Each week on “Around Town,” our host talks to members of the First Coast community who are making an impact in their part of town. Today our host Sarah Olson spoke with Joseph Lapin.
Joseph Lapin
Founder of Campbell Learn
Website Address: https://campbelllearn.com/
Short company description:
Joseph Lapin is the founder of Campbell Learn, a higher education marketing agency based in Jacksonville. With over a decade of experience helping top universities like Harvard Kennedy School and Tulane University grow enrollments, Joseph blends strategic marketing with storytelling rooted in the Hero’s Journey. Through his work, he’s helping institutions reimagine how they connect with students—and helping students see themselves as the hero of their educational path.
What makes your business the go-to choice for side of town residents?
What makes Campbell Learn the go-to choice—no matter the side of town—is that we combine big-agency strategy with a personal, hands-on approach. We’re not just churning out campaigns—we’re helping schools and education providers build something meaningful. Whether it’s a small certificate program or a major university, we become a true partner—digging into the student journey, telling the right story, and helping them grow without wasting budget or time. It’s strategy with soul, built right here but designed to make national impact.
Transcript:
Sarah:
Welcome back to another episode of Around Town. I am your host, Sarah Olsen, and today joining me from Amelia Island is Joe Lapin with Campbell Learn. How are you?
Joe:
I’m doing great. Yeah. Thanks so much. Beautiful day here. So I’m ready to go. Locked and loaded.
Sarah:
Yes. You’re getting ready for the concourse up there, too. Have you ever been to the concourse in Amelia?
Joe:
Oh, I love the concourse. My kids love it, but there’s going to be a lot of traffic. They got street blocked off, and I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see cars and meet the people and show my, like, six year old the cars. He’s so excited about seeing a Ferrari, and it’s really fun.
Sarah:
Oh, cool. But you’re here to talk about your business and we want to learn more about Campbell Learn. Higher education storyteller. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Joe:
Yeah, I think I’m happy to do that. And what I always tell people when they ask that question, like tell me about you, I think what makes me really unique is that I blend storytelling with performance marketing.
What I mean by that is I have an MFA in creative writing. I was a journalist in Los Angeles. I was writing for the L.A. Weekly, L.A. Times, various other publications. But at that time journalism was really being hit financially, and it was really difficult to make that work.
But I always wanted to be a storyteller. I publish stories and essays and poetry, and my goal in life is to write novels and memoirs and all of that. But I knew I needed to make a living, and just naturally I kind of fell into marketing and fell in love with marketing, in fact.
I really saw that my storytelling capabilities could apply directly to marketing. Luckily I fell into higher education where stories of students, stories of programs, stories of universities are so unique.
But when you think about the digital world and where that has gone, digital media, what actually is rewarded in performance marketing is really compelling creative content. So I was naturally able to blend those worlds professionally and create a unique element out in the market.
We’re called Campbell Learn because I’m a huge fan of Joseph Campbell. One of the most important things in my life was in graduate school when my professor handed me a copy of a book by Chris Vogler, which is basically applying Joseph Campbell’s philosophy to movies.
It’s behind Star Wars and many other stories. It’s that DNA of story that exists almost in our essence as humans. That understanding, to me, is the key of great marketing, great business, and great relationships.
Sarah:
Do you have a favorite story that you’ve told, or a favorite ad campaign that you created, or a moment that was like, yeah, this just clicks and makes sense?
Joe:
Yeah, I have a lot. I would say the one that I always bring up is when we worked for American University School of Education.
I’ll never forget when things completely changed for me. We had a student in an education policy master’s program. This is someone thinking bigger about school systems and trying to change policy.
We found out that she decided to go to the school because of something that happened the day she found out she couldn’t have children. Obviously that’s a really hard day for her. But when she found out she couldn’t have children, she and her husband decided they were going to take in a foster child and eventually adopt that child.
As they were raising this child, they saw there were real significant learning challenges. The specifics aren’t as important to the story, but it was enough that she really wanted to learn about interventions and education to better support her child.
They became so invested in it that she eventually became a special education teacher. She was in the classroom but still struggling because there were so many issues for these students that she felt she couldn’t solve.
That’s when she saw one of our ads. The concept was essentially, raise your hand if you want to transform education for everyone. It was set in Washington D.C., playing on the American promise and equality. People literally raising their hands in front of the Capitol.
What’s powerful about that example is that the story is not your marketing. If you do marketing right, the story is that person. They’re developing the story and you’re building an architecture for myth.
When you think about your impact on the world, that’s where storytelling and digital marketing become transcendent and transformational.
That’s important for higher education. I also work with Macomber Brewing. That’s important even for brewing. And shout out to Macomber Brewing, who is absolutely awesome and kicking. Great place.
Sarah:
We’ve been there several times.
Joe:
Oh yeah, great to hear that.
Sarah:
So how do people find you? How do companies find you? Are you out there marketing yourself a lot, or is it now more word of mouth?
Joe:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I started the business about a year ago.
What really happened is that I previously became a partner in a small business with my brother-in-law and a good friend, Robert Lee. That company grew so much that we eventually sold it and were acquired by a great company called Archer Education.
I got a lot of experience there and with another company called Bisk. But ultimately I wanted to go back to building my own company.
In the first year it’s exceeded my expectations. We’re getting requests and figuring out which projects we want to take on. Right now I’m not really out there selling as much as business coming through LinkedIn and referrals.
If you want to find me, you can go to CampbellLearn.com or find me on LinkedIn.
Sarah:
That is awesome. That is a tribute to being a good marketer, I guess, if people are finding you.
Joe:
I appreciate it. And I want to grow.
Sarah:
So does AI have any influence on you right now?
Joe:
Oh my God, yes. I can’t begin to tell you how important AI is for me. In fact, we work with some businesses that promote AI programs.
For me personally AI has transformed everything I do. It has absolutely improved my workflows and work product. I don’t need as many contractors and I don’t need to hire as much.
I used to train a lot of folks on storytelling. Now I train bots. I still think it’s important to have contractors to help scale work, but those contractors are also using the bots and it produces great results.
I also have custom GPTs that help me cook better. Every week I have a custom bot building me a lifting plan. I have a writing partner. I ask questions all the time that help me with life.
Honestly I think I’m just scratching the surface of what’s possible. I don’t remember how it used to be.
Sarah:
I wrote this huge workbook for a class that I’m teaching. It’s my ideas and the outcome I want, but it didn’t take me a year to do it.
Joe:
Exactly. And I was thinking about this this morning. Some people still say, oh but I wrote it using an em dash.
Sarah:
I don’t even know what an em dash is.
Joe:
An em dash is when you’re writing and use a longer hyphen that creates a deeper pause and rhythm in writing. ChatGPT knows this. It wants to write well with voice, so it uses it.
Now people say if you used an em dash you’re using AI. But I love em dashes.
Sarah:
Somebody still has to put the thought into AI in order for the outcome to come. It doesn’t tell us what to do. We tell it what to do.
Joe:
Absolutely. Discovery is a big part of storytelling and marketing.
When I work with universities or businesses I do a lot of interviews and feed that information into my custom bots. I think the secret to going from something generic to something good is training it.
I also hand it off to the clients and say here’s what I built for you. It’s trained on your voice, and now you can scale on your own.
Sarah:
Oh my gosh. We could probably talk about AI for another three hours, but our episode has come to an end.
Joe, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been great. CampbellLearn.com is where people can find you and hire you.
And thank you all for watching another episode of Around Town. This segment will be on PropertySolutionsTV.com.
