Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

Parents in India spend time watching entertainment programmes with their kids, if the ads interfere with their entertainment they skip it or they change the channel. This social experiment comes across as an engaging entertainment reality show programme that parents love watching with their kids and family. The movement #CreateLikeAChild was triggered with a social experiment film. The video got over a million views and the average daily no. of registrations increased from 5500 to 7000 (27% rise).

Background

WhiteHat Jr founded in 2019 was the first to teach coding (programming languages) to kids ( 6-14 age) it is often credited with developing this niche in India’s fast-growing EdTech market. What should have been a smooth-sailing ride for WhiteHat Jr after getting acquired by EdTech giant Byju’s in 2020, turned out to be a rocky one. WHJ found itself in the eye of a social media storm, when its campaign received flak from the parent and coding community over the controversial marketing campaign featuring a nine-year-old kid named Wolf Gupta, who bagged a USD 20 million package from tech titan Google after he learned to code. The campaign was accused of ridding kids of their childhood and innocence by unrealistic claims and rewards at a vulnerable age. Brief How do we earn some much needed brand love and ultimately convert them into registrations. 1. Maximize daily registrations by 20%

Describe the creative idea

WhiteHat Jr #CreateLikeaChild Inspire a makers movement rooted in our brands purpose and empower a generation to express their natural destiny to create. Because when children create something they gain confidence to remain creators for life. White Hat Jr,, a pioneer Ed-Tech platform was born from Karan Bajaj’s realization ‘Kids are born creative, but as grow up we lose it”. The purpose of WhiteHat Jr was to nurture this ‘natural creativity’ amongst kids through coding and programming languages. The focus of the program was on ‘building’ not instructional learning unlike the category. Thus as a brand we sought to change the perception that tech skeptic parents in India had about technology and coding and their negative impact over formal, conventional learning. We wanted parents to encourage the creativity and curiosity of their children to 'make' and channelize their imagination.

Describe the strategy

Our analysis revealed that the brand had gone to town with the ‘HOW’- what they do, but they hadn’t communicated their ‘WHY’ - why do they what they do- their purpose. WhiteHatJr brand purpose was born out of the following proven truth- ‘Children lose their creativity and uniqueness as they age!’ WhiteHat Jr.- Brand Purpose & POV Creativity nurtured early on can transform children into creators for life! Our Audience Tech-Sceptic parents: With lockdown came disproportionate screen time for kids making parents apprehensive about its effects on learning outcomes. Truth about today’s kids :“Technology is the new Lego for this generation”. Screen time was playtime for them. STRATEGY Amplify the ‘Why’ of the brand – ‘Making kids creator for life!’ Create brand love for WhiteHat Jr by shifting parents perception about coding and technology! 1. Humanise learning coding through ‘ MAKING’ and appropriate the age when kids peak creativity

Describe the execution

The movement was launched with a social experiment that highlighted the difference between the young creators and the parents and celebrated the truth that children were born to create, imagine and make. We got a group of children and their parents together and gave them a playful project. They had to use the materials in front of them and draw whatever that came to the mind when the heard the word ‘alien’. While the parents and children sat back-to-back without a view of what the other did, each of them was given time to explain their own masterpiece and their thinking behind it. The moment of realization for the parents was the free spirited, free flowing imaginative and extremely creative possibilities their children had come up with and how starkly different it was from theirs.

Describe the outcome

Against the objectives we set 1. Maximize visibility and love for the campaign: The campaign organically achieved 1 million views and tugged the heart of millions of parents 2. Increase the average monthly registrations from 5500 by at least 20%. We achieved a 27% increase in average monthly registrations (7000)