Universidad de Monterrey is an educational institution located in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, México that for 50 years has been recognized for its humanist education that provides every person that forms part of the institution the tools necessary to develop the best version of themselves and have a positive impact in their surroundings.

The insight for the concept development of this project focuses on the different skills a person can have: Hard skills are those that center on strengthening technical development and Soft skills are those that focus on emotional intelligence and interaction with other people.

For the new UDEM campaign, we highlighted the human side of the University to create a sense of belonging and connection with the ”Generation Z” or “Centennials” through the idea that we are strong through our most sensitive side. From there we extracted our global concept: “soft is harder” from which the verbal and visual communication of the campaign unfold.

The verbal communication consists mainly on the creation of soft skills that UDEM offers to its students during their education in order to form honest and capable professionals. We concluded that, even though in the past companies searched for technical skills on professionals, today they seek interpersonal and emotional skills that add value to graduates.

The strategy for the campaign was divided into the first phase of teasers and a second phase where we introduced the campaign pieces.

In the teaser phase the phrase “Wanted _” was used accompanied by a soft skill and a blank custom letter corresponding to each educational area. Through these elements, we were able to create a sense of doubt in the public and introduced the new demand presented by the job market.

In the second phase, each doubt proposed in the teaser phase was resolved through the campaign messages, which were configured with the soft skills used in the first phase and accompanied by “it’s learned at UDEM”.

For visual communication, a personalized alphabet was created based on the Work Sans typography, which was modified to create shapes that could serve as windows into the University. These windows represent the new openness of UDEM and allow people to visualize the DNA and teachings of each educational area.

We visualized this DNA by defining a new color system, based on the colors of the institutional identity manual and giving them a new twist through brighter and more intense tones, in addition to the selection of a main and secondary tone for each of the educational areas. The colored DNA was also shown in the photographs as a projection of light onto the students, which symbolizes the soft skills they learn at UDEM becoming a part of them.

This is how the campaign pieces were constructed with verbal and graphic communication and consists of the following elements: Letter as a window, photograph related to the educational program, name of the program, campaign phrase, website, and campaign signature “UDEM Inspiring your best version”.

In the end, we didn’t only develop an advertising campaign, but a communication system in which all the divisions, careers, students, principles, and values ​​of the university coexist with striking and well-grounded graphic elements.