We produced a series of arty, interactive webinars to engage family members of English Heritage
Our brief
English Heritage asked us to create a series of inspiring online events for their family members.
The online events needed to deliver a rewarding experience for attendees, while expanding the organisation’s family offering, which includes Kids Rule!, a quarterly magazine aimed at young members aged 7–11 years old; a dedicated kids section of the English Heritage website, packed with activities related to English history, and a number of video series aimed at young viewers and hosted on their YouTube channel.
The key challenge was to find a new format that would engage the family audience and create an exciting learning experience that viewers of all ages could enjoy together from the comfort of their own homes.
Our solution
Inspired by the growing popularity of draw-along videos on YouTube, we decided to create a series of virtual draw-along art classes fronted by Kids Rule! magazine illustrator, Wesley Robins, in which he showed participants how to draw a caricature of famous people from English History taken from the pages of Kids Rule! magazine. These included everyone from Emperor Hadrian and William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria and Albert.
During the live broadcast, attendees were given a brief introduction to the subject of the draw-alongbefore Wesley narrated a step-by-step guide to drawing the famous character. This was then followed by a live Q&A session in which they could put their questions to the illustrator.
At the end of each virtual art class, participants were encouraged to share their artwork and to look for more history-inspired craft activities on the Kids Rule! section of the English Heritage website.
The results
The inaugural event had a great response with over 300 members registering to take part and attendees engaging with 91% of the 35-minute session on average.
We also received more than 90+ questions from attendees, with the Q&A segment of the event delivering deeper engagement with the English Heritage brand among family members.
Following the success of this initial event, we have since gone on to produce and host another seven virtual draw-along events with Wesley, helping family members to draw a cast of famous people from England’s history. These tutorial sections of these videos have since been edited to create an evergreen playlist of draw-along videos for non-members to view and follow on YouTube.
