Obama is partnering with Brooklyn's coolest design house to make millennials care about college
Now they're partnering with maybe their biggest client yet - the White House - and targeting the most elusive consumer - millennials.
Beginning Wednesday, the White House is launching its "Heads Up, America" campaign, designed to get college-aged kids and state policymakers excited about President Obama's mission to make community college totally free.
But if the Obama Administration is going to get its message heard by young people, it will need to meet them where they're at.
That's why they're partnering with Huge, a digital agency known for helping some of the biggest brands in the world reconfigure their identities.
Huge executive creative director Tim Nolan says that the White House is finally cozying up to the idea that to make education reform palatable for younger generations, information needs to be instantly available.
So for the next three months, "Heads Up, America" will be targeting college-age people in 27 cities across the US. They will see targeted ads on Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Facebook.
"The thought is that we create these peaks [of interest] throughout the next three months," Nolan tells Tech Insider, "and each of those peaks should target either the key demographic or even more focused groups, where the people sharing the message are celebrities or influencers."
The campaign's messages all go back to the promise made by the White House back in January.
Under the proposal, known as America's College Promise, students who keep a 2.5 GPA and are pursuing a four-year degree or a job in the workforce can attend community college for free. The federal government will pay for 75% of the cost, including tuition and books, while the state will cover the remaining 25%.
Huge wants to make sure everyone who should know about it, does.
The online headquarters for the campaign is HeadsUpAmerica.us, whose only present function is to simply ask: "Do you want community college to be free for anyone willing to work for it?"
"What we're trying to do is basically show there are hundreds of thousands of people waiting at the gate for this thing to happen," Nolan says. "The more people we can get to agree with this message, the more influence we'll be able to have with policymakers in states who aren't currently part of the college promise."
Ideally, each city targeted in the campaign will follow Tennessee's lead. When the state entered into the program earlier this year, some 58,000 new applicants enrolled in community colleges. The year before, only 42% of high school seniors filled out the key financial aid paperwork known as the FAFSA. In 2015, the rate had climbed to 61%.
The campaign is set up to be as low-maintenance as possible. Big ambitions can't be complicated.
"Beyond the initial call to action, which is a yes-or-no question, there are activities and ways to support the campaign," Nolan explains, "whether it's picking up a T-shirt, tweeting out key facts, sharing with a friend - you know, the usual suspects."
Then over the next few months, a content calendar lays out where the push will go, namely with the backing of celebrities and the top-100 YouTubers.
Once the campaign reaches its natural end, it will pass the baton to a new project, called Up Next - a more comprehensive effort to completely change how younger generations interact with the government.
When Up Next launches, the website's predictive design service will serve as a hub that "almost becomes your friend," Nolan says. It'll send text messages with instructions on important civic duties, like registering to vote, applying to college, and paying off the loans that follow - all in the hope of making those key steps less of a nightmare.
"If we can make the relationship such that no one has to know the stress of that going forward," Nolan says, "then I think we've done a great job."
For decades, exorbitant costs and incomprehensible forms have made college a luxury. But with bold policy and clean design, it might just get more accessible.