The education sector’s leading content and experience design consultancy.

Since 2007 we have supported over 300 education and research institutions in more than 30 countries to plan and create content and experiences that motivates their audiences to act. Will yours be next?

It’s all about crafting compelling experiences that deliver results

Imagine a world in which your organisation and your target audiences are totally aligned around what you each want. You’re delivering exactly the experience they want, and they’ve become your biggest advocates and supporters, telling everyone about you and encouraging them to join your community.

Sound ideal? Then work with us to help you get there.

We are a leading consultancy specialising in working with education and research organisations to help them imagine, define and deliver an outstanding brand vision and impactful content strategies in support of marketing and engagement activities.

A niche focus with exceptional impact

We are incredibly focused and specialist in our niche. That’s why clients love us. We understand the education sector. And many of our staff have worked in-house in education institutions before joining our team, so they know and understand exactly how it is to be in your role. But our depth of expertise has a broad impact for the schools, colleges, universities and education partners with whom we work. We can transform your:

  • Student recruitment and marketing

  • Research communications

  • Policy-maker, funder and business engagement

  • Alumni and donor engagement

  • Staff and student experience

  • Brand reputation and international visibility.

People, content and culture

The secret to successful engagement is about an empathetic understanding of your audiences, creating exactly the right experiences and content that they want and need, and designing your organisation’s culture and ways of working to deliver it all in an effective and inspiring way.

We bring all three together:

  • We believe in the power of data and insights, proving to our clients time and time again that an investment in audience research will always pay off

  • We create experience and content strategies, and content campaigns, that will make your audiences love every interaction they have with you

  • We train, mentor and coach you and your colleagues to ensure that you have exactly the right skills, attitudes and conditions in place to succeed.

We are the Pickles: brave, bold and brilliant

We challenge ourselves to bring courage, brilliance and just the right amount of boldness to our work with you. We turn those dials up or down to deliver our work in just the right tone to meet you where you’re at, and to get you where you want to be.

We are a team of expert consultants specialising in audience research, content strategy, experience design, content marketing, brand design, content creation, storytelling, community engagement and much more. Our core team is based in the United Kingdom, but works with schools, colleges and universities around the world. We are led by Tracy Playle, author of The Connected Campus (2020) and award-winning speaker. Tracy founded Pickle Jar in 2007 after working in-house at the University of Warwick. She brings over 20 years experience in education sector marketing and content design to our work.

Have us design your next engagement solution

Our work is highly bespoke and tailored to each and every client. We might be one sector, but we are all unique in our own ways. From large scale website content strategies, to one-hour workshops. We can design a solution that addresses your challenge and works for your budget. It all starts with a no obligation conversation.