The Context
In a post-pandemic world, with thousands of students feeling unmotivated and uncertain about their future, a non-profit organization in the Canary Islands faced a major challenge:
Convincing overwhelmed high school seniors to sign up for an experience that could shape their professional path.
That organization was Canary Talent, a local initiative known for fighting the region’s brain drain by connecting young people with mentors and real-world experiences in the careers they aspire to—through its flagship program, Canarias Masterclass.
Until then, the formula was clear: visit schools, give inspiring talks, and enroll close to a thousand students each year. But in 2020, that entire model collapsed.
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The Challenge
The sudden loss of in-person school talks didn’t just cut off Canary Talent’s main acquisition channel—it forced a fundamental rethink.
How do you reach and engage students who are emotionally exhausted, skeptical, and flooded with digital noise?
This wasn’t about moving a campaign online. It was about uncovering what could still spark attention, trust, and action in a generation that had mentally disconnected from their future.
What were they worried about? What still mattered to them? What could cut through the noise?
And we had to figure it out fast—on a tight budget, in a fragile emotional landscape, and without compromising on results.
We didn’t promise numbers. We believed in testing, learning fast, and giving everything we had.
A Live Strategy Week 1: Testing the Waters
After a round of quick interviews, we launched the first version of the landing and ran multiple low-budget ad variants—different messages, formats, and audience groups.
The goal: launch fast, learn faster.
We avoided over-segmentation and let the algorithm do its part, trusting it would surface patterns if the messaging was strong. Instagram was the first to take off, showing early traction and engagement. And it worked. The most effective line? The simplest:
“Are you in your last year of high school? This is for you.”
We reinforced that insight on the landing page and saw traction. But our audience had a ceiling: only 11,000 students in the Canary Islands were eligible to take the national university entrance exam (EBAU).
By week two, sign-ups had slowed—and the numbers weren’t tracking toward our goal. It was time to pivot before falling short.
Weeks 2 & 3: The Real Influencers Behind Teen Choices
With student engagement starting to drop, we decided to pivot toward a segment that, based on early signals, seemed to show significantly higher emotional involvement: the students’ parents.
We shifted the campaign to Facebook and tested a new message with stronger emotional appeal:
“Do you have a child finishing high school? This is for you.”
Without changing the overall strategy, we redirected the focus to a segment with greater sharing power.
Mothers began tagging each other, commenting on the posts, and sharing the campaign via WhatsApp—creating a powerful wave of organic reach.
This shift brought us within reach of a major milestone: nearly 2,000 sign-ups, making it the most successful edition in Canary Talent’s history.
Momentum & Memes
To keep momentum, we added a WhatsApp-friendly version and refreshed formats—including memes—testing new angles without raising the budget.
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Week 4: The Final Push
We launched a video ad on Instagram and opened two new channels—YouTube and TikTok.
TikTok quickly became the top converter, and we focused final efforts there.
To re-engage Instagram, we added a new creative set: dynamic neon-style ads featuring students from previous editions—projecting real futures into the present.
This final phase—together with the limited offline support the organization could manage—helped us hit a record: twice the sign-ups compared to previous editions.
More students, more clarity. A growing number of young people now get the chance to explore their dream career—before making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.
Impact
How we doubled sign-ups by shifting focus to the real decision-makers.
When student engagement plateaued, we pivoted to a more emotionally engaged audience: their parents. This insight unlocked a second wave of growth—leading to 2,000 registrations in just one month.
Students were the audience. Mothers made it move.
As sign-ups slowed, iteration revealed a key insight: mothers weren’t just observers—they became active amplifiers. Through tagging, sharing and emotional engagement, they sparked a second wave of organic reach.
Most Successful Edition Ever – Powered by Research
This edition showed that a strategy grounded in research and iteration delivers real results.
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Key Learnings
1. Design like a researcher — every copy is a hypothesis.
Each message was a live test. Running multiple variations at once allowed us to validate not just conversions, but which tones, channels, and formats truly connected.
2. Iteration isn’t tweaking — it’s reading context and reframing.
Growth didn’t come from scaling what worked, but from recognizing when the audience was saturated and shifting toward those who actually drove action.
3. Letting the algorithm learn is also strategy.
Instead of over-segmenting, we let Meta’s system optimize — and it performed better when fed emotionally relevant, clearly positioned messages.
4. In finite audiences, efficiency means knowing when to pivot.
Conversion isn’t the only metric that matters. Behavioral signals told us when to shift toward new sources of influence — unlocking a second wave of growth.
5. The user isn’t always the decision-maker — emotional ecosystems matter.
Students were the visible audience, but real behavior revealed something deeper: influence was driven by parents, especially mothers.
"They used their strengths to turn a problem into an opportunity and managed to connect with our audience in a direct, honest way. The result? A record-breaking number of sign-ups. Kingseo has become a strategic partner we hope to keep working with for a long time."
Onnexa Lopetegui – Project Manager, Canarias Masterclass
An Outstanding Team
I approached this project as part of a team I shared nearly four years of my life with.
Jordi García
Co-founder, Director at kingseo & Webflow Professional Partner
Pedro J. García Borrego
Co-founder & CTO at kingseo
