nolan hicks.

creative director

what's my techtype? ~ ibm

IBM said “we have this free learning platform called SkillsBuild, but nobody knows about it.” We quickly realized that not only did people not know about SkillsBuild, but when they DID hear about it, most assumed it wasn’t for them, “I’m really a tech person” “I’m bad at math” “I don’t know anything about code.” We decided to flip the tech education narrative on its head. Instead of assuming you’re probably not a good fit, what if everyone knew they had a place in tech. What if everyone had a TechType? What if find out your TechType could be… fun?

We decided to combine the best parts of personality quizzes, TikTok filters, and reaction videos to create the TechType campaign. First, we built a quiz that anyone can take and end up with specific TechType (complete with a cute name and mascot). Your TechType then matches you with specific STEM skills you’re the best fit for on SkillsBuild.

To get the quiz out in the wild, we partnered with dozens of influencers across STEM and non-STEM categories (younger people our audience would see as peers, not pros) and had them take the quiz and post their results. Finally we had actual STEM professionals react to these videos to provide insight and validate the quiz.

Ultimately SkillsBuild got over 100k new quiz-takers (a huge number for the platform) in the first few weeks with over 5k organically sharing their TechType. We also were finalists for a Shorty!