NEW DELHI: The year 2020 was the year of disruption. It was also the year for new opportunities. One major upward trend was the e-learning boom and the massive growth in edtech market space which revolutionised the education sector. Indiantelevision.com spoke to Rahul Karthikeyan, head of marketing at upGrad, one of India’s largest online higher education start-up, about how it navigated through the times, its first-ever major sports association with IPL 2020 and how it leveraged the massive reach of television to increase brand awareness across smaller cities.
2020 was a significant year for the growth of ed-tech platforms with massive adoption of online education. How did upGrad pivot its marketing strategy to connect to consumers during this time?
When the pandemic started, we saw that a lot of our learners were confused about their career and future. There was job insecurity and salary cuts. So, our initial focus was to communicate that it is an ideal time to invest in yourself. If you do upskilling now, then a year down the line, you will be better placed in the job market. upGrad as a brand also wanted to be their mentor. But we wanted to convey that in a relaxed manner. That’s how we created our first big campaign, Aage ki soch. We had a rap song which was sung by a couple of big influencers. Almost 25 million people had actually seen our anthem. We realised that the moment we changed our communication to light-hearted, our consumers – called learners – started really picking up.
During that period, Google search showed us that a lot of learners were searching for free online courses. Now upGrad does not have free online courses. But we saw the trend and acted on it. During the next 15 days, we computed some 35+ free courses and launched them. This was another initiative which did well. The search volume increased by almost 300 per cent during Covid. The third big initiative was our donkey ad. Every brand had come up with a celebrity, but upGrad had a donkey as a celebrity. We did not need a strong personality to come and endorse our product. It was all about being relevant and connect to learners. It was a bold step. But, we saw that lot of our learners could relate to the messaging. Almost 94 per cent of the conversation around this on social media channels was positive. The brand recall went up by 25-30 per cent after this.
The thirteenth edition of the IPL was one of the biggest events last year. It was the first time that upGrad had invested in a major sports association on broadcast on such a big platform. Can you help us understand how this decision came about?
Most of our target audience is primarily 25-45 years. We had done consumer research with one of our partners to understand the day in the life of a learner. We looked into all markets across the country. It is very important for us to understand his media consumption habits. Where does he spend most of his time? One of the typical points that came up was sports. Majority of our audience is watching cricket. That’s why we started looking at it. After a long time, a sporting event was coming up, which was the Indian Premier League (IPL). Now, the sheer audience which is there on IPL is pretty big. We knew that and so went ahead. We wanted to start off on a smaller scale initially, and probably do it on a large scale in future.
So, compared to the pre-IPL days, what are the impacts you have seen on the app growth? If you can share some outcomes that may help us understand how this association worked for you.
When we started exploring television, we knew where our consumers are spending most of their time. We had researched their media consumption patterns. So accordingly, we collaborated with IPL and a few other properties. It created immediate impact in terms of the social chatter and there was a spike in Google search for the brand keyword, upGrad. Even during IPL, the trend started going up. The search volume went up by about 30-40 per cent in long-term. At one point of time, there were about 57,000 searches happening in a month for upGrad and that number crossed 1.9 lakh. That was the sheer impact that we could see coming through television, which was equally contributed by IPL and all other properties together.
After IPL, how was the response in tier-2 and tier-3 cities?
When IPL was on, we saw that there was a significant surge in learners in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. We started getting those numbers only after we moved into television. Digital penetration in these cities is still at a growing stage. It is still at eight to nine per cent. Television has a much higher penetration into these markets. Post IPL also we saw a spike in learners in these cities, in terms of learners coming on board and those who wanted to talk to us.
How does a sports partnership like IPL on broadcast compare with that of a drama/fiction show?
If you look at the content that we were posting or partnering with, you’d find that there was storytelling, there was comedy, fiction and humour. It was something that we looked for in television as well. One of the shows that we were co-sponsoring at this time was The Kapil Sharma Show. It brought good traction. It was similar to the IPL. But if we look at our priorities, sports will be number one, second will be fiction and third will be drama.
upGrad's creative campaign Naam ki nahi, kaam ki degree was talked about a lot during the IPL. What was the idea behind it?
Online education is a relatively new category in India and therefore, individuals don’t know what to expect from it. Our primary objective is to define the kind of education upGrad provides, that is not constricted by the mode of learning. We chose the word ‘degree’ because in India, the concept of a ‘degree’ holds emotional and practical heft across all socio-economic classes. While degrees are available a dime a dozen, the conflict occurs when they tend to be generic, outdated and from not so credible institutions, that are ultimately not valued by employers. Thus, the genesis of Sirf naam ki nahin, kaam ki degree. The idea is also to strike the subconsciousness of working professionals and necessitate the need to have a specialised degree, which gives them a competitive edge in their respective fields.
Are there plans to bring more universities on board this year? Also, if you can share details of any new courses.
upGrad has always been a frontrunner in bringing world-class national and international university partnerships into existence. In efforts to address the escalating unemployability rate in the country that has risen from 6.67 per cent in September to becoming 6.98 per cent in October 2020, we plan to join hands with the globally recognised universities and expand threefold in 2021.
And, every quarter we are bringing three to four universities on board. At this point of time, we are also looking at a lot of local universities in India. We have recently partnered with Mumbai University and Chandigarh University. We are trying to become online partners of all the top universities in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. So, by the end of this year, we will have one university partner across each and every state.
