West Midlands Combined Authority
Getting adults comfortable with learning numeracy

Outcomes

12.7 million
Impressions

72k
Clicks

1,309
Course applications

Introduction

Adult numeracy is a critical driver of social mobility and economic growth, yet public funding for free courses often goes unused due to a profound psychological barrier. The West Midlands Combined Authority challenged The Behaviours Agency to raise awareness of its free adult numeracy courses, Multiply. The objective was not just to reach a mass audience, but to dismantle the deep-seated stigma preventing eligible adults from taking the first step.


Challenge

The traditional approach to promoting education relies on rational, future-focused benefits like career progression or financial management. However, for the target audience in the West Midlands, low unprompted awareness was compounded by severe friction. Senior marketers understand that increasing the budget is useless if you do not address the psychological barriers of the consumer. The challenge was to completely reframe a category that inherently triggered avoidance behaviour.

Strategy: The Motivation Shift

To unlock action, we had to fundamentally shift the audience's psychological motivation:

  • For individuals lacking numeracy skills, everyday life triggers negative emotions like anxiety, stress, and low confidence. Crucially, the thought of going back to a traditional "school" environment resurrects painful childhood memories. This emotional friction completely outweighed any logical motivation to act.

  • Our strategy flipped the narrative from minimising a negative (overcoming a deficiency) to maximising a positive (gaining comfort). We shifted the entire focus of the campaign from the intimidating concept of learning maths to the accessible, low-stakes concept of getting comfortable with numbers.

Platform & Execution: Designing for Memorability

To achieve true brand salience and overcome creative fatigue, the execution had to look, feel, and sound entirely unacademic. We designed the campaign around accessibility and positivity to ensure high memorability:

The Creative Anchor: The visual campaign was anchored by distinctive, brightly coloured "numeracy sofas" featuring relatable, everyday learners sitting comfortably. This immediately subverted the mental image of a rigid classroom desk.

Visual & Verbal Identity: The art direction, modern typography, and warm copywriting worked in tandem to completely rewrite the perception of adult learning environments, replacing intimidation with psychological safety.

Full-Funnel Activation: We deployed a multi-channel strategy to deliver the Multiply message efficiently:

  1. Top-of-Funnel: High-reaching visual and audio channels drove mass awareness across the West Midlands, establishing the new, positive category norms.

  2. Mid/Bottom-of-Funnel: Paid social retargeted the core audience in one-to-one messaging environments, providing a private, low-friction space to convert interest into enrollment.

  3. Fatigue Mitigation: We rotated a diverse range of creative executions throughout the flight to maintain high attention and cognitive processing.

Success

By replacing the painful memory of the classroom with the inviting comfort of the sofa, the campaign successfully altered the target audience's behavioral calculus.

Overcoming Stigma: The campaign transformed adult numeracy from an embarrassing vulnerability into an empowering, comfortable lifestyle upgrade.

Behavioural Memorability: By avoiding traditional public sector tropes, the vibrant, sofa-led visuals created a highly distinctive brand asset that cut through media clutter and drove meaningful, long-term action.

Three people sitting on blue, circular, modular seating with large text that says "Get Comfortable with Numeracy"
A smartphone displaying a website with the message "Get comfortable with Numeracy" and a red sofa illustration, placed on a blue textured surface.
A man sitting on a large green numeral 8 with text promoting free adult numeracy skills sessions funded by the UK government and Skills for Life multiply.
A large advertisement on a white textured wall promotes adult numeracy skills, funded by the UK Government. It features three people sitting on blue, foam-like shapes, smiling and engaging in conversation. A cyclist passes by in the foreground.
Smiling woman wearing a denim jacket sitting indoors, with a quote about helping with daughter’s math homework on a bright orange background.
Multiple people, including men and women of various ages and ethnicities, sitting and interacting on colorful, curved modular seats in a studio with a plain white background.
A green box of calming comfort scented candle with sandalwood and lavender, a lit white candle in a brown holder, on a textured green surface
Digital advertising display in a supermarket entrance promoting talking maths homework with a background image of a person’s legs and feet and a red geometric shape with white text.
A blue sofa with a green pillow that says 'Keep Calm and Get Comfortable with Numeracy'. A black shelving unit with folded clothes is beside the sofa, against a white wall.
Two tea bags with green tags on a red textured surface. One tea bag's tag reads 'Brush Up Over A Brew' and the other's reads 'Get Comfortable with Compost.'
A woman sitting on a large, blue, modern-shaped bench with a quote above her that reads, ‘I used to avoid doing my banking. Now I take it in my stride,’ funded by UK Government, against a blue background.
Tablets screen displaying a website about numeracy skills, placed on a green textured surface.
An informational brochure about adult numeracy skills featuring three images of people sitting on colorful geometric benches, with quotes related to working out overtime hours, helping with homework, and managing household budgets.
Five fitness posters promoting adult numeracy skills sessions, each with a person sitting on colorful geometric shapes and text highlighting that the sessions are free, relaxed, and funded by the UK government.