Experience

How the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award understood its brand

The question

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award has been helping children develop and unlock their potential for over 50 years. As it approached its 60th anniversary, it was keen to understand how they could encourage more children to take part and complete an award.

Our approach

We looked across a wide range of social media for mentions of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. We found a range of voices from those about to take part, those doing it now and those who’d finished. We also found the people helping them. We listened closely to each to gauge their opinion and to see what could be learnt.

The answer

We saw how young people experience the award, finding where it’s difficult and why – and provided the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award with some ideas on how to improve each stage of the journey.

“We were reassured by the overwhelmingly positive tone of the comments, and the fresh insight provided into young people’s attitudes towards the expedition section prompted us to conduct a review of the rules around the expedition and the potential to differentiate them between Bronze, Silver and Gold.”

Philip Trelevan / Operations Director