Dabur to pay tuition fees of 42 students for a year

While school children cherish all the activities and instant gratifications offered by brands holding school activation programmes, brands paying their school fees for a year just may be the icing on the cake. Dabur India is running a school activation campaign in 500 schools across 21 cities to look for Super Champs, promising to pay their entire school fees for a year.

The primary objective of the activity is to create awareness and drive consumer engagement for Dabur Chyawanprash and Dabur Chyawan Junior, a newly launched malted drink.

The campaign is divided into two categories – Dabur Chyawan Junior Champ for students of Classes 2-5, and Dabur Chyawanprash Champ for students of Classes 6-8. Two winners from each city will get fee waivers for a year, while the two first runners-up will get free year-long supplies of the respective products.

Praveen Jaipuriar, deputy general manager, marketing, Dabur India Ltd, in a conversation with afaqs!, says, “We launched Dabur Chyawan Junior towards the end of last year and through this campaign, we wanted to engage children, our target group, with the brand proposition of the new product, Hardum Fit, Hamesha Aagey, and also of Dabur Chyawanprash – Fit Body, Active Dimaag.”

Jaipuriar shares, “We wanted a radio operator to execute the campaign as it gives us an added advantage of leveraging its on-air reach as well. We concluded that Big FM had a strong presence in all the cities that we were targeting. Therefore, we approached Big FM for this.”

The initiative is designed to test the kids on three parameters that both the Dabur products espouse – physical stamina, mental skills and the required 'X' factor. While for the junior level competition, the stress is on mental fitness, gauged through several exercises such as essay writing and quizzes, senior level students are tried more on physical stamina, in keeping with the respective brand propositions.

Jaipuriar adds, “We not only wanted to involve kids but also their mothers in this campaign as they are the fitness keepers of their families. Also, to involve the teachers, we asked them to rate their students on the basis of punctuality, attendance and responsiveness. Though these ratings did not have a major impact on choosing the finalists, they acted as a great measure to make teachers a part of the campaign.”

The campaign is also driving huge sampling for both the products by gifting a sample each to all the students of the schools visited. Jaipuriar shares that it has received a great response and that not a single questionnaire sent to the children’s home returned unanswered.

While some of the cities have already seen the faces of their Dabur Chyawan Junior Champs and Dabur Chyawanprash Champs, like Indore, Bhopal and Mumbai, some, like Delhi, will soon hold the city finals. Dabur will also come out with a national level contest soon, which will see two Super Champs coming out of these city winners.