upGrad’s launches second tranche of 'Real People, Real Stories'

 Known for creating clutter-breaking content for lasting brand impressions, upGrad - Asia's largest higher Edtech Company has launched the second leg of it’s yet-another successful brand campaign - "Real People, Real Stories". The campaign features a series of 9 real-life & overpowering career experiences that reflects the global Edtech’s commitment to delivering outcome-oriented pedagogy to its learners which has already been making stronger headlines for successfully turbocharging their careers. It also highlights the unique aspects of upGrad's online portfolio powered by strong in-house innovations like an industry-led curriculum and offline placement drives.

With the strategic business and marketing approach, the brand campaign has been divided into phases: Regional & PAN India and the first regional film of a Telugu upGrad learner made its way to the digital screens, today and will soon be amplified on TV across Andhra Pradesh & Telangana. This will be followed by other regional films. Alongside, the global higher Edtech company will also be rolling out multiple  other PAN India campaign films shortly to further strengthen upGrad’s domestic and regional penetration while also boosting its brand awareness & recall across new markets. 

“Driving meaningful career ROI is deeply ingrained in our DNA and our learners are at the centre of everything we do. Y-o-Y we analyse our growth strategies and restructure them to suit the evolving needs of the market; more so, to also expand our footprints. Therefore, after the launch of the first leg in November last year, we felt it was critical to address the local demands as well and to let a wider audience across key regional markets like Andhra Pradesh & Telangana know about upGrad and its products. While metros are important, these markets as critical segments for accelerating our business growth. We have clocked 130+ career transitions in these two regions alone during CY2022 which reinforces our commitment,” said Ankit Khirwal, Head of Marketing at upGrad while commenting on the launch and marketing plans. “Next up, we will target Tamil Nadu followed by other pockets for rounded results,” he added. 

 Conceptualized and executed by upGrad’s in-house Content and Brand Marketing teams, the brand films are carefully designed to script emotions through strong narratives of real upGrad learners who faced societal hiccups and were discouraged/questioned several times for their decisions of pursuing higher education online, yet they all came out strongly and carved a niche for themselves in their LifeLongLearning journey. The brand has recorded 70,000+ career-defining stories and aims at clocking bigger milestones in the coming quarters. 

Debuting through the campaign’s first brand film is the story of Voruganti Aravind who is placed with a Michigan-based IT company as a Vice President and has achieved a career milestone with upGrad, “I’m an engineer and I know how to build products. But how to position them in a market and sell them is where I was lacking. Then I came across this program (Global MBA) - it perfectly aligned with some of the key things, I was looking at: it's coming from Liverpool Business School, it's online so I need not take a career break and the cost is really 1/10th of the typical investment I need to put," he added.

The first tranche of the brand campaign has achieved a whooping engagement of 287 Million+ Impressions and 68 Million+ views on YouTube with a 33% increase in enrolments by female learners and enhanced website traffic in the last 60 days. The latest campaign will be heavily promoted across upGrad’s digital platforms along with some TV insertions across select regional markets.