ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST ICONIC BRANDS

National Geographic has a rich 130 year history supporting and inspiring scientists, storytellers, and explorers from all around the world. Today, it reaches and engages with more than 730 million people every month and is known globally for its compelling visual storytelling. 

ENGAGING THE NEXT GENERATION OF EXPLORERS

As the world progressed into more digital means of communication and connection, National Geographic found their loyal fan base of curious minds was aging. Along with their audience getting older, they found that the brand’s purpose was becoming less clear.

To tackle this problem, a huge rebrand and repositioning of its portfolio of media, content and experiences was put in place. An important part of this process was to connect and engage with younger audiences, including families. Nomads was brought on board as a strategic and creative partner to future-proof the National Geographic brand and spark the curiosity of the next generation of explorers.

THE FIRST NGUX EXPERIENCE CENTRE

Named the National Geographic Ultimate Explorer (NGUX), Nomads was embedded in the client team as an extension of their marketing department, with the ambition of creating Experience Centres all around the world. The NGUX Centres combined exploration, entertainment and education in a state-of-the-art real world experience and were defined by the brand’s purpose: To inspire every child to play their part in helping to solve the planet’s mysteries and challenges.

BUILDING THE BEST TEAM

In order to create the best experience, we needed to build the best team. We partnered with iP2Entertainment to help us create a safe environment for children aged 4 to 14 to play, explore, and learn about the world around us. They also helped us ensure that we protected the essence of the National Geographic brand and its prestigious community, whilst sparking curiosity for the next generation of explorers.

In a true collaboration, Nomads; IP2; National Geographic; their partners and suppliers were all involved from inception to launch. In order to facilitate and lead a collaborative and innovative work environment across the US, European, and Asian timezones, we established a task force to drive a strategic roadmap with a lean approach and MVP set-up in order to launch the pilot on time.

A BORDERLESS BUSINESS MODEL

Together with IP2 we created a 5 year business plan that included a pilot launch of the world’s first NGUX Centre in China, a full global roll-out and an explorers platform that would create a community of young explorers.

This included a 360 degree strategy that would engage families before, during and after the experience, centred around one big brand idea:

“GET CLOSER, GO FURTHER.”

A COMPELLING CALL TO ACTION

Exploration is about being up close and personal, taking place on microscopic as well as universal levels. You have to get close to things in order to understand them and go further. “Get Closer, Go Further” was a simple call to action to come to the NGUX Centre, and an invitation for businesses, schools, and governments to get involved.

This call to action served as a north star, aligning the company’s purpose, vision, and mission, also ensuring a focus for powerful brand expressions at all touch points, galvanising the organisation and all its partners in a single minded direction.

GROWING THE BRAND

We circulated the crystallised brand idea of “Get Closer, Go Further” into all parts of the business, through customer and partner touchpoints such as schools, local businesses, food & beverage companies and merchandisers to a defined sponsorship framework for global, regional and local tie-ins.

INNOVATIVE ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN

A combination of Design Thinking and Agile methodologies were used to keep optimum pace, flexibility and quality standards in place.  A key success factor was ensuring the operationalisation of the centres were clearly defined and localised. We drafted a governance model for all sales, marketing and communications teams and activities, and we set up a Digital Asset Management (DAM) tool to help support local teams with all guidelines, playbooks, and assets.

CREATING A COMMUNITY OF YOUNG EXPLORERS

We helped create Quest 360- an integrated communication, engagement, CRM, POS, and ERP platform. This connected children and families pre, during, and post the experience to create one seamless journey. Through designing the Customer Journey and Service Blueprint as well as the overall Technical Architecture we could ensure the best and most efficient usability, flexibility, as well as scalability to all centres and markets.

We also helped design a smart wristband that would allow children to register, track, compete, and extend the tailored experiences they were having offsite; filling in their explorers journal and gaining badges as they advanced their way to becoming a National Geographic Ultimate Explorer.

Each centre was designed to have between 14 and 25 different attractions; from deep sea exploration, space travel, to microscopic adventures.

FROM CHINA

Focusing on our first launch in China we did extensive research into the relevant behaviours of our potential customers. We created a campaign ‘Calling all Explorers’ that created awareness and excitement in the market across Tier 1 as well as Tier 3 cities.

We also created centralised content, platforms and services strategy that had locally-specific extensions for China. This also included the design and development of the web and mobile site with ecommerce, social media channels and PR and advertising assets.

TO THE WORLD

National Geographic’s ambition was to roll-out the Ultimate Explorer experience centres around the world so there needed to be a global approach to all Sales, Marketing, and Communications. We helped define an overall global approach with a locally relevant revenue plan for ticketing, food & beverage and merchandise. 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

We apply borderless thinking to everything we do in order to make ambitious and complex ventures like National Geographic Ultimate Explorer possible. Whether this is creating a new set-up or a complete transformation, our secret is in small integrated and collaborative teams that put the audience at the centre. It’s also in keeping everyone aligned through a clearly defined purpose, brought to life in the most engaging and inspiring way possible.