says. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is one of the largest international associations of education institutions, serving more than 3,670 universities, colleges, schools and related organizations in more than 82 countries. The video’s humorous approach to introducing King’s to newly admitted SPRING 2018
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students who have not yet enrolled proved a hit with the panel of CASE judges who said that “of all the entries with a humorous approach, King’s Academy stood head and shoulders above the rest. This yield video intended for admitted students clearly hits the mark by making the relatively new institution in Jordan feel familiar and known.” The judges went on to describe the King’s video as “well written, edited beautifully, funny and original, but
Bahou decided to take a completely different approach. “I decided to use tongue-in-cheek humor for the video,” he says. “Humor is disarming, memorable, inclusive, and most importantly, it speaks to the kids. They were, after all, the target audience.” Working closely with King’s communications and admissions teams, and in particular with Admissions Officer Omer Khalayleh — who would soon become
led to two leading independent school organizations — The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) and the Enrollment Management Association — asking Bahou and Khalayleh to present on the video at their annual conferences. The success of the video also led the Department of Communications at King’s to embark on another, larger video project with Bahou, one which again featured Omer the Admissions Guy in a series of five videos on different aspects of King’s Academy — academics, co-curriculars, residential life, university counseling and the Middle School — entitled “It’s Good to Be at King’s.”
“Of all the entries with a humorous approach, King’s Academy stood head and shoulders above the rest.”
also carried a depth and strength that is hard to balance when poking fun at oneself.” Referring to Bahou, they added, “rather than showcasing an alumnus, this video was created by one, which is an innovative way of highlighting what alumni can do and are willing to do for one’s alma mater.” In explaining how he conceived the idea for the video, Bahou says that after viewing a slew of admissions videos from other schools, he noticed that they were all similar “talking heads” videos, with interview settings, shots of school life, and happy music. “My only real takeaway was that private schools around the world felt uncomfortably similar to one another,” he says. 4
BEYOND KING’S
renowned as “Omer the Admissions Guy” — Bahou created a video that has made waves, both locally and internationally. In addition to winning the CASE award, the video
“This Could Be Your School Too” and “It’s Good to Be at King’s can be viewed on the King’s Academy YouTube channel: www.youtube. com/kingsacademylions.