Basic Training

A number of property owners have announced the launch this fall of branded educational courses, online at the moment, mostly through partnerships with education providers. All are focused on professional training.

The timing makes sense given the high number of furloughs and layoffs that have occurred since the start of the pandemic. Many adults want to maximize their credentials in the hopes of securing a new job or retaining the one they have, while others want to gain knowledge for potential career changes, given uncertainty in their current industries. More generally, adults have been using the extra time they have, whether due to a layoff or furlough or because their social lives have been curtailed, to learn something new, from job-related skills to hobbies. For property owners, meanwhile, launching an online training initiative raises awareness among a key target group and offers an immersive and safe brand experience at a time when many of their other experiential plans have been forced into a holding pattern.

Here are some of the online educational programs for professionals announced since September, with the first three on the list coming to light just this month:

• Aardman Academy, a division of Aardman Animations founded in 2013, debuted its first long-form industry training course for aspiring professionals in the animation industry, the 12-week “Industry Training: Stop Motion 1.” The Academy already offers other, shorter courses. They include three subjects, such as “Maquette Making,” under the Academy Training banner, which is for three- to five-day courses, and one subject, “Perfecting Your Model Making Portfolio,” under the Gateway to Industry banner, which is for one- to two-day courses. All are virtual (and seeing global participation) due to the pandemic. The inaugural Industry Training course, which starts in February 2021 and is open to up to 35 students, includes online master classes, teacher-led sessions, one-on-one mentoring, and tasks. As part of a goal to build a more diverse workforce in the British animation industry, two places in the program will be fully funded by Aardman in partnership with U.K. organization Creative Access.
• Marquee Brands paired with online culinary content provider Rouxbe, celebrity chef Scott Conant, and online higher education provider Strategic Education to launch a Sur La Table-branded curriculum to teach cooking skills and the tools to thrive in the culinary world. The initial target market is cooking aficionados, but the plan is to expand the program to those who have, or hope to have, culinary careers. The Sur La Table Online Culinary Institute program is in the process of being accredited by the American Council on Education and is approved by the American Culinary Federation Education Foundation. The initial roster of programming is comprised of six self-paced 55-hour courses as well as three two- to four-hour thematic courses. Sur La Table’s 300 resident chefs will have the opportunity to participate and provide feedback, and Strategic Education will also serve as a “premier education provider” to Sur La Table and Marquee Brands employees as part of the deal. Sur La Table has offered in-store and digital courses in the past and expanding on this facet of the brand was one of Marquee Brands’ stated goals when it acquired Sur La Table earlier this year. Strategic Education, which owns the for-profit Strayer and Capella universities, decided to enter the culinary education sector due to the pandemic-fueled hospitality industry disruption.
• Video game streaming platform Twitch teamed with Learn2Esport for a streaming curriculum covering the business of content creation and streaming, with a focus on esports. Due to the youthful workforce in the esports industry, the target audience is high school and college students. Topics include technology, broadcasting skills, content production, personal branding, marketing, audience engagement, and career opportunities.
• DeWalt announced it has partnered with 360training for an online and mobile OSHA safety-training course for jobsites and workplaces. The deal will see 10-hour and 30-hour options for the construction and other industries, with participants receiving a Department of Labor card showing their training completion, within two weeks of passing the course. OSHA-authorized Outreach Instruction courses provide basic and advanced training about common jobsite safety and health hazards.
• Hearst’s Elle magazine introduced a dedicated Elle Education online platform, built on the success of the brand’s partnership with MIT University for the Elle International Fashion & Luxury Management Program, in place since 2017. The goal of Elle Education is to partner with academic institutions to offer theoretical and practical education to members and aspiring members of the fashion industry; it will also host talks by industry leaders. Separately, Hearst recently formed a partnership with BossBabe, a digital hub for female entrepreneurs, to implement a contest where women can pitch new concepts to a panel of businesswomen. The top 10 contestants will receive 40 hours’ worth of courses of their choice on Elle Education.

Licensed IP have been extended into online (and live) educational courses of various types in the past, of course. Most recently, a burst of such deals occurred in 2018, some of which are covered here. Most of the educational initiatives in the past have been consumer-focused, aimed either at kids or at adults who want to continue their informal education in topics that interest them.

If the five fall launches discussed here are any indication, it looks like licensed courses focused on professionals, or would-be professionals, are on the upswing. Not only is the timing right in the short term, but the professional training space is relatively untapped as a category for brand-extension and is therefore attractive in the long term for properties that can authentically bring credibility to this sector.

We will not publish this coming Thursday, November 26, 2020, due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. We will be back to our regular Monday and Thursday schedule next week.