Case Study - Video & Photography

A series of videos and photography to promote Cranfield Executive Development’s portfolio of Open Executive Education programmes.

Cranfield Executive Development is part of Cranfield of School of Management; one of the oldest business schools in Europe. As part of Cranfield University, the school is uniquely placed to connect technology and leadership, contributing to global innovation and societal change.

The School of Management grew out of an industrial need for management training and was formally established in 1967. Their executive development programmes give company executives, managers and directors the tools, knowledge and confidence to respond successfully to the threats and opportunities created by the current economic climate and competitive environment. Many of the world’s leading organisations choose Cranfield as their learning partner including L’Oréal, Royal Dutch Shell, HSBC, Atos, M&S, Unilever, Air Asia, SABIC (Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation), the UK Cabinet Office and Civil Service Learning.

The background:

We were approached initially by the CED team to refresh several workshop videos and look at the overall content strategy based on some existing work we had completed for other departments within the University. We arranged a meeting with the wider team to discuss how we might look to differentiate from the existing videos, aiming for more ‘in the moment’ and less rehearsed responses, producing more genuine and relatable content.

The stakeholders we worked with were looking to develop value-driven hero, hub and hygiene content tailored for different channels and audiences at various points in the sales funnel, using video production and, where appropriate, animation as a way to communicate more abstract ideas. The relationship also led to us producing a scripted advert, a motion graphics animation and several event overview videos for the department.

“Fat Panda know exactly what we need to capture on camera, making my job of approving content a breeze.”

Elizabeth Beales
Marketing Manager

Business challenges:

The main challenges that the stakeholders spoke about were related to building up thought-leadership content that would appeal to a target audience of busy senior leaders, and how to communicate the benefits of executive education to their careers and the organisations they work for. There were also concerns about how to cut through the noise in the competitive executive education market and demonstrate the value proposition in an authentic and non-salesy way. They expressed the difficulties that were often found around capturing a range of views from delegates and academic staff on screen that also encapsulated their specific, strategic USPs.

Key objectives:

🔗 Shareable content

Create content that could be shared directly with potential clients.

💬 Generate new leads

Generate conversation, attract and convert prospects.

🤝 Increase engagement

On landing pages, nurture prospects and progress deals.

📢 Brand exposure

Creating brand content for multi-channel marketing, including social media.

“Working with the Fat Panda team is very easy and fast in comparison with other available video resources.”

Hayley Preedy
Business Development & Marketing Manager

Selected videos

People Strategy Workshop
Video testimonial

The objective of this video was to provide viewers with insights into the delegate experience of Cranfield’s People Strategy Workshop. Filming took place over two days and captured all aspects of the delegates’ experience, including cutaways of the hotel accommodation and evening keynote talks, providing a holistic view of what prospective delegates could expect. We featured interviews with delegates from various backgrounds and industries and heard from the programme directors to provide a general overview of what is covered on the programme. As part of this project, we also produced an alternative social media version with a dynamic motion graphics intro section which communicated the key USPs of the programme.

Cranfield on Marketing and Sales
Animation

This project was a 90-second motion graphic animation describing some of the work that

Cranfield Executive Development does within the disciplines of marketing and sales. The entire animation was based on a graphic they had previously produced in-house. There were specific messages the team wanted to include in the animation so we produced a storyboard to agree on how these would be displayed on-screen. From there we were able to start building the rest of the animation; adding movement to the words and graphics to maintain engagement for the full video. This project required a significant amount of stakeholder management to ensure both the marketing and academic teams’ requirements were met.

Key Account Management
Video testimonial

This project was to be used as a promotional tool for Cranfield’s Key Account Management programme. Over two days of filming, we captured content that consisted primarily of cutaways of the programme in progress which was then combined with existing library footage of the conference centre where the course took place. The brief required us to produce several outputs and formats with footage being repurposed for use across various social media channels. This required us to work closely with the marketing manager to ensure the correct sections and messages were featured across the different videos.

Owner-Manager in the Wild
Social media video ad

We were approached to develop a concept for a pre-roll advert to be used on social media to promote the Business Growth Programme. We opted for a comedy piece that would grab the audience’s attention and would encourage them to engage. This was very different to anything we had produced previously for Cranfield University.

We brought in an experienced comedy writer to help us come up with several concepts, eventually developing a 5-minute screenplay based on Cranfield research on owner-manager archetypes. The script was approved and five professional actors were cast to play the main roles with production taking place over the course of a day. We produced a 5-minute ‘full’ edit in addition to four 60-second edits focusing on the individual archetypes.

Leadership Event - Chelsea FC
Event coverage

We captured footage of this event to promote two distinct offerings: the General Management Portfolio and the Leaders in Learning Network. The event, held at Chelsea Football Club, presented the ideal opportunity to speak to a range of stakeholders including prospective customers in different stages of the buyer journey, academics and programme leaders.

We were able to collect in-depth interviews throughout the day which helped us create the narratives – specifically highlighting the importance of getting out of the office to speak with people and to learn what Cranfield has to offer. The event provided us with an opportunity to become better acquainted with Cranfield’s offering. The location of the event also helped to enhance the visuals and raise the video’s profile.