BTEC - changing perceptions

BTEC is a world-leading vocational qualification, chosen by hundreds of thousands of students each year to help them get into higher education or put them on the path to a career. With the education landscape changing rapidly, and more young people than ever going to university with a BTEC, learning company Pearson appointed AML to create a campaign that would trigger reappraisal among students and their parents towards BTEC.

We decided to turn BTEC into a badge of success. To do this, we gathered together a roster of BTEC ‘ambassadors’. But these weren’t the usual ‘guns for hire.’ We selected successful people – students, teachers and business leaders – who each had a genuine and personal experience of the benefits of BTEC. Peter Jones, entrepreneur, fronted the campaign, in which he and the other ambassadors make the unequivocal statement (as headline and hashtag), ‘I choose BTEC’. The campaign was rolled out nationally, across a media mix that included bus interiors and exteriors, on-campus 6-sheets, social media platforms, video, programmatic ads and a campaign