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Sky, Havas JUMP and The Open University

Sky, Havas JUMP and
The Open University

A First Class TV Partnership

Sky’s channel mix provided us with the opportunity to contextually target and explain The Open University to a mass audience. Not only did the campaign successfully improve the overall awareness of our offer, but it also changed perceptions and inspired consumers to take action. The overlapping ‘high quality’ and ‘accessible for all’ associations viewers hold true for both the OU and Sky brands, made this the perfect partnership to enhance our credibility.

Shea Halsey, Marketing Manager, The Open University

Sky, Havas JUMP and The Open University

A First-Class TV Partnership

In a Sky Media first, our partnership with The Open University sought to create seven bespoke adverts for 5 of our channels including Sky Witness, Sky Atlantic, Sky One, Sky Sports and Channel 5; with each creative tailored to its own channel themes and audience. These spots were introduced and endorsed with a Sky Presents branded introduction, and shown both on linear TV and On Demand. Like The Open University, Sky understands how personal development and opportunities can improve lives and careers, making this partnership even more fitting. With an aim of forming a marriage of content and audience targeting in order to promote their brand message, by creating an emotive campaign that would increase consideration of the brand, the Sky Media/C5 campaign helped to increase the overall ‘knowledge’ viewers felt they had with the OU brand, ultimately driving student enquiries.

of Sky Viewers recalled the bespoke adverts

in brand uplift amongst viewers who recalled the campaign

increase in brand consideration in viewers aware of the campaign

Challenge

The Open University had three main challenges they wanted addressing. The first was to create an emotional brand piece that addressed their key enquiry barriers and explained who The Open University are. The second, was they wanted to drive brand health to maintain or increase their ‘Likelihood to Enquire’ targets. And finally, they wanted to deliver on new student enquiries that would aid to fulfil The Open University’s student recruitment targets, and Sky had just the answer.

Insight

The Open University segment their audience based on their motivations and needs. Therefore, the various Sky and Channel 5 channels offered an opportunity to create different messages, and appeal to different audiences, whilst offering a premium endorsement and thematic story relevant to the channel.

Idea

We would have each of the seven 30-second adverts tell the story of an OU student that was thematically or target–audience aligned to a respective Sky channel. We could then expand this reach by positioning these adverts in On Demand across equally relevant content to each OU student’s themed story.

Activation

The partnership spanned four Sky channels, both in linear and On Demand, as well as Channel 5. Havas Media’s in-house Content and Partnership Team, JUMP, worked with The Open University and Sky to produce bespoke adverts from existing OU footage. These were all introduced by a bespoke branded introduction, Sky Presents, from the channel they were specifically created for.

Each of the 7 x 30” adverts tell the story of an OU student, which is thematically or target–audience aligned to the channel. For example, Alex’s story on Sky Sports explains how he had wanted to become a professional footballer, but after an injury he had to rethink his options; thankfully The Open University offered him a new career path through studying.

The TV campaigns were aligned to the relevant channel programming in On Demand platforms. Longer films of each of the student’s stories were also available for Sky viewers to watch by clicking the red button when the adverts appeared in linear airtime. The campaign was further supported with digital display creative and native editorial articles hosted across Sky Sports and News as well as social posts throughout the campaign.

Results

Partnership cut-through

Viewers showed excellent awareness of The Open University TV campaign, with 63% of Sky viewers recalling the TVCs
Over a third were able to recall the additional digital activity (36%)
The Sky and C5 badges of approval proved to provide additional brand rub-off aspects of ‘quality’ and ‘accessibility’

Understanding The Open University offer

The Sky Media/C5 campaign helped to increase the overall ‘knowledge’ viewers felt they have with the OU brand (+8pp)
While already high amongst our in-market audience, likeability of the OU saw an impressive uplift amongst viewers who recalled the campaign activity (+13pp)

Consideration

Ultimately, those aware of the Sky Media (Sky and C5) partnership are more likely to ‘consider’ The Open University overall (+6pp) and more likely to ‘strongly consider’ the OU (+8pp)
Significantly more viewers who recalled the creative content campaign were likely to take some form of action (+11pp)

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