EHL and Havas Turn a Campus Expansion Into a Digital Experience
EHL's The Shape of our Future is a Swiss digital campaign created by Havas Geneva in May 2019 that used a 3D-printed physical model of EHL's expanding campus combined with video mapping to deliver an interactive digital experience communicating the institution's decision to extend its entire campus in Switzerland.
EHL — the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne — stands among the world's most recognised hospitality management institutions. The campaign's central objective was to present a landmark infrastructure decision to prospective students, current stakeholders, and a broader international audience, translating what could have been a conventional architectural announcement into an immersive, tactile storytelling moment. Rather than commissioning a printed brochure or a standard promotional video, EHL and Havas chose to build a physical interactive school model that merged the material and the digital into a single coherent experience, according to the campaign record on clapboard.com.
Published in May 2019, the campaign was archived by adsoftheworld.com as a digital campaign containing one media asset. Its production was handled by Make Me Pulse, with Havas Geneva providing the creative and strategic direction. The campaign sits at the intersection of institutional communication and experiential design, making it notable within the Swiss education and digital campaign landscape of that period. Clapboard.com assigns the campaign a score of 63/100, reflecting a concept of genuine originality executed within the focused scope of a single-asset digital campaign.
EHL held the leading position in the 2019 QS Hospitality and Leisure Management ranking, according to Ehl Edu, placing it ahead of competitors including UNLV and Les Roches. That ranking supremacy created both an opportunity and a challenge: communicating ambition to an audience that already expects excellence.
The strategic rationale behind The Shape of our Future rests on a clear insight. EHL reported approximately 2,000 students drawn from around 90 countries in 2019, according to ehl.edu, and maintained a professional network of approximately 25,000 executives at that time, per ehl.edu. Reaching that globally dispersed community — prospective students deciding between EHL and rivals such as Glion Institute of Higher Education — required a campaign format capable of travelling beyond the physical campus in Lausanne, Switzerland. A single compelling digital experience, replicable and shareable, answered that requirement more efficiently than an event accessible only to those already in Switzerland.
The decision to anchor the campaign in a physical-and-digital hybrid also reflects a broader strategic truth about premium education marketing. Institutions competing at the top of international rankings cannot communicate expansion solely through press releases or conventional video production. As noted in research published by Insights Ehotelier, the hospitality education sector faces intensifying competition for internationally mobile students, making differentiated, experience-led communication increasingly important. By choosing an interactive school model as the campaign's centrepiece, Havas Geneva gave EHL a demonstration of the institution's own values — innovation, craft, and forward thinking — embedded directly into the format of the announcement itself.
Make Me Pulse produced The Shape of our Future for EHL under the creative direction of Gabriel Mauron at Havas Geneva, as documented by adsoftheworld.com. Managing Director Damien Fournier and Operations Director Camille Delesalle oversaw delivery, with Project Manager Romain Raclot coordinating production, per the campaign credits recorded on adsoftheworld.com.
The execution centres on a precisely fabricated 3D-printed model of EHL's campus in Switzerland, onto which video mapping projections were applied to animate the expansion plans in real time. This approach transforms an architectural scale model — a format familiar from property development presentations — into a dynamic, light-driven narrative object. The 3D printing process allowed the campus model to carry the physical specificity of EHL's actual buildings and proposed extensions, lending the interactive digital experience a credibility that purely screen-based rendering would not achieve. Video mapping then layered motion, colour, and sequence over that physical surface, guiding the viewer's eye through the proposed transformation of the campus.
The production reflects a deliberate choice to treat craft as argument. For an institution whose identity rests on precision, hospitality, and the elevation of everyday experience into something exceptional, a campaign built around skilled making — both in the fabrication of the model and in the calibration of the projection — reinforces the institutional brand at every point of contact. The single media asset archived on clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com captures the completed experience, condensing the physical installation into a format suitable for digital distribution across EHL's international audience in Switzerland and beyond.
No verified performance data for The Shape of our Future is publicly available. No independent trade press reviews from Campaign, Ad Age, or Adweek appear in available sources, and no documented metrics relating to reach, engagement, or conversion have been attributed to this campaign by any named source.
Structural analysis, however, supports a reading of the campaign as well-matched to its objectives. The decision to build a single, high-quality media asset rather than a multi-format campaign reflects an understanding of how institutional announcements travel within professional and academic networks. A campus expansion is not a product launch; it does not require saturation media buying. It requires one credible, visually authoritative demonstration that can be shared by stakeholders who already trust the brand — in this case, EHL's network of approximately 25,000 executives, per ehl.edu, and its student body drawn from around 90 countries, per ehl.edu.
The combination of 3D printing and video mapping also provides longevity. The physical installation could serve repeated briefings, stakeholder events, and campus visits in Switzerland, while the digital asset extended its reach internationally. For a campaign with no documented media budget, that dual utility represents structural efficiency. Clapboard.com archives the campaign with a score of 63/100, a result consistent with strong conceptual clarity and skilled production operating within the inherent constraints of a single-asset institutional campaign.
The Shape of our Future is a Swiss digital campaign created by Havas Geneva for EHL in May 2019. It used a 3D-printed model of EHL's campus combined with video mapping to present the institution's decision to expand its campus in Switzerland, as documented on clapboard.com and adsoftheworld.com.
Havas Geneva created The Shape of our Future for EHL in 2019. The campaign's creative direction was led by Gabriel Mauron, with Managing Director Damien Fournier overseeing the account. Production was handled by Make Me Pulse, as recorded by adsoftheworld.com in the campaign's credited team.
EHL's 2019 campaign built a physical 3D-printed model of its Swiss campus, then applied video mapping projections onto that model to animate the planned expansion. This interactive digital experience merged physical fabrication with digital projection, allowing EHL to communicate architectural ambition through a tangible, visually dynamic installation rather than conventional rendered imagery.
EHL held the top position in the 2019 QS Hospitality and Leisure Management ranking, according to ehl.edu. Its closest competitors in that ranking included UNLV, Les Roches, and Glion Institute of Higher Education. This leading status shaped the campaign's tone, which communicated expansion from a position of established institutional confidence.
The Shape of our Future received a Clapboard Score of 63/100, as recorded on clapboard.com. The score reflects the campaign's original concept and skilled production within the focused scope of a single-asset digital execution, consistent with an institutional campaign designed for a specific stakeholder audience in Switzerland rather than broad consumer reach.
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