EF English Centers makes learning fun with Yahoo

 At a Glance

• Goal: Eradicate the stigma of language learning as boring and tedious; shine light on the importance of English fluency; retain top-of-mind for EF English Centers, boost admission and consultation numbers and promote EF English Centers’ IELTS programmes.
• Solution: EF English Centers launched a 10-episode video series dubbed 移民英文攻略, featuring practical English knowledge for immigration plus IELTS studying tips. The videos were nestled in a custom-made topical page on immigration featuring other relevant news and updates, which was further featured on Yahoo’s extensive network.  
• Results: The 10-episode series reached two million views on Yahoo TV alone; the episode on moving, “搬屋搬得好，移民生活冇煩惱” even saw more than 228k views. Meanwhile, social posts reached 300K+ audience and the sponsored topic page recorded nearly 1.8M impressions.

Color or Colour?

With topics ranging from vocabulary preferences between the US and UK (e.g.: color or colour) to navigating the doctor’s clinic or getting a haircut overseas, the 移民英文攻略 video series was hosted by native-speaker and EF English Centers’ instructor Robert Morrison and took a fun and down-to-earth approach to language learning, which is often seen as mundane and rote.

Aside from language and cultural classes, the video series also featured tips and study guidance from EF English Centers’ esteemed instructor, Jason Kong, on mastering the IELTS exam required for immigration. Here, Kong also promoted services at EF English Centers such as its language evaluation, the 24-hour study and conversational app, a month-long IELTS course and more.

Each video was complemented with a link to the EF English Centers’ homepage to boost admission and consultation numbers as well as an invitation for curious audiences to ask questions about language, culture and even immigration processes.

All things immigration

This remarkable video series was nestled in an immigration-themed topical page comprising relevant news updates, editorial features and video content. These include matters such as: BNO renewal, investment immigration, immigrating as a blue collar and more.

Good content deserves good reach

To maximize the reach for the immigration portal plus the 移民英文攻略 video series, they were prominently featured on the Yahoo Hong Kong front page and Yahoo News’ Facebook page. Aside from spreading the gospel on eye-catching channels, audiences who watched the videos were retargeted to advertorials in the topical page through native ads; hence, to establish deeper engagement, promote the importance of taking up the language prior to considering relocation and reinforce top-of-mind for EF English Centers.

The 10-episode series reached 2 million views on Yahoo TV alone; the episode on moving, “搬屋搬得好，移民生活冇煩惱” even saw more than 228k views. Meanwhile, social posts reached 300K+ audience and the sponsored topic page recorded nearly 1.8M impressions.

While the campaign achieved impressive results, the permeation of such a clever campaign across Yahoo Hong Kong and social media has also successfully altered the stigma of language learning as something that’s mundane and boring. Instead, through delivering relevant English terms in a relatable manner, language can be fun and interesting too.

This article is contributed by Verizon Media.