John
Padua
Marketing & Communications
Campaigns
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Jesus Youth Australia — Instagram Growth
Built a national NFP's Instagram from zero, identified a platform-level decline in static post reach, and led a pivot to Reels that reversed the trend, despite initial leadership resistance.
The brief
Jesus Youth Australia is a national Catholic youth movement with 500–1,000 members. The Instagram account had around 300 followers and was functioning as an internal noticeboard — posts going out to people already in the organisation, no real strategy, and static content generating steadily declining reach. No one had the bandwidth or capability to change it.
Year one: foundation
Rebuilt the account from the ground up — consistent publishing schedule, visual guidelines aligned to the international brand kit, a content calendar, and active community management. Reframed who the account was for: content shifted from posting for existing members to content designed to reach people who had never heard of Jesus Youth. This alone grew the account by 500+ followers in year one.
The pivot
Meta Insights showed static posts losing 20–30% reach over three to four weeks while video content was outperforming significantly. I made the case internally to pivot toward Reels as the primary format — against initial resistance from leadership and the team. The argument was data, not intuition. The pivot was approved and executed. Within two months, reach improved 30–50%. Early engagement (likes, comments, shares in the first hours) lifted 15–25% after posting times were restructured around audience activity data.
The team and the result
A media team of six was built from scratch across WA, NSW, and VIC — recruited, trained, and coordinated with clear briefs and a structured review process. The account grew to 2,000+ followers. More importantly, the team continued operating at full capacity after I stepped back. The systems and the culture outlasted my direct involvement. That is the result.
Perth CBD Café
A family-run Perth CBD café with great food and almost no social presence. The brief was simple: fill the floor during off-peak hours.
The brief
The client, an elderly couple kept anonymous at their request, ran a family café in the Perth CBD. Great food, almost no social presence: around 300 followers, inconsistent posts, 20–30 likes per post, and no strategy. They needed someone to figure out the problem and fix it.
The approach
Professional photography and short-form video to show the food properly. A happy hour campaign built around the café's slowest periods, with a trackable mechanic: show the post at the counter, get a free item. This directly connected Instagram activity to foot traffic with no ambiguity about what was driving results.
The family's adult children were trained to create content themselves, keeping the account active between shoots and giving it an authentic behind-the-scenes quality. Mid-campaign, analytics showed posts were going out at the wrong time and shifting to peak audience windows lifted engagement quickly.
The result
Followers grew from 300 to 900-1,000 in three months. Average likes per post went from 20–30 to around 150. Covers per targeted time slot rose 50%. The campaign worked well enough that the café wound it down early and organic foot traffic had grown past the point where the free-item incentive was needed. They became a retainer client and referred new clients to Cirkall.
Akira's Restaurant — Bookings Campaign
A family restaurant with a good following, great photography, and zero bookings coming from social. The problem wasn't the content — it was the absence of anything asking people to act.
The diagnosis
Akira's already had a decent social following and genuinely good photography. The followers weren't converting to bookings because the captions described the food but never asked anyone to do anything. There was no mechanism connecting a post to a table reservation.
The approach
Cirkall designed the conversion strategy and handed it over for the client to execute. The mechanic: show a Reel at the restaurant and get 10% off dinner. No paid ads, no complicated infrastructure — just a clear incentive tied to a specific action.
After receiving the strategy, the owners recruited their own team members and partnered with local influencers to spread the word. Those influencers posted Reels directing their audiences to Akira's with the offer. Cirkall's role was the idea and the framework; the client ran the execution.
The result
Weekly bookings grew from around 20 to 40+ within three months. Results started climbing within three weeks of the campaign going live. When the discount was removed, bookings did not revert — the behaviour had changed. The relationship continued on a casual basis for photography and website updates.
Chosen Conference — Website & Registration Strategy
Led an 11-page WordPress conference site build and designed a tiered raffle mechanic that secured 150+ registrations months before a November 2026 event targeting 800 attendees.
The brief
A youth community organisation planning the Chosen Conference with a target of 800 attendees, They needed a professional website to serve as the digital home of the event, and a strategy to drive early registrations well before the event date. I was brought in to lead both workstreams simultaneously: working alongside a lead developer on the WordPress site (handling all design decisions, page structure, and copywriting myself), while personally developing the registration incentive strategy.
The website
An 11–12 page WordPress build: event details, program, speakers, and a clear path to registration. Every design and copy decision was made to push visitors toward registering, not just inform them.
The registration mechanic
Standard early-bird discounts are easy to ignore. Instead, I designed a tiered raffle: every week a person registered before the event, they earned an additional draw entry, with prizes escalating from free merchandise and covered registration costs. Each week of delay was a missed entry. The system created genuine urgency and social momentum without relying on discounts alone.
The result
150+ registrations secured months before the event with roughly 19% of the 800-person target already filled. The website and raffle system were handed over to the conference team and continue running independently.
Fire — Set Alight Concert Campaign
A full-funnel Meta advertising campaign for Fire, a Perth alternative band — promoting the Set Alight concert and moving audiences from first impression to ticket sale on a $50 budget.
The brief
Fire, a Perth-based alternative rock band, needed to sell tickets for an upcoming show. The challenge was not awareness since most of their existing audience already knew the band. The job was conversion: getting people who had seen the band before to actually buy a ticket and show up.
The approach
The campaign was structured as a two-stage lead nurture journey. Phase one targeted a broad Perth audience using interest-based parameters (alternative music, live events, local entertainment, age 18–35) to generate reach and drive profile visits. Phase two retargeted everyone who had engaged with the content or visited the event page and pushed them toward the ticket link with a direct call-to-action. Moving prospects through the buyer cycle in stages, rather than asking cold audiences for a purchase decision, is what made the $50 budget produce real conversions.
All creative was produced from existing band photography, reformatted for mobile feed and Stories placements. Multiple copy variants were tested in the first week; lower-performing ads were paused and budget reallocated to the strongest performers. A5 flyers and ticket books were distributed to music venues, record stores, and university noticeboards across Perth, reinforcing awareness at physical touchpoints in the lead nurture sequence.
The result
The campaign generated roughly 30,000 impressions and 30 to 40 direct enquiries through Instagram DMs and the ticket link, approximately 10 confirmed ticket conversions attributed to the campaign. A strong result for a $50 spend. Retargeted warm audiences converted at a meaningfully higher rate than cold audiences, directly validating the staged lead nurture approach.
Founder & CEO, Cirkall
Creative media agency founded at 17 alongside a full-time UWA degree. 310+ clients. $4,000–$5,000/month revenue.
What it was
Cirkall was a Perth-based creative media agency offering social media management, brand photography, video production, graphic design, email marketing, and website management. Clients were primarily Perth small and medium businesses: hospitality, retail, professional services, NFPs, and events. The agency grew through word of mouth and direct outreach with no paid advertising used to acquire clients.
How it ran
Founded in 2019 at 19, going into first year of a BCom at UWA. At peak, a team of six contractors managed work across concurrent client accounts. Client relationships, project scoping, delivery, invoicing, and account management were all handled personally. The agency coordinated simultaneously across client-side stakeholders (business owners, marketing contacts), design and photography contractors, print suppliers, and advertising platforms, the full supplier and stakeholder ecosystem of a small creative agency, managed under concurrent client deadlines. The agency ran entirely alongside a full-time university degree for six years.
SOME Client work
Wind-down
Cirkall was wound down in December 2025 on graduation from UWA. The transition was handled professionally and clients were given sufficient notice, retainers were concluded in good standing, and team contractors were informed ahead of time.
Presenter, Elevate Education
Study skills seminars delivered to high school students across Perth and regional WA, reaching 1,000+ students in four months.
The role
Elevate Education delivers exam preparation and study skills programs to secondary students across Australia and New Zealand. As a presenter, seminars are delivered directly to Year 11 and Year 12 students in school auditoriums and classrooms across Perth and regional WA including Bunbury. Session content covers time management frameworks, active study techniques, exam strategy, and approaches to managing pressure. Each session is structured, audience-aware, and practically grounded with the material being designed to be applied immediately, not filed away.
Why this matters for student-facing marketing
The audience for these seminars, Year 11 and Year 12 students, ages 16 to 18 is exactly the demographic that universities are competing to reach. These are the same students deciding between UWA, Murdoch, Curtin, ECU, and Notre Dame. Having face-to-face contact with more than 1,000 of them in four months, understanding how they process information, what keeps their attention, and what makes them act, is direct intelligence that very few marketing practitioners have.
Presenting to a room of 150 Year 12 students who would rather be anywhere else is a specific kind of communication challenge. The audience is captive but not willing. Keeping them engaged, translating complex information into immediately actionable steps, and adjusting in real time to a room's energy level, these are the same skills that make a campaign brief land, a stakeholder presentation work, or a student recruitment event convert.
Bachelor of Commerce, UWA
Marketing & Management double major at the University of Western Australia, completed while founding and running Cirkall full-time.
The degree
The BCom at UWA covered marketing strategy, consumer behaviour, brand management, digital marketing, organisational management, and business analytics. The Marketing major provided the theoretical framework behind practical work being done simultaneously at Cirkall, running a paid campaign for a real client was often the same week as studying the academic model for why it works. The two reinforced each other in a way that a purely academic or purely commercial path would not have. Graduated December 2025.
The insider perspective
Having been a UWA student and going through open days, orientation, guild life, campus culture, and the graduation process, is a specific advantage in a student-facing marketing role. The prospective student experience at UWA is familiar, navigable, and I understood from the inside. What actually moves a 18-year-old from "I'm considering UWA" to "I'm enrolling" is not something that can be fully learned from a brief.
Google Analytics Certification
GA4-certified through Google's official certification program — campaign measurement, performance reporting, and digital analytics.
St Joseph Syro-Malabar Parish
Department Secretary for Catechism, managing weekly communications to 900+ families and coordinating the parish's two major annual events.
Weekly communications
As Department Secretary for Catechism, a weekly newsletter is written and distributed to 900+ students, families, and volunteers via email and WhatsApp Broadcast. The newsletter covers program updates, event reminders, formation content, and community announcements. A 900+ contact database is maintained in Excel, segmented by year group, family unit, and volunteer status.
Annual career expo
The parish's annual career expo is coordinated end-to-end: invitations to university representatives (UWA, Curtin, ECU, and Notre Dame all participate as stall holders), logistics, student registration, venue setup, and on-day management. The event consistently draws 500+ student attendees. All promotional materials, flyers, digital graphics, event programs, are produced in-house by the local media team. In function, this is schools engagement and student recruitment work: connecting young people in the Perth community with universities at the moment they are making tertiary decisions, and managing all the stakeholder relationships on both sides to make it happen.
Annual awards ceremony
The parish's annual awards night draws 1,500 attendees and is one of the largest events in the parish calendar. Coordination covers invitations, printed program design, MC briefing, AV and logistics, photography, and post-event communications.
Jesus Youth Australia — National Leadership
National Leadership Team member and built the media team from zero, manages the organisation's digital presence across all platforms and events.
The role
Selected to serve on the National Leadership Team of Jesus Youth Australia on a three-year contract. Jesus Youth Australia is a national Catholic youth movement with chapters across multiple states. The media portfolio covers Instagram, the national Squarespace website, promotional materials for all national and state events, and internal communications to the volunteer network.
Building the media team
When the role began there was no media team, one or two people producing content ad hoc. Six volunteers were recruited, trained, and coordinated across WA, NSW, and VIC. The team now produces content consistently for the national Instagram account, state events, and national programs. Remote coordination across time zones requires clear briefs, defined expectations, and a structured review process, all of which were built and documented from scratch.
Yes Lord — national conference
The Yes Lord national conference was the organisations 20 year event — 800+ attendees across multiple cities. End-to-end marketing responsibility: social media campaign built and executed across the lead-up period, The campaign runs across multiple states simultaneously, coordinating volunteer contributors in WA, NSW, and VIC producing content for their local audiences while maintaining a consistent national brand voice.
Ongoing program marketing
Outside conference season, state-based youth camps, formation weekends, and community programs receive promotional support throughout the year. The website is managed continuously, updated as programs change, new event pages built, registration forms integrated. The Instagram account is managed to a consistent publishing schedule, now at 2,000+ followers with organic growth maintained through a Reels-led strategy.
