Kaplan
Video, animation, podcast & YouTube
Project Snapshot
Campaign: 2023 content partnership
Audience: Students, learners and education professionals
Services: Creative strategy, video production, animation, podcast production, YouTube content
Deliverables: Brand videos, animations, Learn Better podcast, Career Goals YouTube series and supporting content
Building a Broader Creative Toolkit
As Kaplan’s video content partner throughout 2023, Bearded Fellows helped the brand explore a wider range of ways to communicate with its audiences.
Rather than relying on a single format, we looked at what each message needed creatively: from sharp live-action brand content and animation, to long-form conversations and a new YouTube series.
The result was a year of varied content, all designed around the same principle: give audiences different pathways into the story.
Finding the Right Format
We kicked off the year with a live-action brand film showcasing Kaplan’s Power BI offering, combining footage from Kaplan’s offices with energetic performances and graphic elements.
Alongside this, animation became an increasingly important element of the partnership. Its flexibility opened up creative possibilities that would have been difficult to achieve through live action, allowing ideas to become more playful and expressive.
Our in-house animation team worked closely with Kaplan to develop bespoke visual approaches, adapting the style and storytelling to suit each project.
Amplifying Kaplan’s Voice
The Learn Better podcast gave Kaplan another way to explore the world of education - without putting every story in front of a camera.
Hosted by Stuart Pedley-Smith, the podcast covers a broad range of study-related topics, bringing together guests including sleep specialists and government officials.
For Bearded Fellows, the format was about more than simply recording conversations. The absence of cameras created a more relaxed environment for guests, while the audio-first format gave Kaplan an accessible way to explore subjects in greater depth.
The podcast also provided the foundation for Kaplan’s next format: Career Goals.
Taking the Conversation to YouTube
Building on the host-and-guest format of Learn Better, Kaplan introduced Career Goals to connect with a younger, Gen Z audience.
Bearded Fellows developed the format, researched and tested episode structures, scripted games and prompts, explored running times and shaped each episode around its guest. We also considered how Kaplan’s services could be naturally woven into the content rather than bolted on as standalone messaging.
Filming took place at The Classroom in Manchester - a flexible location that gave us the space and visual depth needed to create a more contemporary YouTube aesthetic.
The production process was highly collaborative, with the team continually refining formats, questions and structures before anything reached camera.
One Partnership, Countless Possibilities
Kaplan’s 2023 partnership demonstrated what happens when a brand gives creative teams room to explore.
Across live action, animation, audio and YouTube, Bearded Fellows helped Kaplan build a broader content mix - giving different audiences different ways to discover, understand and engage with the brand.
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