Image Credit : Kaplan International Pathways
Project Overview
The pathways sector in international education is fiercely competitive, dominated by five major providers in the UK, including Kaplan Pathways. Standing out from the competition is key, which is why we repositioned our brand through our ‘Your Path, Your Way’ campaign, entailing exciting new visuals.
Kaplan Pathways prepares international students for degree study at leading universities through ‘pathway’ courses. Our customer service levels are regarded as sector-leading, but our direct appeal to student was less obvious. We therefore aimed to differentiate ourselves from our rivals in a saturated market with largely homogenous offerings. From conception to execution, our in-house marketing team created the designs for a whole new brand positioning – ‘Your Path, Your Way’. Our competitors extol the virtues of their products and services, while Kaplan took a completely different approach, putting individual student experiences at the centre of the brand.
'Your Path, Your Way’ is a play on ‘pathway’ (our sector’s common name), turning it into something personal to the student, while also being flexible, creative and playful. It places an authentic student voice at the centre of all communications, so that prospective students feel in control of their destinies. Remember, it’s their education journey, not ours.
Our target audience is a Generation Z student who often speaks English as a second language, making it critical to create a campaign that transcends cultures and languages with clear visual communication. It was also essential to stay true to our identity while creating high-impact new materials.
Organisation
Team
Daniel Sharpe: Head of Brand Creative
Maya Matsunaga: Brand Designer
Stefano Vitagliano: Senior Digital Designer
Habib Ward: Graphic Designer
Kate Mishcon: Director of Content and Marketing
Susana Barbeiro: Associate Director of Content and Marketing
Robert Sadler: Head of Content Strategy
Barni Homden: Editorial Manager
Fiona Raleigh: Lead Content Producer
Francesco Agresti: Video Production Manager
Ander Romero: Video Content Creator
Carol Mahna: Senior Social Media Strategist
Project Brief
We designed the brand repositioning to differentiate Kaplan by emphasising the student experience instead of the attributes of the company, as is the industry norm. We celebrated the diversity and individuality of our students by communicating their authentic and unique experiences using real, everyday stories in vlogs and blogs generated by the students themselves. This honesty about what it’s like to be an international student is so important to Generation Z, and also demonstrates to international students that many others have the same concerns about moving overseas to study that they do.
Fresh photography supported this approach by demonstrating visually that our students become part of the very fabric of the communities in which they study rather than just tourists. We actively avoided clichéd images common in international education marketing – smiles in front of landmarks – and instead opted for more authentic everyday scenes relevant to living in a country rather than merely being on holiday. In addition, we designed a series of non-culture-specific student illustrations, and a set of icons representing key concepts, to facilitate understanding by an international audience and maximise visual appeal.
The entire campaign was created by our in-house design and marketing team. Their in-depth knowledge of the market, combined with their huge creativity and passion, reassured management that any brand repositioning could confidently be managed in-house. The exciting and inspiring campaign clearly communicated the transformational experience of an international education and its ability to change individual lives.
Project Innovation/Need
‘Your Path, Your Way’ goes against sector norms. Proclaiming our virtues as a provider is out; focusing on the student and their life-changing educational journey is in. This shift has been supported by fresh design assets, allowing our new identity to shine through, and empowering the student reader to take control of their destiny.
Ribbon graphic: this serves as a visual metaphor for the path that students will follow, adds depth to the design and helps users more easily navigate marketing publications, videos and webpages. In our worldwide brochure, for example, the ribbon flows from page to page and directs readers’ attention to key points, allowing them to digest information more easily and make more informed choices.
Lockup: we developed a ‘lockup’, a flexible framing device to deliver the ‘Your Path, Your Way’ message in a visually consistent form. Its flexibility comes from the ability to resize the frame edges, allowing us greater creativity with its application. In large-scale formats, for instance, it can be expanded to encompass a featured student, giving readers a clear focal point.
Photography: we commissioned new-style photography emphasising authenticity. Discarding generic photos of smiling students next to tourist attractions, our images show that students become part of the very fabric of their study destination. We use only real students and staff in our photoshoots, including the 300+ featured in our flagship brochure. This authenticity creates a strong sense of relatability and belonging for the reader, who’s able to picture their path.
Design Challenge
Our major challenge was communicating clearly and effectively to a diverse audience – our students represent 110+ countries, with varying English levels and different social and cultural values. More conservative countries are sensitive to particular images that are unremarkable in the UK, limiting our ability to use particular visual elements. Another factor is the complexity of our product portfolio, making the clarity with which our graphics conveyed key messages all-the-more important.
One solution was the creation of stylised, non-culture-specific illustrations to represent key aspects of a student’s journey. These use non-natural skin tones to avoid cultural bias, with the colours complementing our brand palette, and pink highlighting a scenario’s key component. Each illustration was painstakingly hand-drawn after extensive research into different styles, and added real design personality in a typically middle-of-the-road industry. We also developed a set of icons to simplify complex concepts, including degree subjects that students can study.
Additionally, we ran focus groups to ensure we maximised the potential of our creative concepts. We also harnessed the power of our student and staff brand ambassadors to spread the word.
The campaign achieved outstanding results, despite there being no extra budget for development and implementation. This constraint necessitated producing the whole campaign and accompanying comprehensive brand guide using our in-house design talent. Furthermore, our campaign video featuring ‘Your Path, Your Way’ animations had to be filmed and produced in a hugely compressed timeframe, owing to limited filming opportunities in the summer months.
Effectiveness
Website and social media analytics give a picture of the growth of interest in Kaplan Pathways post-repositioning. Comparing the ten weeks after the launch of ‘Your Path, Your Way’ in August 2018, to the same period in the previous year:
Number of homepage users: up 17.1%
Number of web sessions including the homepage: up 19.6%
Number of website users: up 53.7%
Number of website sessions: up 41.3%
Completions of the online form for further information: up 19.8%
Completions of online form to apply for a programme: up 47.9%
In addition, since launch, the flagship brochure featuring all ‘Your Path, Your Way’ visual elements has been downloaded in 115 countries. This represents a 26% increase in the number of countries reached by the Kaplan Pathways brand vs. the previous flagship brochure.
We’ve also seen encouraging signs with student recruitment. Allowing time for the repositioning to gain market traction, our first indicative academic intake on the impact of ‘Your Path, Your Way’ was that for Spring 2019. The number of students starting one of our UK or US programmes during this intake was 12% up on the same period in 2018. We are confident this can be attributed to the repositioning, among other factors.
Positive qualitative feedback includes: ‘I think the overall concept is very good. The video has a very inviting and welcoming atmosphere, which I think is essential for students to feel more at ease with starting a new chapter in Kaplan.’ (Saudi Arabian student)
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
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