Pearson India emphasises on preparation with recent campaign

Pearson India has released the latest leg of its ad campaign. The campaign’s communication objective is to show how right preparation can help an individual succeed. In a recent conversation, Siddharth Banerjee, managing director- India & Asia, Pearson, expresses that the main aim is to reach out to the learners, consumers, help them understand the need of right preparation and educate them about the range of products and services that Pearson offers.

The latest campaign video was shared from Indian football player Aditi Chauhan. In the video, she emphasises on the importance of preparation for success. A campaign video released a month ago with Vicky Kaushal drove home the same message.

Banerjee tells us that a key focus area for the company is ensuring that Pearson is seen as a trusted partner for preparation by learners, educators and stakeholders across.

“To facilitate our growth, we have also been setting up partnerships with various players in the Indian education ecosystem. It’s been a full plate in year one. We’re also focussed on bringing more of Pearson’s global products to India,” he says.

Banerjee has been trying to educate people on the diverse range of products and services that Pearson offers. Beyond its traditional roots in publishing, Pearson also offers digital solutions for higher education, employability and English language courses, workforce skills etc.

To further the cause of visibility, Pearson India also has partnerships with leading educational institutions across the country such as IITs, IIMs, etc. “We wanted to select people who were well prepared with their own craft. That way, they’d be in a position to spread the message about being prepared. We’ve used Vicky Kaushal as our brand ambassador along with a host of other social media influencers to show the impact of being prepared, and that was the main theme we wanted to communicate,” he says.

Banerjee says that the brand’s target audience rests at the intersection of education and employability and it is mainly targeting college and university students and first jobbers. Bang In The Middle is Pearson’s creative agency on record and Banerjee recalls that BITM’s consumer research was the starting point for this interesting brand campaign.

“We wanted to help our students and learners to be prepared well. Pearson has been in the education industry for decades now and we have the expertise to offer them with the right resources, content and solutions to carve their path towards success in the 21^st century world,” says Banerjee.

The campaign is a digital first one. “The TG for this was college and university students. Their primary mode for consuming content is all on their mobile phones. It’s available on various forms of social media, digital platforms, etc,” he says.

Prathap Suthan, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Bang In The Middle says that once the client and agency, aligned to the #PrepareWell strategy, the rest fell into place very quickly.

"Come to think of it, it’s something all of us have also done in our student days. Ensuring that we spent time going through tough lessons, asking someone who knew better, revising furiously, finding reference books, and even studying together with a friend. While we may not do this today, the fact is that the number of students going through preparation will only increase with every year," he says.

Suthan adds on a broader note, preparation is a process, habit, or an action that cuts across ages and industry. "Almost everyone prepares when up against a challenge. From sportsmen, soldiers, writers, politicians, actors, chefs, painters, you name it. This not just in India, but globally. It’s a universal truth and position, with Pearson - the world’s leading learning brand bringing it alive. Not too many brands have the wherewithal to occupy and the credibility to stand for and keep refreshing the evergreen validity of preparation," he says.

Banerjee says that the Indian education sector in India is vast and that there is room for good quality, outcome-based organisations to coexist. He adds that to carve a space in a competitive market, it’s important to have a single-minded focus on consumers and to figure out ways and means to be relevant to consumers’ needs.

“At Pearson, we’re trying to build our business in a way that’s relevant to the 21st century. A huge population of students want to work and study abroad, and we have a range of assessment solutions for the internationalisation of education that is happening across the world and in India,” explains Banerjee.

He acknowledges that the pandemic helped company to launch hybrid solutions. “It helped us evolve to make our products more relevant for the 21st century. It made us ask a lot of hard questions about our UI and we had to modify it accordingly,” he explains.

Banerjee adds that now, Pearson’s learning programs are hybrid programs that focus on imparting skills that have practical application in the real world.