How a Digital-First Strategy Builds Credibility with Stakeholders

Hiring a new Chief Executive and launching a new strategy within months of each other is challenging for any company under normal circumstances – now imagine doing so during a global pandemic. Yet, that’s exactly what the world’s leading learning company Pearson has accomplished successfully. Let’s take a closer look at Pearson’s story and the crucial role that digital has played in showcasing Pearson’s new strategy.

The Opportunity

​

Pearson is the world’s leading learning company. Its purpose is to help everyone achieve their potential through learning. The education industry overall has been rocked by Covid-19, and yet the pandemic has accelerated huge momentum in the online learning market. A growing global middle class and longer careers are also driving lifelong and informal learning, particularly for reskilling and upskilling, a trend that has accelerated over the past few years.

Pearson is in a strong position to seize these opportunities through the depth and breadth of its experience and expertise across the entire lifelong learning spectrum, the investments it has made in technology, and through the integration of its intellectual property, content, products, and assessment tools.

In October 2020, Pearson appointed a new Chief Executive, Andy Bird, to lead the company into a new era of growth, focused on building lifelong direct-to-consumer relationships and online learning.

The appointment of a new Chief Executive created an opportunity for Pearson to thoroughly review its strategy and portfolio. The resulting strategy, based on a simpler, more agile operating model, is focused on the rise in online and digital learning tools, the workforce skills gap, and the growing demand for accreditation and certification.

The Challenge

Pearson planned to communicate its direction through an announcement of its full-year 2020 results and strategy update on March 8, 2021. The company turned to Investis Digital to help pull off a successful undertaking. This event would be a pivotal moment to establish credibility within the investor relations and broader stakeholder community on the company’s ability to deliver long-term growth.

The Approach

​

Investis Digital and Pearson took a two-pronged approach that focused on building a new website and managing an investor event:

New Website

In a digital-first world, Pearson knew that a new website was crucial to sharing its strategy. The Pearson/Investis Digital team identified three objectives for the new site:

• Create a standalone, user-friendly IR site. Previously, it only existed as a section within Pearson’s consumer site, which limited its scope. In addition, it was very difficult to navigate.
• Create a digital platform that would share Pearson’s new strategy and help build credibility within the investor community.
• Focus on ESG and purpose, which is crucial for Pearson as a purpose-driven company and represents the foundation of Pearson’s new strategy.

The team operated under significant challenges, including a tight timeframe of three months for a site to be built from scratch. This time frame is particularly impressive considering that a project of this scale would usually take around six months to build.  

Remote stakeholder engagement sessions and analysis of previous challenges encountered by Pearson’s main audience groups, drove our strategy and implementation:

• Clear investment case: global market opportunities and reasons to invest in Pearson are now easy to find and clearly articulated.
• Holistic approach to strategy, purpose and ESG: Pearson’s strategy sits under the Purpose and ESG section of the website. This strategic placement is a testament to the key role played by purpose as the overarching north star of their strategy with ESG integrated throughout.
• Performance & Updates section: news, results, and presentations are online and multi-format, improving on an experience that was cumbersome and unintuitive.
• Richer media help visualise Pearson’s targets and strategy.
• Video webcasting and live Q&A allow Pearson to have direct contact with the IR community.
• Debt investor section outlines Pearson’s clear and effective funding strategy. 
• Future of Learning section explores how Pearson is leveraging technology and innovation.

Despite the tight timeline, the team launched Pearson’s new IR site in time for its full-year results and strategy Update on March 8, 2021. The new site is a huge improvement with a great user experience and beautiful use of photography, which adheres to the latest articulation of Pearson’s brand roll-out. A comprehensive modular library guarantees consistency, saves time, and enables stakeholders to create and update pages quickly and efficiently. We can already see improvements across key engagement metrics year over year:

• 54 percent increase in page views on “Our Purpose and ESG.”
• 25 percent increase in page views on “Reports & Presentations,” with a 14 percent increase of average time on page.
• 40 percent increase in time spent on site.

These data prove that the new site is meeting audience’s expectations and serves as guidance for the team that is now working on Phase 2 of the website, involving a significant expansion of the sitemap.

The site has been developed in U.K. and U.S. English, as a recognition that the company is listed on the London stock exchange with a secondary listing on the New York stock exchange. Since launch, it has seen a dramatic increase in the number of US visitors to the site.

The site is a testament to Pearson’s commitment to their purpose of helping everyone to achieve their potential through learning, no matter who they are, where they are and their social, economic and health background.

A Compelling Event

Pearson also needed a compelling way to announce its new strategy and showcase its website to investors and broader stakeholders at its March 8 annual results event. Pearson hosted the event on the Investis Digital Connect.ID virtual events platform. Its elements consisted of:

• Welcome video, showcasing how the world adapted over the past year with people learning in more ways than ever during the pandemic.
• Pre-recorded video webcast with synchronized slides. As speakers were based both in the U.K. and U.S, the team pre-recorded the initial part of the presentation in professional studios, resulting in a flawless user experience for viewers. 
• Live Q&A, managed through live chat functionality, guaranteeing direct contact with the IR community and efficient management of questions by the moderator.
• Fully branded interface, adhering to the latest articulation of Pearson’s brand rollout.
• Resource area, hosting the session recording, presentation and transcript available for attendees to access also post-event.

The presentation received overwhelming positive feedback and post-event analytics show an impressive level of engagement with:

• 455 live viewers.
• 55 on-demand viewers.
• Dozens of questions submitted through the live chat functionality.

This data represents a huge jump in attendance. Many stakeholders and analysts praised the team, appreciating the new format and the way they managed questions from the audience.

This was the company’s first global virtual IR event. As Pearson is currently looking to accommodate and expand its global audience, particularly its U.S.-based shareholder community, it represented an ideal occasion to gather stakeholders from around the world without the time, cost and environmental concerns of an in-person gathering.

A Strong Foundation

Pearson’s stock price reacted positively to the March investor event, a testament to how well coordinated the event and website launch were. Pearson also did something else: strengthened its foundations for growth by presenting a strategy that resonated with investors. The presentation, event and launch of the new corporate website together gave investors a sense of the future direction of the company, and it humanised the Pearson brand through an effective event that showcased the company’s leadership. Pearson has demonstrated how a digital-first approach can and should be managed right.

Contact Investis Digital

To build credibility with your investors, contact Investis Digital. Our experts create compelling communications that help businesses succeed through digital.