Next Generation Learning.
Becta leads the national drive to inspire and lead the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. The Team is a lead agency for Becta, reponsible for the development of the brand, corporate communications, websites, campaigns and marketing communications.
Sunita went to France today without leaving the classroom.
The Next Generation Learning marketing campaign achieves target-beating awareness. The Learning and Technology World Forum attracts ministerial-level participation from over 70 countries.
Audience.
It’s great to know that your own children or the children you know are getting the best experience from their education. It makes you think: 'I wish I could have done that when I was at school'.
Challenge.
Government agency Becta promotes the innovative use of technology in education and workplace learning. Though buy-in from policy makers was good, the group needed to accelerate the pace of technology adoption.
Insight.
So we created a multi-channel campaign promoting the benefits of educational technology in order to increase consumer demand for it and drive adoption within the UK. In addition, we helped Becta create and manage a global forum designed to win continued support for technology in education at ministerial level.
Result.
By managing all aspects of the event, from brand inception to event execution, we helped achieve inaugural participation from delegates representing over two-thirds of the world’s population and setting the stage for technology to revolutionise education for all our children.
Knowing more about my child’s education gives me great peace of mind.
Over 100,000 unique visitors, with return visits now representing over a third of total site traffic.
Audience.
Children are interesting creatures... sometimes they won't stop talking and other times, you ask them a question such as ‘how was school?’ and you can barely get them to respond at all. Wouldn’t it be great to know what kind of things your children are learning at school and even better, how they are learning it without having to ask them anything?
Challenge.
We have been working as Becta’s strategic marketing partner to develop Next Generation Learning as a public campaign to engage with teachers, governors and parents across the country. We were asked to create the destination website to support all the campaign activity and social networking as the foundation for engagement with the target audiences.
Insight.
Early on we recognised the need to appeal directly to parents on the issue they care most about – the education of their children. This core principle has driven the campaign tone of voice and our approach to site features and functions. Becta’s largest and most sophisticated website now delivers an impressive range of interactive content and resources for parents.
Result.
Our approach has also made full use of social networking techniques including a YouTube channel and a Twitter profile. These channels have been effective in reaching new audiences and in engaging early adopters and influential connectors. The number of returning visitors has increased from 10% in December to over 50% in May.
Feels good to know that I can now afford to help my child’s future.
Becta hit its target of providing 7,500 homes (65% uptake) with online access. In the subsequent six weeks an additional 3,031 families were awarded grants bringing total uptake to 91%.
Audience.
Most of us take the Internet for granted. Over 58% of UK homes now use high-speed Broadband, some use other methods such as mobile access but that still leaves an estimated 26% being left behind. A critical social benefit of the Internet is boosting learning. Almost 75% of 7 to 11-year-olds say they understand ideas better as a result of using technology. Evidence proves that home Internet access achieves higher GCSE results.
Challenge.
Most of the target market isn’t computer literate, so the challenge was to highlight benefits that Internet in the home would bring. That said, as the eligibility criteria is based on benefit status rather than attitude we needed to attract the right attitudinal groups. ‘Get a grant to get a free computer’ sounded too good to be true, meaning that cynical parents wouldn’t apply, or there’d be avalanche of the ‘wrong’ type of applicants.
Insight.
It was important to qualify that the grant was primarily to help school-aged children with their learning which lead to two strong headlines. To maximise impact and recognition we created a distinctive colour and tabloid headline-style approach to the look and feel. Research also confirmed that photography of a diverse range of real people that our audience could relate to would be familiar and reassuring.
Result.
The Team developed the segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy for the campaign materials. We used qualitative research to check the comprehension of messages, understanding of terminology for technology and connectivity plus any sensitivity surrounding the words like grant or benefit. We have converted many more applicants than expected, faster than expected, more efficiently than expected.