The B2B2C international student recruitment marketplace has announced the former Australian national team captain as a brand ambassador.

Ponting will lead a new campaign in South Asia to drive interest among recruitment agents and students, while the platform has also unveiled a dedicated resource hub for South Asian students.

“We see Adventus.io’s role is to support rebuilding Brand Australia and other initiatives the government has embarked upon. Ricky is the perfect ambassador to be the face of that message,” explained Ryan Trainor, CEO and co-founder of Adventus.io.

“The parallels between what Ricky does and what recruitment agents do are pretty remarkable. Students are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives, and behind every successful placement is someone who coached and advised a student to succeed.”

Trainor noted the UK’s “decisive steps to welcome back international students”, including extending work rights, opening borders sooner, and offering flexible tuition payment plans.

While Australia has announced initiatives such as a recent post-study work rights boost and a AUD$36.1 million visa processing investment, the country needs to “win back” the hearts of prospective students.

Australia has seen applications triple in the year to September 2022 – 6% in September 2021 compared to 18% in September this year – but still lags behind growth seen in the UK, according to Adventus.io.

Its figures suggest that the 38% of applications in September 2021 for the UK has risen to 60% in September this year.

“Our agenda is to power student mobility globally,” Trainor added.

“While our initial focus is on the Australia-South Asia travel corridor with this campaign, we will launch similar campaigns to enhance our 1,600 institution partners in all study destinations on our marketplace.

“Pent-up demand from Covid-19 has seen some institutions inundated with poor quality applications”

“This campaign comes at a critical time when the Quality-Volume equation is of critical importance. The pent-up demand from Covid-19 has seen some institutions inundated with poor quality applications, straining their already constrained operations.”

Adventus.io has invested heavily in compliance processes, he added, placing student success and compliant growth as the centre of its partnerships.

In the past 12 months, Adventus.io has seen application volume grow by 290%. Since launching in 2020, the edtech startup has supported 80,000 students and achieved over three million course searches on the platform.

It also acquired Australian university ratings and education guide publisher Good Education earlier this year. Some 7,000 recruiters currently use the marketplace.

It is not the first time providers have looked to cricketing heroes to reach students.

In 2021, English cricketer Dawid Malan was named brand ambassador of international higher education consultancy Fateh Education and Kevin O’Brien joined Education in Ireland’s marketing efforts in 2012.

Brian Lara also attended the opening of Education Centre of Australia’s learning facility in Sydney in early 2020.