Marketer's Guide to The Learning Economy

The Marketer’s Guide
to the Learning Economy
P R E P A R E D B Y
THEBIGKNOW.COM

TABLEOFCONTENT
2
Table of Contents
FORWARD
THE NEW ADVERTISING CONTINUUM
WELCOME TO THE LEARNING ECONOMY
TRUST THROUGH TEACHING
WINNING IN THE LEARNING ECONOMY
TAKING IT FURTHER
DRIVING CROSS-CHANNEL DISTRIBUTION
CASE STUDY: CAMBRIA
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES
CONTENT THAT TEACHES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
FOOTNOTES
ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
2
3-4
5-7
8-9
10-14
15-16
17-23
24-26
27-31
32-41
43
44
47-47
48

Forward
3
Great teachers tap into our passions. They
help us make smarter decisions. Teachers
inspire and challenge us to be better, and
they leave a lasting impression that shapes
how we think and who we are.
For most of us, we met our favorite teachers
in school. But with the rise of YouTube and
massively open online courses (MOOCs),
great teachers (and lousy ones) are being
sought out by hundreds of millions of
consumers who spend good time and money
to keep learning as adults—to the tune of
$91B annually.
And with the rise of ad-free television and ad
blockers, brands must now evolve to create
the content consumers value, rather than
interrupt it.
In this report, we’ll share how brands
and organizations can win with branded
education—such as online courses—to
forgeand deepen customer relationships.
WELCOME TO THE LEARNING ECONOMY
MARK ADDICKS
Former CMO of General Mills
Everyone loves
their favorite teacher

TheNewAdvertisingContinuum
4
Consumers never used to have a choice.
If you wanted your favorite content, you tuned in at the same time on the same few stations
as everyone else—and you stayed put for the commercials. When you cut out the ads, it was
coupons in the Sunday paper.
But today’s mobile-always, on-demand consumers cut out ads in whole new ways:
THE NEW ADVERTISING CONTINUUM
From Interruption
to Education
IN 2017

5
According to Laura Henderson, Mondelez
International Inc.’s global head of content
and media monetization, now that
consumers can “skip ads, block ads and
avoid ads in their entirety, marketers are
scrambling to understand how to produce
new forms of content that consumers do
want to look at.”5
From PR to creative agency partnerships,
to the budgets that fund broadcast and
digital media buys, most brands are built
to maximize “working dollars” to borrow
seconds and inches to drive reach and
frequency. For companies with quarterly
earnings to hit, immediate returns talk.
As consumers evolve and take even greater
control, though, organizations must develop
strategies and partnerships to keep up.
“Audiences are fragmented across multiple
media channels, and they’re harder to get
to,” says Robert Rose, chief strategy advisor
for the Content Marketing Institute. “Ad
blockers and everything else have changed
the way that they research, buy and become
loyal to products and services.”
As Mark Addicks examines in a section of
this paper, “9 Ways Brands Can Win in The
Learning Economy,” for brands looking to
create loyalty and behavior change, or to
connect around higher order values, branded
education is uniquely suited for the challenge.
First, let’s look closer at the learning economy.
5
GROWING TRENDS

WELCOMETOTHELEARNINGECONOMY
6
Most of us want to know more, do more,
feel and be better—and education plays
an essential role in enabling that growth
throughout our lives.
But with the exorbitant cost of traditional
education, many are seeking out
nontraditional content providers to support
their development and indulge their
curiosities.
We know in materially affluent societies, where basic needs are easily met, human
motivation quickly shifts away from what I have to who I am. The result is a never-ending
quest for personal enhancement that can play out across countless axes: health, formal
education, informal skills and knowledge, creativity, ethics, values and many more.6
TRENDWATCHING.COM
Welcome to
The Learning Economy
Academic massive open online course
(MOOC) providers like Coursera, edX,
Udacity, and FutureLearn saw enrollment
in their online courses go from 17 million in
2014 to 35 million in 2015.7 That represents
more than twice the number of students in
every college in America combined.
Add in the massive growth of pay-to-play
providers like Udemy, Skillshare, and
Masterclass, and it’s clear the demand for
online education has grown on a massive scale.

7
To put a number on that growth, Capital
Partners UK estimates that the global
learning market in 2016 sits at $91 billion.8
If this learning marketplace were a company,
its market cap would be as big as those for
General Mills and General Motors combined.
Within that market, an Ambient Insight
Report projects the self-paced learning
market alone to reach $53 billion by 2018.9
And the rise of online course providers is
just part of the learning trend.
Surging demand for learning content is also
evident in a 2015 Google Consumer Survey,
which shows a growth of YouTube searches
for “how-to” videos growing 70%, year over
year.10 For YouTube alone, this represents
hundreds of millions of annual hours spent
on self-driven learning.
TED Talks have achieved billions of views
of their 15–20 minute musings from the
world’s foremost thinkers.11 Duolingo
makes it fun and cheap to learn a growing
list of languages. And while Khan Academy
has made today’s high school graduate’s
homework more manageable, they’ve also
prepared the next generation to expect they
can learn anything online—usually for free.
But does learning lead to purchase?
Google reports that nearly one in three
millennials say they have purchased a

8
product as a result of watching a how-to video.12 This
finding is a seed of the larger opportunity to turn
learning into loyalty by teaching consumers on their
terms.
All of this presents a compelling opportunity for
brands.
Learning content has the potential to create true value
for consumers by helping them develop knowledge
in topics they actually care about or skills they need
right away. When this learning content aligns with
and supports a brand’s business goals, the deep
engagement that comes with it has the potential to
deliver significant loyalty to the brand that made it
possible.
Whatever the topic—from parenting to financial
literacy, home design to personal health—brands
and organizations can step forward to teach
nearly anything by leveraging in-house experts or
partnerships with credible influencers.
But do consumers trust brands as teachers? And do
brands have enough business incentive to teach?
The next two sections will explore these key
questions.

Trustthroughteaching
9
“Becoming a teacher is a
core piece of a great content
marketing strategy.”
ROBERT ROSE
Chief Strategy Advisor, Content Marketing Institute
Do consumers trust
brands as teachers?
Branded education, from a quick personality
quiz to a full-blown branded academy, can
position brands as a guide for consumers
seeking self-understanding, self-betterment,
achievement, or simply the ability to make
smart purchase decisions.
Skeptics may look at this concept and argue
that brands could never teach, that the
public does not trust branded content or
brands to play the role of teacher.
But consumers now trust digital branded
content far more than many realize.
According to a 2016 Scribblelive poll, 56% of
surveyed U.S. adults said they trusted online
branded content as much or more than
content from traditional publishers.13
The reality is that brands have long been

10
Better Money Habits partnership with Khan
Academy offers to help “build your financial
know-how with free tools and information
to help make more confident decisions.”16
Rick Dow, former AMA chairman and long-
time CMO of Midas told us, “If you want to
be a teacher, you have to begin by being a
trusted ally. Then you can inform people to
enable them to make smart choices.”
As we discuss in a later section (“Content
That Teaches”), not all content formats are
meant for deeper education. But before we
examine what to teach and how to teach
well, brands should ask how an education
strategy also works as a business and
marketing strategy.
successful teachers with breakthrough
content like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom and Betty Crocker’s recipe books.
Fans of Betty Crocker, for example, have
been going to this veteran brand for cooking
and baking advice since the fictitious
homemaker was first created in 1921.
Fast-forward to 2008, when Betty Crocker
launched a library of some 1,500 videos for
its information-hungry consumers. Four
years later, they had garnered more than 70
million views.14
“We wanted to get out of the interruption
business and more firmly into the solution-
based, ‘let-us-help-you’ business,” said
General Mill’s Vice President of Branding
Doug Moore.
In other modern examples, Moz has built
an authoritative position making it fun to
learn SEO in Whiteboard Fridays. By their
own account, MassMutual’s Society of
Grownups has created “a masters program
for adulthood” as they educate millennials
on how to turn smarter financial decisions
into self-fulfillment.15 Bank of America’s
10

WinningintheLearningEconomy
11
BY MARK ADDICKS
Former CMO of General Mills
Every marketer should consider adding branded education to his or her digital marketing mix.
In this segment, we will make the case for nine direct ways to win through branded education.
1. FASTER. CHEAPER. MORE EFFECTIVE.
The emergence of the learning economy
suggests that the online experience can be
a faster and more customized way to learn
versus traditional offline options.
Step one in this new economy is for
marketers to identify quick wins. Find every
offline learning opportunity you currently
offer or require of your employees, affiliates,
and customers. Then ask yourself if there
isn’t a faster, less expensive, and more
customized way to share knowledge online.
Early results demonstrate that individuals
love the customizable aspect of online
learning. It starts the same as everything else:
consumers want control. Online learning lets
them choose what to learn, how fast or slow
the learning pace, and even whether to come
back later to repeat the key points.
For the brand or business, the development
process of your curriculum is more iterative
than the offline alternative, fueled by timely
analytics on how individuals learn during the
course. From rich video analytics to mining
9 Ways Brands Can Win
in The Learning Economy

12
discussion sentiment, you will learn far
more than you ever could from an offline
environment.
2. BUILDING YOUR DREAM CUSTOMER.
An educated customer needs less hand-
holding, not more. The educated customer
also has a more dynamic understanding of
the true value of what the brand offers.
Online, connected education can make your
customers smarter and, presumably, more
knowledgeable about the values you share.
This can lead them to new ways for products
and services to fit with their personalities
and their lives.
For your preferred customers, ask yourself if
there is an opportunity to educate them on
the related and complex issues they face or
to demonstrate how they can get more out
of your product or service.
3. MEMBERSHIP HAS ITS PRIVILEGES.
Similar to educating your preferred
customers, branded education can also offer
valuable content in exchange for a greater
share of your customer’s business or as a
reward for being a great customer.
Access to valued content can also be tiered
so your brand customer is encouraged to
show loyalty or conduct more business
with your company. Online learning with
valuable, dynamic content can give your
membership and loyalty program true
differentiation versus the typical price
discounting that drives such programs.
4. UNDERSCORE YOUR BRAND’S TRUE VALUE.
Paid advertising is a limited vehicle for
communicating brand superiority. This is
especially true for brands where some of
the value is more nuanced than what can be
explained in a 15-second television spot.
Branded courses where the information
is presented in an objective, sequenced
way can educate your current or future
customer—in ways they value—that also
highlights the key points of difference in
your brand.
Through the deep engagement of an online
course, a customer enjoys a visual and
meaningful context that is set free from

13
the stopwatch of paid advertising. Again,
an educated customer who has learned
rationally and emotionally can have a much
richer understanding of why your brand is
superior.
5. START HERE.
Most brands have an opportunity to own the
context when the potential customer enters
their category. For many brands, engaging
that potential customer at the zero moment
of truth, before they enter your store or visit
your website, can be a critical competitive
advantage.
Thinking of a kitchen remodel? Worried
about your new teenage driver? Just heard
about a disease that you or a loved one may
have? These are all contextual moments
where potential customers begin journeys
that lead to purchase decisions. Good
marketers know the trigger moments when
potential customers start researching and
prepare to make a choice.
For the first time, online learning coupled with
smart digital targeting can use a brand to guide
potential customers as they start their journey.
By creating high-quality learning content
aimed to help people at these key life
moments, brands can make a deep
connection at precisely the right moment.
Here is your chance to sponsor and “own”
the contextual moment when the potential
customer enters the category. Is there a
better first-mover advantage?
6. CAPTURE THE LIFETIME VALUE OF YOUR
CUSTOMERS.
For some brands, there is an opportunity
to keep customers in your franchise as they
progress through need states or life stages.
Most smart marketers know how they
want their customers to progress in their
relationship with the brand. Now online
learning provides a new way to build
relevance at every customer stage with
relevant and engaging branded content.
7. A VALUED CREDENTIAL.
As marketers, too often we gravitate to what
we want from our customers, rather than
focusing on how we might actually add true
value to their lives.

14
Is there an accreditation you could
offer your customers through a learning
experience that would better their lives?
This type of online program underscores
your brand’s level of expertise while
solidifying a connection to your customer
that few, if any, of your competitors can
match.
8. A WINDOW INTO HEARTS AND MINDS.
We have all spent countless hours trying
to identify the key visual, the product
demonstration, the tagline—the powerful
ways that our brand’s unique differentiation
can be expressed.
The richness of an online learning
experience can be a motherlode of customer
insight to spark better brand marketing
communications.
A rich learning environment can provide a
plethora of ways, visual and verbal, for your
customers to find meaning in your brand and
discover what they are truly seeking.
The content used to power a learning
experience can be re-used and re-edited for
shorter feeds in television, website, social
media, or sales materials. This will be covered
in more detail in our section “How Learning
Content Drives Cross-Channel Distribution”
Arguably, though, the deepest value for the
marketer comes from the knowledge he or
she gains from customer interaction with a
learning environment.
This insight can perform in much the
same way as traditional focus groups or
ethnographic journeys, through thousands
of actions and responses that, together, form
a richer profile of what truly motivates your
customer. Within learning experiences on
The Big Know, 79% of course participants
actively engage in candid discussions on
harrowing topics, like being diagnosed
with diabetes, as well as lively chats about
favorite recipes.
Brands already teaching courses on The
Big Know can track the pieces of learning

15
content that outperform others. They can
see which videos are being watched more
and for longer, and which sections of videos
are being skipped or played back. They can
see which pieces of content earn the most
shares, and they can repurpose that content
into their social channels to host even more
discussions and drive more people back into
the course environment.
9. PARTNERING TO EXTEND REACH AND CREDIBILITY.
A learning environment also yields a rich
trove of ideas for potential partners.
Are there other business partners who could
add their voice and expertise to help the
customer solve the entire problem?
Think how a course on kitchen countertops
could extend naturally into helping
homeowners prepare for financing. The
bank may have no advice for surfaces or
color palette, but they can surely help pay to
get the job done.
Are there other brands that allow you to
partner and offer some or all of this content,
via websites, Facebook feeds, social media,
and sales materials? Could they provide
value to the partner while also giving you
another, positive opportunity to engage?
Is there a profitable partnership to launch
that will provide value to your customers
and to new partners? Think of insurance
discounts based on a driving accreditation.
When you understand the contextual
moments where your customer really
engages, as well as their top needs and
hurdles to overcome along the way, you will
uncover educational partner opportunities.

TAKINGITFURTHER
16
Every brand’s campaign has to do a lot of things.
We know you need to sell product. You’re still
going to need quick-hit messaging to drive
awareness of healthier and easier ways to pay
less and get more. Sometimes brands only
need a moment to get the message across.
Two grams less sugar. No artificial ingredients.
Sale ends Sunday.
But modern campaigns also have to think
about digital to drive deeper engagement,
lead generation, trial, and purchase. To this
end, the best campaigns succeed in getting
people to stop what they’re doing and go
deeper.
Imagine that same company’s product
messaging followed up with a course on
childhood nutrition or better cooking. A
learning experience like that can become a
“Branded education can be as simple as this is how to use our products, or it can be as
complex as this is what it means to be a part of our world, and let me educate you on
what this means or is about. Come on that journey with me, let’s learn together.”
LAUREN MEHLER PRADHAN
How Learning
Experiences Can Take
Campaigns Further BY JOSEPH KUEFLER
Creative & Product Director, The Big Know

17
bridge for uniting the values of people with
products. For a more meaningful engagement
to occur, though, brands have to create
something substantive at the center of their
campaign. A branded learning experience is
just that.
A branded learning experience, thoughtfully
designed to turn education into action,
provides a central place for the most engaged
to participate and connect. From that core,
brands can learn rich insights while arming
advocates to take the story further than pre-
roll could ever dream.
Not everyone needs to click or enroll for
brands to create value from a learning
experience. Just the fact that it exists puts a
meaningful action behind the message. It
can power new PR stories and fuel content
streams, all while pulling the most curious
into an experience that positions the brand as
the expert.
When done well, it’s an always-on, evergreen
experience that never stops creating value for
the brand or the consumers at the center of
the message who invest their time learning.
TAKINGITFURTHER

DRIVINGCROSS-CHANNELDISTRIBUTION
18
PAUL FEINER
Marketing Lead, The Big Know
How Learning
Content Drives
Cross-Channel
Distribution

19
At the center, you have a branded learning
experience.
Let’s say you are a baby products company
with a new branded course. You want to teach
anxious first-time parents about the first year
of parenting and, in the process, you want to
elevate your brand as a parenting expert.
You’ve partnered with an influential Mom-
blogger-turned-author, and The Big Know
helps turn her book into an online course
made up of a series of videos and exercises.
Youreviewandapprovethescript.Youflyin
towatchtheshoot,andweighinasthevideo
lessons,activities,andpromoscometolife.Your
teamaddsresourcelinksforeverylesson,each
ofwhichwilldriveengagedlearnerstoclickoffto
yourothercontentpieces,feeds,andproperties.
Yougreenlightyourcourseanditgoeslive.
Nowhowdowemakesurepeopleknowaboutit?
Because your course is made up of so much
compelling visual content, we are well set
up for cross-channel distribution using paid,
earned, and owned vehicles.

20
Let’s Start with Owned Channels
Starting with your owned channels, we
leverage whatever distribution muscle
you’ve built to drive your subscribers and
visitors into your course, hosted on The Big
Know’s mature platform.
Welinkfromyourwebsiteande-mailliststoget
ourfirstparticipantsintothecourse.Ourfirst
goalistolearnfromwhattheysay;todoso,we
canscalethoseinsightsacrossearnedandpaid.
We start their course with an active
discussion on why they signed up and what
they hope to learn. From their answers, we
uncover how they define the problem they
want to solve with the course. We listen
as they candidly discuss shared passions,
hopes, and pains. And we get their brand
reactions in course surveys.
We use all of this as we would a focus group
to make the copywriter’s job easier in
subsequent promotion.
Now we listen to what they do. We look at
which videos they watched the most and
where they stopped or skipped ahead. We
uncover the lessons they shared the most
and see where they found value in the
content.
Then we make cut-downs of the best
content in every form we can use. We create
15- and 30-seconds to run in YouTube,
Facebook, and Instagram. We make GIFs
and repurpose professional photos from the
shoot, too.
Because each part of the script is written
to have standalone value, video scripts
repurpose nicely into blog posts. Plus, we
can drive traffic directly into every video in
your course where pages are optimized to
convert traffic to go deeper.
A typical enrollment nets 56 minutes of
consumer engagement time, and 10% of
all traffic sent to The Big Know enrolls in a
course, averaged across sources.
Also, we want to maximize the re-use of
course content in our other channels.
Between videos, photos, and blog posts,
creating the content for the course also

21
becomes a ready-made social campaign to
support it.
For example, in Cambria’s course on
building your dream kitchen, course-related
social content has driven 61% higher social
engagement compared to non-course content.
Unlocking Earned Exposure
We look to more than traffic and
enrollments as our measures of success. We
know that not everyone will click or enroll
in the course, and we want to maximize
exposure around it. Assuming our course
is not just for members or employees, we
want to maximize reach here—and earned
exposure is critical.
As your course opens, your PR agency or The
Big Know’s marketing team starts pitching
journalists to write about the course, the
partnership, and the value we’re creating
for consumers—told as tightly as possible to
your key brand story.
Now The Big Know arms our Mom blogger
with assets and strategy for how to market
the course on her owned channels, and we
ask her to pull in her network and connect
her to press outlets.
Between PR and influencer promotion, the
goal is two-fold. First, maximize earned
press exposure and impact within culture,
especially positioning your brand as a
parenting expert. Second, from the earned
coverage, we want to create as many
inbound links as we can to strengthen the
course for inbound search traffic. We will go
after recurring opportunity keywords to get
a base of earned traffic to build on.
Also, as course participants share their
favorite video lessons, those shares bring in
new visitors who then convert to take your
course at a very high rate.
Driving Scale Through Paid
Despite the many well-documented issues
with advertising, today’s world of people-
based targeting still has a huge role to play
in driving reach with increasingly precise
audiences at key moments.

22
From psychographic Facebook profiling
to intent-driven paid search campaigns
and smart publisher placements, modern
marketers have a wealth of options to
find and serve the right audience at the
right time on the right device. In addition,
traditional television can be fuel on the
fire when we have a proven ecosystem
buttressed by clear messaging.
In short, paid strategies still play a big role in
maximizing reach.
And since we put evidence before scale,
we are now armed with insights about why
people are taking the course and what
content they enjoy most.
For online media, we amplify the best
of what we’ve learned through 15- and
30-second clips for YouTube, Instagram, and
Facebook. We optimize those channels to
maximize reach and awareness with new or
expecting parents.
We then hit them with efficient link ads
designed to drive traffic and convert their
interest into deeper engagement in the
course. For the non-converting traffic we
generate, we stay in front of them with
highly efficient Facebook remarketing ads.
To drive efficiency further, assuming we can
build a revenue-positive advertising model,
we build a paid search campaign targeting
opportunity keywords so that we meet
expectant parents as they enter our category.
At The Big Know, we’ve tested across a
variety of channels to uncover the best
combinations for maximizing reach and
conversion efficiency. With algorithmic
preference being given to video on Facebook
and Instagram, we can drive cheap and
highly-targeted CPMs.
In summary, we have found, Facebook has
proven to be the best performing remarketing
channel, and paid search, as usual, allows us
to target the perfect moment.
This works because, when it comes down
to it, targeting someone based on them
liking Honest Toddler on Facebook is not
as precise as serving an ad to someone who
just typed “new baby tips” into Google.

23
Building an Always-On Model
If we’ve done our job right, we now have an
evergreen learning experience people love,
one that drives reach outside the course
and captivates the most interested to spend
significant time with your brand. They share
the course on and offline to drive more to us
and, from their discussions, we’ve learned
how to optimize our messaging as we
pursue broader distribution.
We have repurposed the videos,
photography from the shoot, and scripts
to fill our social and e-mail channels. And
we’ve built a paid campaign that delivers
both significant reach and conversion, while
earning our way to meaningful third-party
coverage to create added exposure in the
press and help us grow organic search traffic
through link building.
But the course should be more than just an
always-on machine bringing new parents
to your brand: it should continue to deepen
our customer understanding by delivering
new insights.
When we have confidence in how people
answer questions, we change the questions
to understand the other core emotional
need states of new parents. Plus, the course
allows us to extend into deeper nurturing
the longer it is open.
For example, videos in the course are
supported by contextual links that drive
PAID MEDIA REACH + ACQUISITION

24
back into relevant online touch points within your
brand’s world—most often to content on your
website. Based on the lesson resources our course
participants click, we can personalize messaging.
For example, when our new parents are reading
about how to clothe a growing newborn, it makes
sense to link to your new line of adjustable
products. When they click that link, we trigger an
e-mail offer for those products with a link to the
store locator and option to buy right online.
Of course, this thinking can be scaled up or down
depending on objectives, channel strengths, and
budget, but this is an example of how a learning
experience can power insights and cross-channel
distribution that delivers awareness, loyalty, and
even measurable purchase.
2424

CASESTUDY:CAMBRIA
25
Cambria, a producer of natural quartz surfaces, partnered with The Big Know
to launch a free online course aimed at helping homeowners infuse beauty and
quality into their homes by making their dream kitchen a reality.
Elevate Cambria’s position as a design expert while driving sales. Become the best
sourceofcontentonthewebaimedatteachingthegrowingnumberofhomeowners
who turn to professional designers and contractors on kitchen projects.
Bring in Scott McGillivray, a popular TV host, trusted contractor, and real
estate investor, to teach the course. Maximize exposure through Cambria-
owned channels, brand advocates, gallery events, a targeted digital media buy,
and press exposure.
Case Study: Cambria
Teaches Kitchen Design
Across Channels
SUMMARY
CHALLENGE
STRATEGY:

26
CASESTUDY:CAMBRIA
1. Over 40 million impressions in paid and earned coverage across local,
regional, and national kitchen and home-focused publications.
2. 15 inbound links from authoritative domains.
3. 61% higher engagement for course-created social content across Facebook,
Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, including Facebook Live launch from
influencer event.
4. Active earned sharing and advocacy within key contractor and design
communities.
5. 48 minutes average time spent learning in the course.
6. 21 average page views per learner.
7. Thousands of discussion posts, including clear brand advocacy and
purchase intent.
8. Videos viewed 43% longer than average web video, even with videos up to
7 minutes long.
9. 6x higher course completion rate than average MOOCs.
10. 59% of learners become qualified leads by opting-in to receive e-mails
from Cambria.
RESULTS

27
CONCLUSION
With “Dream. Plan. Do: How to Make Your
Dream Kitchen a Reality,” Cambria created
a powerful, always-on business driver
that meets and educates a rising trend of
consumers as they turn to pros for their
kitchen remodels. Through a smart alliance
with Scott McGillivray and The Big Know,
they have an evergreen content asset that
can be repurposed across channels and
continue to drive sales.
CASESTUDY:CAMBRIA

INDUSTRYPERSPECTIVES
28
As part of this report, The Big Know commissioned Gail Brown Hudson, an Emmy-award
winning journalist, to interview brand and content leaders, from brand marketing executives
to content strategists and university professors. She set out to understand how brands think
about education today, and what advice they would give to other leaders looking to invest
in educational content marketing.
Industry Perspectives:
Brand Experts Discuss
Branded Education
ROBERT ROSE
Chief Strategy Advisor,
Content Marketing Institute
RICK DOW
Former AMA Chairman, Midas CMO,
Principal of The Dojo Group
DAVE HOPKINS
Carlson School of Management,
University of Minnesota
DR. MICHAEL PORTER
Opus Business College,
University of St. Thomas
Former Senior Brand Strategist,
General Mills
JOE LAZAUSKAS
Editor-in-Chief,
Contently

29
Should brands invest in teaching?
“It is a longer-term strategy, it is not a short-
term and quick fix.”
ROBERT ROSE
“Authenticity is hard to do…cheaply or
expensively. Building something that’s
flexible and that can change as you learn
is also tough when you’re making content
marketing.”
“The purpose of this has to create smarter
and better informed consumers…and accept
and trust that this is going to make people
more predisposed to your brand.”
RICK DOW
“If you’re doing education simply so people
have ‘warm fuzzies’ about you, there’s going
to be a point of diminishing returns on how
much it costs you to do that. But ultimately
we’re still in business and we’re still trying to
sell products and we want all consumers in
our space to be better educated about what
they need…the real advantage becomes if
you’re doing the educating, then you get
to set the script. We are taking control of
that voice and we are taking control of the
context within which these products and
services are presented.”
DR. MICHAEL PORTER
What qualities make for great
branded education?
KNOWLEDGE DEPTH OF EXPERTISE
“I would argue just as strongly for a
differentiating point of view—something
that couldn’t be found in a Google search
…the same as any class. [Brand teachers]
are actually bringing a point of view to the
process. I think that’s what makes a great
brand teacher—they’re not just teaching you
the facts. The facts can be found…they’re
teaching you facts in a meaningful way. And
that means developing a distinct point of
view on that particular topic.”
ROBERT ROSE
TEACH WITH HUMILITY
“If a brand has a very clear point of view—
a brand has to ask itself, what utility am I
offering to my consumer? And there’s a bit of
humility in that. Brands need to have humility

30
when they’re putting content out to the world,
because brands can make things that they
think are cool, but that the consumer has no
use for.”
HIGH QUALITY
“It’s very important. Very classy, well done
videos, although it’s probably lost on the
average person. It’s the subtleties of how
well production is done which makes it
more believable. Your audience probably
can’t articulate why they trust it. Does it look
like an infomercial? The practitioners have
to be cognizant of their audience. Knowing
what it is and who it is that you’re trying to
engage with.”
DR. MICHAEL PORTER
AUTHENTIC AND RELEVANT
“Companies need to be careful. If it’s not
authentic, not relevant, it becomes less
effective. It doesn’t make a connection with
the consumer…t’s not a value-add.”
DAVE HOPKINS
“I think the most successful things I’ve done
to date have been when I’ve capitalized on
what’s happened, what’s already happening.
You give a face to it…instead of, ‘we’re going
to make you care about this.’”
“The content must resonate with the
audience—they have to have a need for that
exchange of value, delivered in a format
that’s a familiar format that makes them
comfortable and happy.”
DR. MICHAEL PORTER
“In the end, great brands will be the ones
who excel in the content space because it’s
not a tactic. It’s an expression of a brand’s
sincerity in doing the right thing.”
RICK DOW
LEARNING THAT DRIVES ACTION
“Your content should contain actionable
advice. A guide that we go by: 1) find
something interesting 2) deliver at least
three actionable things that someone can
watch and do tomorrow. If they’re not
having clear ‘takeaways’—you’re probably
not doing a good job at educating them.”
JOE LAZAUSKAS

31
BE A “STORYTELLER”
“Don’t do an amateur job of it. This is
best done by working story and narrative
into the presentation. We use storytellers,
journalists, reporters. Do you want to tell a
story—or do you want to hire someone that
specializes in writing banner ad copy?”
JOE LAZAUSKAS
How can brands use education to
build customer trust?
“We are in an age right now where people
are more open to education from private
branded sources than ever before. If I buy
into a brand now, I want you to help me. I’m
buying into a lifestyle. I want to be the best
‘me’ with that product. So I would like you
to teach me how to do that in the best way
possible. Consumers are really savvy, and
we underestimate the intelligence of them.
I think people know that the brand is doing
something in its own interest. And I don’t
think that people worry about that as much
anymore. If they’re getting utility out of it,
then they’re satisfied.”
“They have to be fair and unbiased and there
has to be evidence around both of those to
have credibility. It’s a very binary, dynamic
relationship. It either works for you or works
against you. There’s really no in-between.
This relationship works most effectively,
for high-engagement brands—that is,
brands that sell products that are either
expensive or ‘life-affecting’ (for example,
which hospital do I send my child to? What
kind of appliances should I buy?), and/or
things that have an impact on a consumer’s
lifestyle. If you want to be a teacher, you
have to begin by being a trusted ally. Then
you can inform people to enable them to
make smart choices.”
RICK DOW
“You want to create loyalty with clients, you
want them to spend as much money as
possible. You want them to stay clients for 5-
to-10 years. It’s incredibly more efficient
—content can be a great way to do that. If
someone is taking a course and it makes
them better at their jobs, they’re also getting
a lot of value with you. You’re building a
bond, a relationship with that customer. And

32
ultimately, it makes them unlikely to go to
your competitor…it’s a way to protect your
relationships with customers and retain them.
JOE LAZAUSKAS
“If we start developing trust through
the delivery of valuable content, then
theoretically, if we deliver it well, the
audience and our customers trust us more
and a higher percentage of them will do
things like—give us better testimonials,
evangelize our product, and so on.”
ROBERT ROSE
32

CONTENTTHATTEACHES
33
BY TOM GODFREY
Director of Instructional Strategy, The Big Know
Almost everyone has been taught through a lifetime of traditional schooling that “teaching”
means “presenting information.” 17
Many content creators will tell you that their
content teaches. But some efforts are more
effective at teaching than others.
As Ruth Colvin Clark says in her book,
Evidence-Based Training Methods, “Content
covered is not content learned.”18
If teaching
is your goal, deciding on the form your
educational content should take is essential.
To make this decision, there are two key
questions to answer.
First, how actively engaged do you need your
consumers to be with your content to learn
what you want them to learn? Second, how
prominent a role should your brand play
in that content? These decisions can make
or break the design of a branded learning
experience.
Creating Content That
Really Teaches

34
Passive vs. Active Engagement
Julie Dirksen, instructional strategist and
author says, A lot of learning experiences
purport to teach a skill, when really all they
do is introduce a skill. But if you are actually
trying to get your learners to some level of
proficiency…then there’s a little bit more
involved.19
Brands that need to go beyond delivering
information that will help people retain new
knowledge or skills—or get them to adopt
a new behavior or attitude—need to offer
immediate opportunities for learners to go
deeper and actively practice what they learn.
In education, this is called student-centered
instruction. Students themselves must
be actively involved in their own learning
process, as opposed to simply soaking up
knowledge like a sponge.
While videos, sponsored articles and
social posts all can inform, entertain, and
enlighten, this kind of consumption is often
passive, even when content is executed well.
How active should an experience be?
This depends on how much and to what
proficiency you want your learners to learn.
In her book, Design for How People Learn,
Julie Dirksen offers the following matrix for
helping instructional designers sort through
this decision.
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

35
The y-axis indicates levels of sophistication
in terms of cognition. Remember is the least
sophisticated and Create is the most. On the
x-axis, we have levels of proficiency, with
Familiarity (“that rings a bell”) on the lowest
end and Unconscious Competency (Michael
Jordan shooting a jumper) on the highest.
AsDirksensuggests,“Notsurprisingly,thehigher
you go on either scale, the more time, practice,
and skills development you’ll need to do.”
Within a digital learning context, which is where
most branded education content will live, just
how active an experience you can create will
depend a lot on the platform you choose, the
modality of instruction, your budget, and other
logistical constraints.
But just because it happens online does not
change how people learn. The best platforms
provide a variety of tools to promote active
learning, and if you learn how to thoughtfully
integrate such experiences into your content,
your learners and your brand will benefit.
CONTENTTHATTEACHES
CREATE
EVALUATE
APPLY
ANALYZE
UNDERSTAND
REMEMBER
REMEMBER COMPREHENSSIVE CONCIOUS EFFORT CONCIOUS ACTION PROFICIENCY UNCONCIOUS COMPETENCY
SOPHISTICATIONOFCOGNITION
LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY

36
Learner-Centric vs. Brand-Centric Content
…Many organizations still struggle to
produce content that doesn’t explicitly aim
to sell their products. Content marketing
shouldn’t do this, nor should it involve you
preaching about your brand essence.20
A content marketing purist might say that
content should never be about your brand,
product, or service.
Content marketing seeks to provide
something of personal value to the
consumer and in the process drives
consumers to give back to your business
through profitable actions like buying or
referring. That idea tends to hold true for
branded educational content (unless what
your consumers want to learn is how to use
your product or service).
At the same time, branded education offers
a place for your product, service, and brand
to shine through, as long as it is done at the
right time, makes sense with the rest of the
solution, and is executed with integrity and
transparency.
The ideal branded education solution
strikes the right balance to give consumers a
meaningful learning experience and deliver
on business outcomes.
Three Elements of Effective
Branded Education
A good teacher, like a good entertainer first
must hold his audience’s attention, then he
can teach his lesson.
JOHN HENRIK CLARK
The three pillars of an effective branded
educational experience are great content
and process, sound pedagogy, and a quality
platform for delivery.
1. GREAT CONTENT, GREAT PROCESS.
Togiveyoureducationalcontentthebest
potentialforgreatness,findtopicsyour
audiencetrulycaresabout,credibleand
engagingexpertteachers,andaproduction
thatreflectsattentiontodetail.Thisincludes
planning,design(instructionalandaesthetic),
sound,visuals,research,writing,and
storytelling.
2. SOUND PEDAGOGY.
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

37
A well-designed learning experience
surrounds and sequences that base content
with engaging and relevant activities.
It gains and sustains attention, delivers
content in a compelling way, and provides
opportunities for meaningful processing.
This requires an understanding and
integration of best practices in instructional
design, as well as effective use of learning
tools and technologies.
On top of that, if you have the tools, the
community you generate should become
a key part of your solution. A basic tenet
of learning is that we have as much to
learn from each other as we do from any
teacher. Community and collaboration
can be enabled both within the learning
environment and in broader digital and
offline channels.
3. QUALITY PLATFORM.
You can have the most amazing,
pedagogically sound content in the world,
but if your platform is hard or unpleasant
to use, it won’t matter. Technology should
enable learning, not get in its way. Your
learning content should live on a platform
that is easy to navigate and fun to use.
How to Design Branded Education:
Outcomes First
When designing learning solutions, many
people take a content-first approach.
They start with “What are all the topics
I want to cover?” as opposed to “What
outcomes am I hoping to achieve?” A
content-first approach can quickly lead to
content that’s disconnected from brand and
learner desires, or in some cases a format
that is unnecessary to support learning.
This approach often also assumes that
content covered is content learned. If you
have ever felt like a webinar wasted your
time, you have experienced the effects of a
misguided content-first approach.
An outcomes-first approach can help you
avoid these problems, because it focuses
you first on what you want your learners to
achieve and then explores the various ways
people demonstrate their learning. Content
decisions in this process come only after
you have thought through these crucial
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

38
elements.
The following four-step process reflects an
outcomes-first approach to learning content
design. This approach is a modified version
of Moore’s method for instructional design
known as “action mapping.”21
1. IDENTIFY CORE OUTCOMES
Learning outcomes define what you want
the learner to know, what he or she should
be able to do, or what will result from
completing the learning experience.
2. DEFINE RELEVANT ACTIONS
Once you define outcomes, look at each one
and describe in concrete terms what the
learner would do that shows you they have
achieved that outcome.
For example, a course on living well with
diabetes might have an outcome to “Identify
ideal ranges for key health metrics.” Your
learner might show you he or she has
achieved that outcome by comparing
their personal health numbers against
recommended health numbers.
Most outcomes can generate several
potential actions, which is essential to
generate ideas for activities and content.
3. INVENT MEANINGFUL ACTIVITIES
Once you identify key actions that
map to your outcomes, you can invent
meaningful activities that provide learners
the opportunity to practice those actions
and process your content in authentic and
meaningful ways.
An activity can be any learning experience
you want your learner to complete to
support outcome achievement—watch
this thing, take this quiz, engage in this
discussion, do this exercise, etc.
When selecting activities, the goal is to
find creative ways to get learners to use key
concepts. At the same time, we must consider
technical and creative feasibility given
modality, platform, audience, and scope.
4. SELECT CONTENT ELEMENTS
With your outcomes, actions, and activities
defined, you can now decide what content
you need. The key question to ask is, “What
is the minimal amount of content I need
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

39
to provide so my learners can successfully
complete the activities?” Once you have
identified all your content needs, you have
a design. You can start turning this loose
structure into an actual learning experience.
Captivate, Educate, Activate: A Model
for Engagement
At this point, the fun can really start. We’re
ready to ask, “How am I going to make this
learning experience as engaging as possible?”
If you are going to sustain someone’s
attention for the duration of your learning
solution, you need to get and hold his
or her attention. A important part of
driving engagement involves investing in
production value and asset design. Your
learning content is a reflection of your
brand. It needs to showcase the same high
standards for quality and design that you
have for the brand itself.
But engagement is also about the learning
experience and environment.
This is why instructional designers at The Big
Know built a learning model specifically to
promote deep and sustained engagement.
We call our model “Captivate, Educate,
Activate.” All of the lessons in our online
courses reflect this approach.
We may start with some sort of compelling
hook to grab the learner’s attention—it
could be an amazing story, a compelling
statistic, an interactive activity, or just a cool
visual. Whatever is chosen, the key concept
should reflect what the lesson explores. The
“Captivate” phase readies the learner to dig
in during the “Educate” phase.
This phase delivers key concepts in bite-
sized ways, with professionally produced
videos, taught by trusted experts, supported
by animations and graphics that enhance
learning transfer.
Once the key concepts are taught, learners
are asked to process their learning in the
“Activate” phase, which often involves a
combination of activities. This can include
interactive exercises to promote processing,
quizzes to test didactic knowledge,
discussions to cultivate community and
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

40
collaborative learning, or a variety of other
exercises to get learners to apply what they
are learning in meaningful ways.
Captivate, Educate, Activate provides a
consistent framework for content creation
and consumption. This model also allows
each video asset to have standalone
educational value as the pieces are
repurposed across other marketing channels.
One example from Cambria, we brought
Captivate, Educate, Activate to life—starting
with a striking animation to teach Soft White
versus Bright White light. In 47 seconds, we
taught the common uses and qualities of
each type of light, while showing how each
changes the look of the same room. In the
course, we activate that knowledge through
visiting Cambria’s Inspiration Gallery and
asking the learners to share their favorite
examples of lighting with others. This leads
to conversation and community, which
reinforce the core lesson.
When repurposing this video into social, we
can captivate and educate by running the
video right in the feed, then activate through
conversation and a direct call-to-action to
come take the course and go deeper.
Deciding What to Teach
The biggest brands hire the brightest
people. But that institutional knowledge has
historically stayed locked within organizations.
Your internal experts could provide a wealth
of knowledge to help you create powerful
learning experiences for consumers.
What if Nike taught a course on training? Delta
Airlines could teach people how to travel
safely. Target could teach nutrition, exercise,
parenting, home décor, and so much more.
Every organization has something to teach, or
can partner with credible experts to create new
dimensions in how consumers perceive them.
But having internal expertise on a subject is
not a reason by itself to create content for it.
Ideally, your consumer is actively seeking
that content, too.
To help you discover where your ideal
teaching opportunities are, consider the
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

41
following steps.
1. ASSESS NEED STATES AND LIFE STAGES
Most marketers can articulate the
need states or life stages that align with
consideration of their brand’s product
or service. For example, a car seat
manufacturer can safely say that most of
their customers are entering their category
when they have their first child. This is a
moment when education can shape how a
consumer frames their purchase decision.
2. IDENTIFY ASSOCIATED INTERESTS
Once you have identified the need states,
list the other common values, interests,
or concerns of consumers during that
need state or life stage. This should reveal
significant opportunities for branded
education. That car seat purchaser is
probably also looking for guidance on how to
parent, how to feed their child, how to raise
creative kids, or how to lose the baby weight.
3. ASSESS YOUR CREDIBILITY
The last step is to assess your own credibility
as a teacher of your selected topic. You can be
credible if you are teaching a topic in which
your company has clear expertise. Lululemon
teaching yoga makes a lot of sense; Toys ‘R’ Us
teaching family budgeting makes less sense.
You can also co-opt the credibility of a
recognized expert. A health insurance
company might hire Sanjay Gupta to teach
heart health. An oven manufacturer might
hire Bobby Flay to teach a cooking course.
The key in this process is to find the
confluence between the content you
could credibly teach and the content your
consumers actively seek while they are also
considering your brand.
Ethical Considerations: Making a
Commitment to Teach
When you decide to create branded
education, you are making a commitment
to teach. The teacher-student relationship
is a sacred thing. Branded education is not
about secretly embedding brand messages
in the content. That embedding might
happen, but it should be transparent.
When creating branded education, there is
an ethical responsibility to teach content
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

42
that is grounded in fact, that uses sound
data, and provides balanced perspectives.
And if you have read this far, hopefully by
now you have enough evidence to see that
branded education can deliver a win-win for
the brand and the learner.
CONTENTTHATTEACHES

43
The Big Know designs, produces, and
powers the world’s best branded learning
experiences.
We combine learning design and a love for
crafted stories to create breakthrough content
marketing that educates. We serve it on the
world’s only branded learning platform built
exclusively for the needs of modern business.
We surround all of it with a team of marketing
strategists who ensure the experience and
content we create together are findable,
shareable, and measurable.
Want to learn more?
Contact sales@thebigknow.com for more
information or to request a demo.
TheBigKnow.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
44
RICK DOW, PRINCIPAL
The DoJo Group
DAVE HOPKINS
Program Director of Carlson Brand Enterprise,
University of Minnesota
JOE LAZAUSKAS
Editor-in-Chief, Contently
DR. MICHAEL PORTER
Opus Business College, University of St. Thomas
Former Senior Brand Strategist, General Mills
ROBERT ROSE
Chief Strategy Adviser, Content Marketing Institute
We wish to thank the following experts who agreed to be interviewed for this paper:
Acknowledgements

ABOUTTHEAUTHORS
45
MARK ADDICKS is a recognized global thought leader on modern brand building. He now holds
a seat on The Big Know’s board of directors after a distinguished 26-year career as the CMO of
General Mills.
PAUL FEINER leads marketing for The Big Know by making sure learning experiences are
findable, shareable, measurable, and connected to brand outcomes.
TOM GODFREY is the Director of Instructional Strategy at The Big Know, where he authors and
designs learning experiences that balance brand and learner outcomes.
GAIL BROWN HUDSON is an Emmy-award winning journalist who has written for the Star Tribune
and Northern Gardener magazine. She worked for 30 years in broadcast journalism for ABC
affiliate KSTP-TV and KTCA public television in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. She is the owner of
Gail Hudson Media in Minneapolis.
JOSEPH KUEFLER is the creative and product director at The Big Know. He has led creative and
strategy for brands like Purina, General Mills, Method, and Nordstrom using purpose to
redefine their business and marketing strategies.
About the Authors

FOOTNOTES
46
1 “US Ad Blocking to Jump by Double Digits This Year,” eMarketer.com, June 21, 2016.
Accessed July 1, 2016.
2 “Cord Cutting is Accelerating,” Keach Hagey, The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2015.
Accessed July 1, 2016.
3 “Marketing Trend: Shift to Native Advertising Explained (Infographic),” Laura Montini, Inc.
Accessed August 14, 2016.
4 “The 2015 Ad Blocking Report,” PageFair, August 10, 2015. Accessed July 1, 2016.
5 “Advertisers Try New Tactics to Break Through to Consumers,” Suzanne Vranica, The Wall
Street Journal, June 19, 2016. Accessed July 1, 2016.
6 “Currencies of Change,” Trendwatching.com, March 2015. Accessed July 1, 2016.
7 “By The Numbers: MOOCs in 2015,” Dhawal Shah, December 21, 2015. Accessed June 15,
2016.
Footnotes

FOOTNOTES
47
8 “Turn Learning Into Profit,” Barry Kelly, Thought Industries, March 4, 2015. Accessed June
15, 2016.
9 “Turn Learning Into Profit,” Barry Kelly, Thought Industries, March 4, 2015. Accessed June
15, 2016.
10 “YouTube “How To” Video Searches Up 70%, With Over 100 Million Hours Watched in
2015,” Amy Gesenhues, Search Engine Land, May 13, 2015. Accessed June 15, 2016.
11 “1 Billion Views of TEDx Ideas Worth Spreading,” tedxbillion.ted.com. Accessed June 15,
2016.
12 “I Want-to-Do Moments: From Home to Beauty,” David Mogensen, thinkwithgoogle.com,
May 2015. Accessed August 17, 2016.
13 “Content Mythbusting: What Content Do Consumers Really Want,” Jennifer Taylor,
Scribblelive.com, March 10, 2016. Accessed August 17, 2016.
14 “Betty Crocker TV,” YouTube. Accessed June 15, 2016.
15 “Society of Grownups Secures $100 Million Infusion To Get Millennials Around The U.S.
Talking Money,” Samantha Sharf, Forbes.com, October 15, 2015. Accessed July 1, 2016.
16 “Better Money Habits,” Bank of America. Accessed July 1, 2016.
17 “Action Mapping: A visual approach to training design,” Cathy Moore [blog], Cathy-moore.
com. Accessed August 16, 2016.

FOOTNOTES
48
18 “Evidence-Based Training Methods: A Guide for Training Professionals,” Cathy Moore,
Amazon.com. Accessed August 16, 2016.
19 “Design For How People Learn (Voices That Matter),” Julie Dirksen, Amazon.com. Accessed
August 9, 2016.
20 “Why Your Branded Content Shouldn’t Always Be About Your Brand,” Luke Cope, Content
Marketing Institute, March 13, 2014. Accessed August 9, 2016.
21 “Action mapping headquarters,” Cathy Moore [blog], Cathy-moore.com. Accessed August
16, 2016.

ADDITIONALRESEARCH
49
“YouTube ‘How To’ Video Searches Up 70%, with Over 100 Million Hours Watched in 2015,”
Amy Gesenhues, Searchengineland.com. May 13, 2015. Accessed August 1, 2016.
“The Story of Content: Rise of the New Marketing,” Joe Pullizzi, Content Marketing Institute,
August 3, 2016. Accessed July 1, 2016.
“Content is Too Important to Leave to a Content Department,” Robert Rose, robertrose.net,
March 1, 2016. Accessed July 1, 2016.
“About.com’s ‘The Trust Factor’ Study Finds Trust Crucial to Consumer-Brand Relationships and
a Key Driver in Decision-Making,” Businesswire.com, July 19, 2012. Accessed August 18, 2016.
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