2015 highly commended: BBC Worldwide, Building Marketing Capabilities - Case Study

In 2014, the BBC’s news services reached 265 million people per week around the world, but their ambition is for the BBC overall to reach 500 million. BBC Worldwide were set with the challenge of leveraging their huge portfolio of non-news genres to help achieve this.

It was clear that the BBC needed to turbo-charge their marketing capability to be more consumer-focused and insights-driven.

But, in a global business that’s multi-genre and with many routes to the consumer (for example online services, owned channels etc.) it was a big job and required building capabilities in lots of people, in lots of teams, in lots of departments, in lots of countries.

At the core a capability-building program called Brand Lab brought together experts, case studies, masterclasses and tools to grow the skills needed to build consumer-led brands. And at the core of that, was a transformed insight capability with huge research, machine learning of emotions and custom-designed data visualization focused on growing capability in more than 27 countries. This turbo-charged our brand planning, marketing, sales and other activities. From the grassroots to the
boardroom.

BBC are now one year in and early results are very encouraging. In the first six months, an additional 22% of staff in key BBC Worldwide departments around the world said that Insight had helped them do their jobs. BBC First successfully launched in Australia and BBC Brit plus BBC Earth successfully launched in Poland. They have more than doubled the value of some important sales deals, and have grown established brands like Top Gear and Doctor Who.

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