Samsung’s Brand purpose is ‘Do What You Can’t’ – creating human-driven innovations that defy barriers to progress, empowering people to make meaningful progress in their lives and society.

Samsung’s Global CSR purpose is ‘Enabling People’, supporting the Sustainable Development Goals with a commitment to the 4th Goal of Quality Education; empowering the next generation of innovators through education.

In 2020, Samsung’s Compassion Nation research found 68% of young adults felt traditional education hadn’t given them the right tools for success. Only 10% felt confident about their future career prospects. Education struggles to keep up with the pace of technological change to prepare young people for the jobs of the future.

At the forefront of that change, combining Brand and CSR values, Samsung wanted to help 18–25-year-olds across the UK with an inclusive, alternative educational experience, sharing relevant expertise designed to upskill them for a future driven by innovation (Goal 4.4).

If school wasn’t preparing young people for the future, we had to give them the opposite: Not a School.

A free alternative e-learning experience for 18-25-year-olds to engage with unexpected educators, from Samsung UK to influencers like Lady Leshurr, sharing learned experience in live and pre-recorded sessions, inspiring innovative thinking to solve social issues;

• Respecting Our Differences: How can a difference of opinion bring us closer together online?

• Turning Climate Anxiety into Positive Action: How can technology unlock activism?

• Solving Inequality in Education: How can technology allow us all to be ‘educators’?

• Building Human Connection in a Digital World: How can technology end isolation?

A ‘call to arms’ social campaign, leveraging our influencers, told our audience this was their chance to build the future. Striking visuals of the social issues from the course combined with empowering messaging such as ‘The Future is Yours’, drove course participation.

To genuinely benefit our 18–25-year-old audience, across the UK, Samsung had to use technology to help them learn in a more relevant and human way.

Where tech competitors focus on STEM skills, like coding, we instead focused on timeless, life skills that could help our audience adapt and embrace an ever-changing tech-laden future; communication, critical-thinking, collaboration, and creativity.

Through applying these skills in developing solutions to the societal issues that GenZ told us they cared about most – sustainability, inequality and digital-wellbeing – we co-created an educational experience they’d want to participate in. By using unexpected educators from Samsung’s CSR partners and influencers, we’d engage our audience with experts they wanted to hear from.

Combining this into a free, online experience meant we could reach as many young people as possible, nationwide. All with the aim of making our audience feel more confident in their own skills for the future.

Lockdown meant Not a School needed to provide a wholly digital experience without losing the depth of face-to-face learning. In partnership with FutureLearn, we developed a platform first; courses with live and pre-recorded sessions. The course topics were inspired by The Global Goals and refined in GenZ research.

The experience was free to join, available in two accessible formats;

- Four ‘self-led’ courses; allowing anyone to participate at any time.

- Four ‘immersive’ two-week courses; for 100, 18–25-year-olds, who were selected via application, prioritising those either out of education or employment, who stood most to benefit. Students were given free Samsung technology to participate in live, daily video-calls with experts and mentors, working towards a presentation of their solution to Samsung.

A nationwide social campaign launched the courses in September 2020. The live experience ran for 8 weeks, the self-led courses are available until September 2021.

Awareness and Impressions:

Paid media:

- 109million+ impressions

- Reached 12.7million+ GenZ at 97% of the target (vs 86%)

- 17million+ video views

PR coverage:

- Reached 1.9million+

GenZ Influencers (Lady Leshurr, Liv Little and Jack Harries):

- 10 posts, combined reach 1.9million+

Direct Response:

Self-led courses:

- To date, 21,113 enrolments, 75% above 12,000 target

- 17,000+ enrolments in 2020, 2500+ learner comments, 927hrs+ of e-learning in 4 months

- Courses average rating of 91.5%

Immersive courses:

- 100 students, 244hrs+ of live e-learning

- 97% rated experience ‘excellent’ or ‘good’

- 21.5% uplift in those who ‘completely and ‘mostly’ agree Samsung has a clear, positive social purpose

- 96% ‘wanted to work for Samsung’

Comms generated 145k visits to Samsung.com, representing 90% new users to the brand

Behaviour:

Immersive course participants skills increased post-course:

- Collaborating: +16.08%

- Solve problems: +16.72%

- Networking: +21.98%

- Prototyping ideas: +32.96%