Harrison "Soup" Campbell went from Bible college and a high school social studies classroom to running growth at NextGrad — the ad network that's turned high school hallways into higher ed's newest, and most contested, media market.
In this episode of The Enrollment Clinic, Soup traces his path from teaching and coaching to pioneering social media recruiting in the MySpace era — including the time a room full of college leaders told him "we will never get on the Facebook" — through a decade in college admissions, seven years building ZeeMee, and now leading growth at NextGrad.
We dig into what NextGrad is actually selling: exclusive digital and print advertising placed inside high schools, reaching students up to nine hours a day in an increasingly phone-free, bot-free environment. Soup makes the case that "real eyeballs" matter more than ever as ad fraud costs the industry over $150 billion a year, walks through how NextGrad proves ROI without traditional attribution, and explains why the company turned down a partnership with Mr. Beast to protect the trust it's built with high schools.
We also cover what's wrong with most in-school advertising creative right now, why QR codes are a dead end in phone-free schools, the tension between flagship universities and the high schools that still want to see them on screen, and where Soup thinks AI in higher ed marketing is more hype than substance.
If you work in enrollment, admissions, or higher ed marketing, this is a look inside a channel most institutions haven't figured out yet — and a reminder that in a small industry built on trust, reputation still travels faster than any ad.
