April Fool’s Day: The Confidence Pill
Pharmaceuticals industry here we come! Well, not quite. Here’s how our April Fool’s campaign came to be.
A few weeks ago, the Oppidan marketing team met to throw around ideas for upcoming campaigns. The mission, as ever, was clear: tell our story in a concise and creative way so as to stand out amongst the noise. After ruminating over several ideas, both great and ghastly, a missing piece of the puzzle became clear. Confidence. How do we sell something so conceptual that can take on so many separate forms and definitions? We drew blanks for half an hour.
But then Walter, co-founder of Oppidan, stirred. With April Fool’s Day on the horizon and recognising the brand pitfalls the day presents, we devised launching the ‘Confidence Pill’; a campaign born out of our inability to shine a light on confidence authentically. If we were genuinely able to produce a one-dose solution to a lack of confidence in a child, would parents buy it? It removes the ambiguity around the concept that we strive to crystallise in our mentoring ethos, both one-to-one with families and through our programmes in schools.
Why confidence?
Our interest in confidence isn't trivial. It's a central part of what we do and links clearly to our three key outcomes - readiness, oracy and character. Confidence for the next step, confidence to speak up and listen in, confidence to navigate the bumps in the road. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, we all need the confidence to succeed. In our approach, confidence is improved by the connection with inspirational role models, through engagement with a clear curriculum of skill development and through repeated collaboration with peers. You don't just “become confident”, nor does confidence manifest itself singularly. What we do know, through our work in schools and with students at home, is that an individualised mentoring approach yields the strongest results and that developing the literacy to speak and understand skills contributes too, to the outcomes we want to see: happy, successful and autonomous.
A pill won't do it. A mentor might.