A CAMPAIGN THAT TURNS 'DEAD' TIME INTO LEARNING TIME

Google needed help promoting its career and business training courses, but our research showed most people feel they don’t have the spare time to upskill. Our brief was to not only grab attention with a time-poor audience, we also needed to grab their time. 

Ain’t nobody got time for that

An estimated 10 million people in the UK lack digital skills, costing the UK economy close to £63 billion annually. Google wanted to increase uptake for its free career and business training to help, but with client focus groups showing few people feel they have the spare time to upskill - even when it’s free. The solution? A content-first campaign that turned the campaign into a course.

Turning the commute into a classroom

Redwood BBDO created Skills To Go, a campaign that targeted users during daily pockets of ‘dead’ that could be repurposed to learn. Our creatives turned Google’s training content into bite-sized lessons that explained simple digital skills in the ad. These included how to write a CV during a morning bus ride and showing small-business owners how to boost online sales over a late-night cuppa. A supporting content campaign included Not On The High Street founder Holly Tucker delivering branding tips during a dog walk and Dragon’s Den maverick Steven Bartlett giving a social media masterclass from his barber’s chair.

Context x content = conversion

Creative was tailored for the time of day it appeared — reaching audiences in transit and turning their commute into a classroom, hitting workers on their lunch breaks and turning mealtimes into masterclasses, and after hours turning scrolling time into self-improvement. The campaign comprised more than 400 assets and ran across DOOH, Video On Demand, Spotify, social, display, and national print. Finally, a website relaunch, with content categorized by time, directed people to full-length courses and live training — connecting the campaign to Google’s full training courses.