Shoulda Seen It Coming
Pivoting from awareness to acquisition in a second season for Pluralsight
When the brief says “jump,” we say “how high?”
Our first engagement with Pluralsight yielded a story campaign platform that existed as the mockumentary series, Shoulda Seen It Coming, which was their most successful campaign to date. So, it made sense that they continue the trend and ordered season two.
The real trick was that Pluralsight had shifted its positioning slightly, and wanted to pivot their focus from awareness and perception to value and acquisition.
Our strategy team developed a robust creative brief to set the stage for the second iteration of Shoulda Seen It Coming, and we came armed with a ton of rich data from the first run and optimizations of season one.
Our brief had a ton of information in it, including brand positioning and messaging, audience deep dive, voice and tone guidance, and most importantly, brand differentiation and competitive landscape. Pluralsight wanted to demonstrate value and they wanted to prove that their offerings are superior to the competition.
We brought that to life in four strategic messages:
Cost versus value
Quality over quantity
Security as a non-negotiable
Speed to outcomes
This framework guided all of our messaging throughout the execution of the campaign and served as our guiding principles for content. View the full creative brief here.
A character-based messaging framework
With the success of running an episodic video narrative as the basis for the first run of this campaign, we opted not to fix what wasn’t broken, so the second coming of this platform helped to shape the tone and manner of the content, delicately balancing the demonstration of value with the audience’s lack of appetite for traditional advertising. All of it still had to be relateable and still had to be funny.
The beauty of having such a well-developed narrative is - options. Learnings from our previous optimization exercises on season one influenced our decision to create options from the start on season two. Basing our series arc on the value props also helped to keep the red thread weaving through all touchpoints.
Display ads
Cost vs value
Version A
Version B
Security as a non-negotiable
Version A
Version B
Quality over quantity
Version A
Version B
Speed to outcomes
Version A
Version B
Social // carousel
Cost vs value
Quality over quantity
Security as non-negotiable
Speed to outcomes
Landing page
Featured copy:
Are you investing in your company’s future?
New skills open new opportunities, so it’s vital for your business to stay up to date with skills that unlock the future, rather than skills that keep you trapped in the supply closet.
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Pluralsight's course material, developed and taught by industry leaders, gives your teams the most in-demand real-world skills. Unless, of course, "arcane software trivia" is more your thing.
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Get purpose-built content and industry experts to streamline your learning. With tools, tech, and focused learning, you build practical skills rapidly. f you’ don’t want to learn from the best, you could always learn from...well...Patty in HR.
Why Nebulo chose Pluralsight
“I not only built real-world, practical skills in how to use the RUST programming language, I used them to rust-proof my future. Or should that be my past? I think I tried to be too clever there. Can I do this again?”
Spencer Weems
Software Designer
“We looked at other tech development platforms, but finding the skills we needed spread out across so much content gave me a migraine. Pluralsight offered us a better solution. I still have migraines, but that might just be a Nebulo thing. ”
Artemis Daxx
CTO
Scripting
[Intro card]
PATTY: I’m not a formal educator per se …but I have taken a LOT of online classes, so I know a thing or two…about a thing or two.
PATTY: We like people here to be very well rounded… I mean, Pluralsight’s not the only one around here that can convey learning.
ARTEMIS: … I just don’t get it...what’s the problem? What do we need that Pluralsight doesn’t already offer us?
PATTY: Sure, sure. Pluralsight can teach the JambaScript, the Kurbernerters, and the – what’s the snake one?
ARTEMIS: Python.
PATTY: Nnnno...that’s not it. Anyway...we need balance. I have a simple philosophy… Inspiring is teaching… And I want to inspire us to learn life AND work skills. LURK skills.
ARTEMIS: (sighs and starts to relent) …
PATTY: (not letting him speak) … Oh goody!
PATTY (VO): I heard of this nifty AI platform called LearnMatic GPT. They say you can ask it anything… so I had it AI me up some classes that merge tech skills with life skills.
PATTY: And voila! (pronounced viola, like the instrument)… we’re live! Now to email the team and let them know the exciting news…
Spencer: (through laughter) … Listen to this one, Meditation and Machine Vision: Mindful Artificial Intelligence.
ARTEMIS: So, Patty’s course list just got launched, and…. Bread Baking and Cyber Crime? What the…
Keith: (snorts) … This is my favorite, Cross-Stitch and Cybersecurity: Stitching up Hackers… no wait… Cake Decorating and Data Visualization.
PATTY: Hear that? It’s the joyful sounds of learning.
VOICEOVER: More training doesn’t mean more learning. Get expert training specifically for the things you need.
Hindsight, insight, foresight, Pluralsight
For tech workforce development that works, go to pluralsight.com/vision
“The experience that I’ve had over two years of working with Designit is like ... I’m working with great people. I trust them with my brand, I trust them with my money, and it’s a partnership that is empathetic, is adaptive, and is fun. To see that play out and how intricate and nuanced [the work] is, really speaks to the level of craft and intentionality that this entire team shows. And the success that we’ve seen, it’s why we’ve maintained the relationship.”
Adam Gunn
SVP of Brand, Pluralsight