keen2learn
keen2learn, an online retailer of educational games and toys, struggled to meet its sales targets. Now a new brand identity and website, which made it more accessible and easier to use, is generating better quality hits.
Background
keen2learn is an e-commerce website launched by father and son team Alistair and Stuart Owens in 2006 targeting the UK’s 7.5 million households with school-age children. The company entered the competitive online retailing arena with a firm belief that children learn best through doing. Its aim is to encourage parents to buy products through the site that would support their child’s class work at home.
Problem
Soon after launch, keen2learn director Alistair Owens realised the business was not fulfilling its potential. The style, format and day-to-day operation of keen2learn was not yielding the sales he had hoped for. Recognising his limited design knowledge, he believed a fresh design approach could provide the solution.
‘When we started out, our promotional focus was directed at securing endorsement from schools which we believed required a more formal approach,’ Owens explains. ‘Within the first few months, however, it became apparent that our style, image and website were too formal for parents. So we set out a way to make ourselves more appealing to all parties: parents, children and schools.’
Response
With support from Designing Demand and Business Link South Yorkshire, Owens appointed Sheffield-based Vivid Creative to work with on revitalising the keen2learn brand.
‘Designing Demand involved support in reassessing our business, its position in the marketplace and its potential so that we could prepare an appropriate brief,’ he explains. ‘It also involved a beauty parade of six potential design agency partners, each of whom submitted proposals on what we should do.’
Owens selected Vivid Creative for its enthusiasm, ideas and frankness. ‘They weren’t afraid to give their opinion, and the way they did it gave us the confidence that they could deliver the design solution the business needed,’ he says.
Analysis of the business’s performance quickly identified that while attracting a healthy number of hits, the website’s limited ability to convert these into sales had to be addressed.
‘It was clear that keen2learn’s rivals were more actively selling themselves as a fun proposition,’ comments Vivid Creative Managing Director Gerry Arcari. ‘But with its sombre dark blue logo, keen2learn came over more like a Victorian dad.’
Owens was reluctant to change the company name, so attentions focused on a re-branding exercise that would refresh the identity and re-skin the existing website. ‘The key lay in finding the right emotional pull,’ Arcari explains. ‘Our aim was to make the identity more fun and playful.’
Further research showed one reason parents don’t buy educational products is the fear they might contradict rather than reinforce what their child is learning in the classroom. So Vivid Creative developed a schools information pack to encourage teachers to become brand ambassadors by endorsing the benefits of educational games and toys when used at home.
The end result is a bright, fun logo comprising three elements: the name; a character in the shape of a number two which can be adapted for a range of different uses; and the brand statement: ‘learning in disguise!’ The new branding is now in place across the website and all printed materials.
Impact
The new design has given keen2learn a brighter, lighter and more accessible style and image. The website looks better and is easier to use. The number of bounce hits, where users leave the site within ten seconds because they feel it doesn’t meet their needs, has been cut and users have registered positive feedback to the design change.
‘Before this project began, design had not been a central issue for the business. Nor was it an area we were especially experienced in. As a small operation we felt starved of external input,’ Owens says.
‘We saw the design project as a way of taking a fresh look at the business, approaching it from a completely open standpoint. Designing Demand provided the inspirational elements we needed while Vivid Creative was the ally we needed to steer keen2learn in a more positive direction.’
As with all start-ups, keen2learn is a business which is taking time to build, says Arcari. ‘Although there is still work to be done to further increase sales,’ he adds, ‘design has certainly brought keen2learn closer to the success it deserves .’
Soon after the new website went live keen2learn won a national award for entrepreneurial spirit and potential.