Transcript No Slide Title

Promoting adult learning on a
shoestring and
the Curiosity Campaign
Rachel Johnstone
Campaign for Learning
About CfL
“Promoting social inclusion through learning”
• Family Learning Festival (October)
• Learning at Work Day (May)
www.familylearningweek.com
www.learningatworkday.com
A Challenge
Name that tune!
What’s it like for the learner?
Understanding your target audience is the essential first
step before you start promoting your event. (Infact, it’s
essential before you start planning your event!)
Understanding your learning
audience
• Segment your audience – age, employment
status, qualifications, attitudes to learning
• Reach into their lives – what do they do, where
do they go, what do they read?
• What are they interested in? What presses their
buttons?
• What is part of their ‘identity’?
Ask the audience
It’s all about “relationship marketing”
Activity – Beginning your ‘Promoting
Learning’ Action Plan
• Think of a learning activity you are running at
the moment, or are looking to develop for the
Adult Learners’ Festival
• Who is this event aimed at – build up a
‘picture’ of them in your mind
• What presses their buttons?
• What is part of their ‘identity’?
A daily microfoliant or great skin?
V
The product V the benefits … what sells?
Offer something people want
• The secret of how to be taller
• How you can improve your memory
in one evening
• You can laugh at money worries if you
follow this simple plan
•
John Caples
Activity – Your Action Plan
• What are the “benefits” of attending your
Festival event?
• Check: Is this what your target audience
want?
Who are the influencers?
• Marketing isn’t just about the ‘customers’ (the
learners)
• Think through who else might have an impact on
your target audience attending your event. This
might include journalists (who can really get
behind your message), local celebs, peers and
fellow employees
• These are your promotion ‘allies’
What are the ‘catchment’ areas
Activity – Your Action Plan
• Who are the ‘influencers’ (to help you reach
your target audience)?
• What is your ‘catchment’ area? Where
should the promotion take place?
Recap: 5 things you need to know
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Understand what it’s like for the learner
Market learning in partnership with the learner
(this is called “relationship marketing”)
Sell the benefits of learning (don’t focus on the
product)
Offer something people (your audience) want
Understand your ‘catchment’ area
The AIDA decision-making process
People go through the AIDA process when
making a decision to purchase a good or service
Action
Desire
Interest
Awareness
Key communication tools to
market learning
1.Advertising – poster, flyer, insert
2.Sales promotions – freebies, tasters
3.Public relations – articles, launch events
4.Personal selling – face-to-face, recruited learning
champions, training team
5.Direct marketing – mailshots, e-shots
There’s a time and a place for
everything
• Awareness – Advertising (posters, leaflets); direct
marketing (and, if your clever, you’ll get people’s
interest too)
• Interest – Public relations (articles in the press, radio
shows); anything to get people talking about your event
• Desire – Sales promotions (mini tasters, freebies)
• Action – Personal selling; direct ‘action buttons’
Viral marketing
Anything that encourages people to
share and discuss
GuitarMasterPro.net – Upload an amazing video clip of a
guy playing the guitar, write a quick note saying that he
learnt to play the guitar using GuitarMaster, and hope that
some of the 45 million viewers want to learn to play too!
Activity – Your Action Plan
• What are your AIDA actions?
– Awareness
– Interest
– Desire
– Action
• How can you spread the word (‘viral
marketing’)?
Sound familiar?
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Shameful experiences at school &/or it wasn’t ‘cool’
If you aren’t brilliant at it, then why bother
Lots of denial and self-deception
Really daunting to get started
Feeling really rusty and useless
Associated with discipline, authority and effort
It’s just much easier to let things slide
Cant keep up with your own kids
Good intentions, very poor follow through
Just too difficult for us ordinary people
That’s right I’m talking about adult
attitudes to exercise, before the 1970’s
Role Models & Stories
There was a time when I never dreamed I could jog
or run. I had gone running a few times with men, but
every time I did, my chest would ache and I would
be gasping for breath in minutes.
Then several years later, three women friends who
were runners invited me to go with them one
evening. They were going to run along the Pacific
Palisades, a beautiful stretch which over looks the
ocean near where we live. We ran along chatting
with each other and when we started to pant, we
would stop and walk. I suddenly realised
how easy it was.
Jane Fonda
Apparently, the year after
this film was released
applications to the OU doubled
Biggest growth was applications
from working class women
To embark on a major new journey, it helps
if you can imagine someone like a slightly
more ideal version of you doing it
The Collective approach
The ‘Curiosity’ Campaign
You can play
75% of pop
songs by
knowing just
Tomato plants
grow almost
twice as fast
when
If you want to
call someone a
“big girl’s blouse”
in Italian,
you say
The Question: How can we whet the
appetite of Londoners for Learning?
Our vision:
“A London in which all individuals recognise and respond positively to
their own potential as learners”
Our mission:
• to stimulate popular enthusiasm for learning in London
• to increase awareness of the benefits of learning to everyone in London
• to genuinely widen participation in learning in London
• to address barriers to learning from the learner’s point of view
• to keep a broad definition of learning in view
• to emphasise the potential that learning has for ‘life change’
• to help to narrow the ‘learning divide’ in London
The Response
The Medium:
A simple, widely advertised, multi-media message as an umbrella for other
learning and skills initiatives in London
It will:
• focus on the benefits of learning, not the process
• use clear and inclusive language and invite response
• emphasise the value of less formal learning
• encourage Londoners to have a pride in their own skills and involve others
• suggest non-threatening first steps to under-confident
learners
• enable organisations to use the creative format to
promote their own messages
The Answer ...
The Task
“Learning” is an unusual thing to promote
Catch 22
• Learning innate: we’re born insatiably curious
• But many adult lose their appetite to learn
• “Learning” becomes a label for something which they’ve rejected; “not for me”
Learning propaganda would meet resistance
The bright idea ...
Getting past resistance
• Most of early ideas fell at this first hurdle
ie, only worked if you’re already into learning
eg, “I love learning” badges
• So the agency looked at the whole task differently ...
What if we didn’t tell people to learn?
But instead went straight for their curiosity
So what?
1. Broad and inclusive
2. A variety of accessible “learning hooks” to stimulate interest
and discussion
3. Encourage people to take the first step by giving an
immediate way to respond to the ads - or they’ll put it off until
tomorrow
4. Tone must appeal to all ages, classes and avoid alienating
specific groups
5. Low budget, high impact, flexible and simple!
The Laser Show on Marble Arch
The Advan
Reactions to ‘Curious Londoners’
posters
“It makes me
want to know
what they mean”
“It’s simplistic and
it grabs attention”
(Women 19-24)
(men 19-24)
“To get you
thinking – well it
does that
doesn’t it?”
(Women 19-24)
“ You can make up
funny answers to them
… you can answer
them”
(Men 19-24)
Education Action Zone
The problem with
smoking is…..
New River Partnership EiC Action Zone
If you do not want to miss
information from your
favourite programme you
can….
BECTU
Somerset’s Learning Newspaper
Community Competition
Bermuda is not a Caribbean island because
www.lambethlearning.net
Translated into Arabic...
ّ ‫ب رمودا ل يس جزي رة ك اري بي ألن‬
www.lambethlearning.net
Activity – Your Action Plan
• Devise a ‘curiosity’ which would work for
your target audience (linked to the event /
activity you are looking to promote)
Thank you for listening
[email protected]