Challenge
Leading global premium schools group Inspired Education planned to launch a hybrid online/offline school, following the success of their online teaching during lockdown. Our challenge was to get ahead of competitors by turning around the press launch within days of being briefed while positioning the school – King’s College Online – as the first of its kind.
Approach
The school was initially set to launch in the southern hemisphere, so we quickly engaged partner agencies from New Zealand and China. Acting as the global communications hub for the launch, we drafted all of the relevant press materials and discussed the key angles with these local agencies who then tailored them for their markets.
In parallel, Pagefield prepared its own media outreach – prioritising national education journalists, business media and high-net worth titles based in the UK. We liaised with the relevant spokespeople, ensuring they were comfortable with the messaging which positioned King’s College Online as industry-leading and ascertained their availability, before we started having initial conversations with the press roughly a week in advance of the launch date.
Results
We achieved significant results with our media launch for King’s College Online, including feature pieces secured in national news outlets such as the Daily Telegraph (‘Cut-price online private school ‘a world first’), the Times (‘King’s College Online — the private school that costs £6,000 a year’), Mail Online (‘New private school will offer live-streamed lessons for 15-pupil classes and one-to-one parental support – and it only costs £6,340-a-year’); a live interview with Britain’s leading phone-in radio station LBC; conversations with two separate reporters at the Financial Times; and coverage in key trade titles such as International Schools Magazine and Study Travel Magazine.
Coverage has also been secured in leading outlets across China and New Zealand, including more than thirty articles in Chinese publications such as Zhihu, Caijing, China.com and Cri.cm; as well as Stuff, Scoop and the New Zealand Herald.
Since the completion of this project, Pagefield has since been re-engaged by Inspired Education to help promote the launch of one of its leading UK school’s new sixth form.
