Preview: Lockdown, Learning and Brands

Posted on: Monday 06 July 2020 7:06pm by Hannie Kirkham

Hannie Kirkham is Research and Business Development Manager at Oriel Square Publishing and Strategy – and a former student volunteer at CMC. Producing the Learning session for this year’s webinars, she outlines the thinking behind it.

Learning and education is, and always has been, a key element of many edutainment brands – even before lockdown. The last few months have thrown in some added challenges for educators and content providers alike. Challenges are always partnered with opportunities, and for the world of edtech and edutainment, that is very much the case. There has been a huge surge in the use of online learning materials, with companies opening their resources to help during the crisis, and schools and parents relying more and more on the educational content available at the click of a button. Naturally, those opportunities quickly morphed into more challenges!

Aside from simple business operations – How can I keep my staff working? How do we make sure everyone is safe? – companies have been overhauling the content they provide and the support they give. The drive to support our teachers, parents and, of course, the children whose education and social development has been so drastically restricted, has prompted the creation of new content, new forms of engagement, and broader audiences. But how do you increase your offering so quickly whilst maintaining high-quality, and how do you retain and sustain that level of engagement?

Partnerships have been playing an important role. Brands are teaming up to create content, and existing relationships with teachers and educators are just as important as ever, for engagement as well as content. Brands have also been connecting their audiences, using their platforms to provide a (safe) means of socialising with friends that children otherwise wouldn’t be able to do whilst schools are closed. In this year’s CMC Learning session, we will hear all about these and other initiatives, the challenges and opportunities, that Guinness World Records, BBC Bitesize and Animal Jam have been working on, the lessons they’ll take forward from it, and what the next year has in store for them.

In Lockdown, Learning and Brands, Craig Glenday, Helen Foulkes and Clark Stacey will be talking about how their brands have adapted and how their audiences have changed. How are educators and learners now engaging with their content and is that engagement sustainable once lockdown eases? What educational content is most important at a time like this?

They will also be sharing a sneak peak of their future plans – what the easing of lockdown has in store for them. They’re exciting and I hope you join us to hear all about it!