Branding the Future of Entrepreneurial Learning in EdTech
What if...
Prequel, a new EdTech startup born out of the Pandemic with a highly disruptive business model, was growing at an unprecedented pace due to the success of their first several cohorts. What started as a virtual bootcamp for kids with seasoned founders coaching them through the core tenants of entrepreneurship is now quickly transforming into a robust set of products and programs paired with a growing community of parents and students alike. With ambitious goals of teaching an even wider range of life skills to children of all ages, Prequel needed a brand strategy, experience, and architecture that could enable them to scale their programming and enrollment numbers while maintaining a cohesive, unique identity that would keep them a cut above the rest of the academic landscape while maintaining their high-energy, entrepreneurial personality.
We did...
From co-creating a new, forward-looking brand strategy to relaunching it in market, we worked closely with the Prequel team to craft a unique brand identity and experience that could stand a cut above the rest of the category – serving as an exciting brand experience and progression system for kids across all age groups while enabling the team to continue to scale their awareness and program offerings for the foreseeable future.
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With Prequel spanning such a large breadth of age groups and life skills that would effectively culminate in some pretty prolific accomplishments for the children that enroll, it was critical that from essence to expression, everything we would create would need to pack a punch; chock-full of the same inspiring energy and excitement that kids would bring to the table.
As we began our research and immersion work, we took a deep dives into both traditional and alternative education to find the underlying truths and tension points we could leverage to drive our strategy. Much to our surprise, we didn’t have to go far to discover some powerful insights that would serve as a foundation to build the brand’s strategy on.
A brand essence is a living, breathing document designed to lay the foundation for any and all future brand building efforts – inspiring and guiding how we communicate who we are, what we believe, and what we do in a way that can drive our audiences to engage at the highest level.
Each element ties directly to the brand's core DNA, with the intention of being used to inspire both internal and consumer-facing language that can be leveraged across all forms of media. For us, cementing the mission and vision was pivotal for shaping all of the other aspects around it; mission, values, voice, and even how we would handle branding the programs and skills themself.
Your story may be your strategy, but how you express it matters. From logo, program architecture, to marketing materials, we worked rigorously to craft a visual identity that could intelligently scale across any number of ages, programs, and topics, while still maintaining a fresh, premium look and feel that could align to GenZ and Gen Alpha’s sensibilities.
Similarly, this logomark embeds Prequel at the center of each of their individual stories, creating the foundation for a lifelong journey of growth to be built upon.
Just as our Prequel "Wayfinders" are trying to find their place in the world, this labyrinth-like structure represents their path to discovery, offering a multitude of entry points to their individual journeys.
This logomark also creates a subtle allusion to a fingerprint, symbolizing the identities of the remarkable youth that Prequel is helping shape and the unique impact they will have on the world at large.
Prequel divides their curriculum into four segments based on student’s ages. Each of these age groups were assigned a unique color palette in order to differentiate them from one another both internally amongst themselves and externally to parents and Prequel’s broader audience.
As an opportunity to build a deeper level of loyalty with students, we proposed a Prequel app in which every program completed by a student would earn them a badge.
This dynamic web-app experience could give students a fun, digital destination to collect and reflect on their acquired skills while also creating an opportunity to drive further brand awareness.
Students can flex their collection of badges earned within their social circles and earn Prequel Points that they can redeem for any number of rewards like branded merch or one-time opportunities to meet with their idols through future partnerships and collaborations.
These symbols are incorporated into badges, which become more ornate as students level up within Prequel live action programs.
The amount of rings on a Growth Skill Badge reflects the overall expertise of an individual within a Growth Skill.
When you have a brand that spans ages 2-18, being able to use language and imagery that resonates with parents and kids alive is paramount to being able to capture and covert audiences who may be vetting any number of programs, camps, or educational experiences.
Given the Prequel team was decentralized, we wanted to lay out every single detail for the brand so that they could fully understand how to execute any variety of content or program materials in a consistent and sophisticated way that stayed true to the brand’s overarching design principles and architecture.
With the expression work complete, we worked rapidly with the Prequel team to start rolling out the new brand experience across all touchpoints and channels; from the community newsletters, to program presentation materials, to all of the various enrollment and marketing funnels.
What's next?
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