ScooNews Magazine - May 2019 - Digital Edition by ScooNews

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think

Volume 3 Issue 10 May 2019 CHANGING TEACHERS’ LIVES EVERYDAY, EVERY WAY!

Margaret Mead

STRAIGHT

Group Editor Ravi Santlani Deputy Editor Parvathy Jayakrishnan

TALK

Reporters Anushka Yadav, Ashima Sharma, Anuj Kr.

Ravi Santlani, CEO

Website Team Pranav Sharma, Ojas Godatwar Art Direction Rexsu Cherry Advisory Board: Anand Kumar, Founder, Super-30 Dr Jagpreet Singh, Headmaster, The Punjab Public School, Nabha Dr Neeta Bali, Director- Principal, G D Goenka World School, Gurugram Dr Swati Popat Vats, President, Podar Education Network & President, Early Childhood Association India Geeta Dharmarajan, Founder & President, Katha Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar,Trustee, Vidyadan Trust & Maharana of Mewar Foundation Lt Gen SH Kulkarni (Retd), Director, Mayo College Meenakshi Uberoi, Education Evangelist, Founder, De Pedagogics Nishi Misra, Principal, Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya, Gwalior Prajakt Raut, Co-founder, Applyifi & The Growth Labs Sandeep Dutt, Founder & Chairman, Learning Forward India Skand Bali, Principal, The Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet Pics Pressfoto Pixabay, Shutterstock Cover Design ATLT Inc

Founder & CEO Ravi Santlani Vice President Operations Vinay K Singh Vice President PR Vanya Bhandari BD Manager Virendra Kashyap Asst BD Manager Deepika Kulhari BD Executive Yashwant Parmar, Shivam Joshi, Aryan Mudgal, Shoaib Ali Sagar Nagpal EDITORIAL OFFICE EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India Email: editor@scoonews.com FOR ALL SALES QUERIES Virendra Kashyap + 91-99532-19439 sales@scoonews.com FOR SUBSCRIPTION +91-72405-17913 subscribe@scoonews.com PRINTED AND PUBLISHED by Ravi Santlani on behalf of EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd PRINTED AT Popular Printers, Fateh Tiba, MD Road Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. PUBLISHED AT, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur-302004, India Editor : Ravi Santlani Publishing Date: 10 May ‘2019 Total number of pages 64, including Covers

Branding and marketing for a ‘temple of learning’?

have a small test for you. Name five of the best ads for schools you have seen. Okay, make it three ads… Still struggling? I don’t blame you—almost every ad for a school looks precisely like the other, in other words typically unimpressive and eminently forgettable! From the standard oversized logo, to a random picture of happy children, followed by an overdose of mostly irrelevant information—the format is standard and replicated across the board. But if no two schools are the same, why should their ads be? It’s time the education sector changed the way it communicates, using market research, design, content and social media strategies... because yes, today even ‘temples of learning’ need optimum branding and a standard billboard ad just doesn’t cut it. In today’s rapidly changing world, with schools mushrooming all over the place, the good, the mediocre and the downright substandard all tend to merge and be clumped together. Creating a superior product or service—which a school is, at the end of the day—is not enough. It needs to be properly packaged and promoted. For an educational institution looking to brand itself properly, several factors need to be kept in mind, from proper differentiation from the others, to a logo that is identifiable and relevant, to being consistent, keeping in mind the target audience and, most important of all, living up to the brand promise. The mission is not simply to get the required number of admissions, but to identify the right tools that communicate to consumers the institution’s differentiated facilities, win their trust and focus on a school’s vision. Branding and marketing eventually have everything to do with authenticity, with forging a connection with various stakeholders, and best showcasing the school’s value proposition. From branding, marketing, communications, and creative design, to networking, PR & media and events, schools today need to invest now in their future. We all do want a future after all, don’t we?

May 2019

CONTENTS

30 MAD CONCLAVE:

ED BRANDING AND MARKETING MANTRAS UNLEASHED!

12 TIME TO REBRAND YOUR MAKING SCHOOL? TIPS AND WAYS YOUR MARK TO DO IT

50 MAD AWARDS

SALUTING BRILLIANCE!

TEAM SCOONEWS reports on the recent MAD Conclave, India’s first conclave on marketing and communications for the education sector

20 BRANDING, MARKETING & COMMUNICATION IN EDUCATION SECTOR MISS OUT AND BE LEFT OUT!

COMMON BRANDING MISTAKES & HOW TO AVOID THEM

IT IS IMPORTANT TO BE CAREFUL WHILE BRANDING YOUR SCHOOL AS EVEN MINOR DISCREPANCIES CAN CAUSE MORE HARM THAN GOOD, WRITES PARVATHY JAYAKRISHNAN

54 MARKETING AND BRANDING OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES SHOULD REFLECT THEIR ABILITY TO CHANGE PEOPLE’S LIVES AND THE WORLD, SAYS ANUSHKA YADAV

May 2019

THE 2019 WORLD FORUM ON EARLY CARE & EDUCATION: JOINING HANDS FOR PAINTING A BRIGHTER WORLD

PARVATHY JAYAKRISHNAN & ANUSHKA YADAV SHARE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE WORLD FORUM ON EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION, MACAO, 2019

YOURS TRULY BEST SUGGESTIONS Even though the April issue was applaudable in itself I really loved the Take 2 section this time. It has one of the most interesting reads recommended for educators to foster entrepreneurship in their students. Currently, I’m reading The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin D. Johnson and I have to admit that it’s one of the most well-written books one can read. Kudos to the team for bringing such wonderful books to our notice. Waiting for more such suggestions! Siegen Fernandes, Mumbai

SIMPLY BRILLIANT Absolutely loved the cover story! I adore the themes that your team takes up each month and this month’s theme is definitely one of my favourites. Entrepreneurship in schools is a topic not many of us talk about and it is high time that we discuss the importance of raising more entrepreneurs. Congratulations to the team for such a stellar issue! I’d like to praise the cover designer as well as the cover story author for creating an informative and creative work. Raghav Jain Jaipur

NOTEWORTHY INITIATIVE It is with hope that I read about the latest ‘Padho Punjab’ activity-based learning initiative launched eight months ago by the state government. Education Secretary, Krishan Kumar has pointed out that English is a weakness for most of the 25 lakh students studying in around 20,000 government schools of Punjab. Kumar has rightly commented that English is the language of science and technology and such initiatives are extremely necessary. As part of the ‘Padho Punjab’ initiative, English teachers are being given tips on soft skills, phonetics and language skills. Positive change is already visible as schools hold sessions in public speaking, daily news-reading, singing and poetry recitation, skits and

quizzes, and conversation all in English. While we must retain usage of our regional languages and mother tongue, there is no denying the huge part that English plays in one’s success and growth. It is good to see Punjab taking the lead in this regard. Hema Prabhudesai Goa

GROUND REALITY Even as we ponder the merits of airconditioned classrooms, I read with shame the news about students of a government primary school in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir, who are forced to study under the open sky due to a shocking lack of proper facilities. In the absence of classrooms, the students of the school established in 1999 have no choice but to sit on the ground outdoors. With the powers-thatbe supposedly taking cognisance of the fact, I hope the matter is soon amended. Our children deserve better! Angela Naik Mumbai

SINCERE GRATITUDE While reading the cover story, I felt a sudden wave of gratitude hit me as I read Pradeep Mishra’s interview. It feels proud to see such initiatives take a full swing in the Indian education system; people like Mr. Mishra work towards change with passion and dedication that is worth mentioning. I’m glad I picked up your magazine and chanced upon his interview. Congratulations to the entire team for bringing up such important topics through such a well-written content. Seema Hooda Gurugram

BETTER FUTURE Teaching entrepreneurship in schools is the best way to prepare our children for tomorrow. Many of today's jobs will no longer exist and it is important that our children find a way to make a living. It is the street-smart who will survive and they need to be prepared for

that. A proper entrepreneurship curriculum needs to be adopted and circulated in schools. Activities and games that encourage entrepreneurship skills need to be played in school. Madhur Bhandari Bangalore

WORTH EMULATING It was quite sad to read about the death of Polan Sarkar, the walking library of Bangladesh. The work of such people needs to be exemplified and spread. Learning about such people will provide inspiration to our young ones. I hope our syllabus includes such stories of people who thought differently and did good to the society. Riya Jain Mumbai

USEFUL INFO I simply loved your list of 10 books and 10 TED talks that teachers can use to foster entrepreneurship. The Take 2 section is always filled with relevant up-to-date information that we teachers can use. I sometimes cut these pages and display it on our school notice board and I have students come up to me and tell me how much they love it. Thank you, ScooNews! Keep up the good work! Nitya Rai Hyderabad

FUN-TERESTING APPS I’m not a tech savvy person but the app suggestions in April issue’s Tech It Out turned out to be fun, interesting and quite easy to use. I’m trying Saving Spree with my kid and I plan on trying the other apps myself before I recommend it to my child. However, I trust the recommendations of the ScooNews team. Saving Spree has turned out to be effective and extremely beneficial for my child as she loves using it every day. Thanks team, for the fun-teresting suggestions! Roma Roy New Delhi

TALK TO US

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JAIPUR: EduPulse Media Pvt Ltd, J-3, Jhalana Institutional Area, Second Floor, Jaipur 302004 India

May 2019

Please recycle this magazine and remove inserts and samples before recycling

TRENDING FC Bayern opens African soccer school in Ethiopia

Proposal to add Intermediate to school ed gets mixed reactions With speculation being rife on the possibility of a unified board for SSC and Intermediate, the teaching community, experts and students have expressed mixed reactions. Barring the CBSE and ICSE, and Central government schools like Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are the only states in India where class 10 and plus two are under one body. Those against the inclusion of class 12 or Intermediate in the school education

system are of the view that having an autonomous Intermediate board gives an upper hand to the State students, particularly in competitive examinations. However, there was a unanimous consensus that the merger of the two would limit the scope of profit-making by corporate institutions. Teachers working at government schools, too, are rooting for the proposed merger of Intermediate education with school education as that would mean that those with postgraduate degrees would be eligible for promotion as junior lecturers (JL).

IIT Madras topples IISc Bangalore as best educational institute in India German champion football club Bayern Munich has signed an agreement to open its first soccer school in Africa, locating it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Last week, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder, other state officials and FC Bayern executive board members travelled to Addis Ababa to sign the agreement. Soeder told Ethiopian media the agreement would bring Bavarian expertise in football to the sports-hungry nation of Ethiopia. The international FC Bayern Youth Cup tournament took place in Nigeria in 2018 and 2019. The success of the tournament led to the idea to give young athletes around the world a way to showcase their talents, and include those players from disadvantaged areas. FC Bayern Munich has developed many world-class players in their academy, including Thomas Mueller, Mats Hummels and Toni Kroos Kolgers. The soccer school would accept 30-40 young athletes between the ages of 8-10, with their training costs covered by Bayern Munich. In the agreement, Bayern Munich said it would also finance the school training and education of the children. FC Bayern coaches would lead youth coaches to train local players in Addis Ababa starting May 3.

May 2019

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras, (IIT Madras) has emerged as the best educational institute in India, ahead of Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc Bangalore), the union government said in a fresh university rankings report. IIT Delhi, IIT Powai in Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur, respectively, rounded up the top five, according to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released recently by President Ram Nath Kovind. About 3,200 colleges and universities participated in the exercise. In the management education category, IIM Bangalore toppled IIM Ahmedabad to be the best B-school of India. IIM Calcutta came in third. Several private B-school ranked in the Top 20, including XLRI Jamshedpur (7th), MDI Gurgaon (12th) and SP Jain Mumbai (16). Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai (18) and Symbiosis Institute of Business (20) also found a place in the ranking. Among universities, IISc Bangalore was judged best, followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), University of Hyderabad and Calcutta University.

'Brave' a new film on girl's education

JAY-Z’S FOUNDATION IS TAKING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ON A HBCU COLLEGE TOUR

This year, Hollywood has put a welcome spotlight on the stories of vulnerable populations of young women. During Oscar season, “Roma,” the Mexican film centred on a young domestic worker, and “Period. End of Sentence.” a documentary about women battling the stigma against menstruation in rural India were shown. “Brave Girl Rising,” a new short film by Girl Rising, which was released earlier this month, is the latest addition to the list. The film tells the story of Nasro, a 17-year-old Somali girl pursuing an education in one of the most challenging environments: a refugee camp — specifically Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya. “Girl Rising” has a unique storytelling format, blending both documentary and scripted scenes. The film is a departure from traditional advocacy storytelling — it’s an important distinction to weave in “her inner self, her hopes, and dreams” into the story. There have been countless powerful documentaries about girls overcoming challenges in low-income nations. Frequently, those films only reach the audiences that already know those issues. They go to festivals and they end up being seen and loved by audiences who already know the issue.

The Shawn Carter Foundation is gearing up for its annual college bus tour which gives a select group of high-performing students the opportunity to visit 11 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) from Atlanta, GA, to Washington, D.C. Presented by Toyota, the 7-day tour also gives students a chance to meet with college admissions counsellors, former Shawn Carter Foundation scholars, and other student brand ambassadors at top learning institutions. The foundation will also facilitate college preparation workshops leading up to the bus tour for students in more than 125 high schools in New York and New Jersey. Beginning in September, students selected by their respective high school’s administrators will be able to attend a series of weekend sessions that focus on ACT/SAT prep, college essay and academic resume building, interview skills, and how to dress for success. The foundation has equipped hundreds of high school students with the tools to be successful in higher education since it was founded by hip hop mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and his mother, Gloria, in 2003. All high school seniors selected for the tour have been provisionally accepted to at least one college or university they visited.

May 2019

TRENDING Norway commits $150 million to UNICEF for the next three years Norway will be contributing $150 million to UNICEF over the next three years to help provide education, protection and health services to some of the most vulnerable children around the world. Flexible and predictable funding is critical to UNICEF’s support to children and young people in need all over the world. Norway is among the largest contributors of voluntary core contributions and thematic funding support to UNICEF. Norway is one of UNICEF’s top five government partners, contributing $206 million to UNICEF in 2018. Norway is also one of the top contributors to UNICEF's core funding which offers flexible funding allowing UNICEF to allocate resources where they are most needed. “Millions of children around the world are denied their right to education, health and protection,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “This

UNICEF India & NITI Aayog tie up for children empowerment Niti Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and UNICEF India signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to provide an open platform to encourage participation, skilling and empowerment among young children across different communities in the country. The LoI was signed by Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF representative, India, and Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission. As per a release, the plan will be implemented with a thorough focus on child rights through the Atal Tinkering Lab initiative to orient the burgeoning innovation ecosystem towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals. "Through this collaboration, AIM and UNICEF seek to promote participation, skilling and empowerment of adolescent girls and boys in and out-of-school, via Atal Innovation Mission's programs. This strategic partnership will also help effectively build capacities of adolescents, young entrepreneurs, mentors and teachers," the release said. Last year, the two organisations took up an initiative to expand socio-economic opportunities for India's young people, especially those from marginalised groups called YuWaah!

BMC students bag gold at All-India Olympiad

Twenty-four BMC students have bagged gold medals at a national-level Olympiad called the Primary Olympiad of Math, Science and English. In a first, the students have beaten government and private schools across the nation. The 24 students won gold out of the 700 students who qualified for the national round; 176 of 700 students were from BMC schools and 14 students won gold in English, 6 in Science, and 4 in Math. A total of 12,500 students appeared for the Olympiad exams pan-India. “This is the first time that BMC students have won gold medals at an all-India Olympiad. We get students from the poorest groups, who have competed with students from private schools and international boards. Last year, we did not get any medal, but this year it is raining medals. Even the number of students who qualified for the nationals is huge. This negates the notion that BMC students are weak,” said Prakash Charate, BMC’s deputy education officer, who started the initiative of training students for the Olympiad two years ago as head of the Quality Education Cell.

May 2019

‘Twinning of Schools’ programme launched: Punjab Education Department As an effort to make students of government and private schools learn together, Punjab education department has launched an exchange programme termed as ‘twinning of schools’ programme. Under the programme, the students of government schools will visit private schools for a day and vice versa. Students of private schools will have to eat the mid-day meals as well. Ten students of middle schools from classes 6, 7 and 8 from both government and private schools will share best practices of their schools in May. A notification regarding its implementation has been issued by the Director General of School Education Mohammad Tayyab. Students

will have quiz competitions on socialenvironmental issues and discussions on their areas of interests, local craft, arts, music, and festivals. In the latter half of the day, a special session of folk games will be organised. All private schools affiliated with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and Punjab school education board (PSEB) will be participants. “A sense of interdependence and understanding of each other will be developed. Besides this, it would help in recognising gap and make efforts to bridge them," the DGSE said.

CBSE to introduce skill subject in school curriculum An official reported that the Central Board of Secondary Education is planning to introduce artificial intelligence (AI), early childhood care education and yoga as new subjects in the school curriculum from this academic session. “The CBSE is introducing artificial intelligence as an optional sixth subject at Class IX from the session 2019-2020 onwards. To enhance the multidisciplinary approach in teaching learning and also to sensitise the new generation, it was decided that schools may start AI ‘inspire module’ of 12 hours at Class VIII itself,” the senior Board official reported. According to the norms, if a student fails in any one of the three elective subjects (science, mathematics and social science), then it will be replaced by the skill subject (offered as a 6th subject). Thus, Class X result shall be computed based on best five subjects. "The board will provide necessary support and guidance towards training and capacity building of teachers and other aspects for the successful implementation of skill subjects from time to time," the official concluded.

Meghalaya moves towards major education reforms After the state cabinet's approval to Education Policy, 2018, Meghalaya became one of the few Indian states to have their own education policy in 2017. "Under the plan of action for the policy, training teachers, infrastructure improvement, curriculum upgrade in schools and a more streamlined school education system are on the agenda," said state education minister Lahkmen Rymbui. As part of improving the curriculum, the state has adopted NCERT syllabus for class XI and XII Science and Commerce stream from the previous academic session. "This reform will help our students perform better in competitive exams such as the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) that are based on the NCERT syllabus," said Rymbui. Meghalaya is introducing community centric-vocational courses such as handicrafts and roping in more localised content. The policy also aims at providing greater autonomy to schools and allowing them to create a 'contingency fund' for community contribution. "Around 903 schools in Meghalaya have enrolment of below 20. So, we have a proposal to enable collaboration between these schools so that they can share resources for greater benefit of the students. The guidelines for the same are being worked out," concluded Rymbui.

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

TIME TO

REBRAND YOUR SCHOOL?

YOUR SCHOOL? TIPS AND WAYS TO DO IT “You can't stop the future, You can't rewind the past, The only way to learn the secret...is to press play.”? Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

Lina Ashar writeback@scoonews.com

ou may have often heard that change is the only constant. However, it is this change that we resist the most. Change is resisted because of the uncertainty that it brings with it; however, it is only wise to move ahead with the times.

Rebranding is more like transformation and every brand over time needs to work on transformation. As times change our thinking process also needs to change, as we need to match the world around us. For example, at one point in time digital devices were not allowed in school. However today we use these digital devices to create an enhanced learning experience. Big corporate houses like Tata, Godrej, Reliance, PepsiCo to name a few rebrand their products often to keep ahead of the times and to keep communicating with their audiences. Education as an industry has also evolved over time, decades back education was all about rote learning, and

May 2019

then we moved to having computer labs to learn basics of coding, Microsoft Office etc. Today technology has taken over and we use tabs to enhance the experience of learning and the future is going to be all about personalised learning. So, the answer is every school needs to rebrand itself often. They need to relook at what is happening around them in the education space. Every founder had a certain idea when they started the school. They had a purpose and a way to go about achieving that purpose. It is important for the management to keep evaluating whether what they stand for still holds true or whether they need to relook their vision and mission statements. As the brand evolves, it is crucial to keep communicating to the ever-evolving stakeholders to maintain the right brand perception at all times.

2 Crystallise a powerful story that truly defines who you are, what you stand for, and how you are unique. Powerful emotional stories are what leave a lasting impact on the minds of people. Over time, stories evolve and their narration changes too. For eg. ‘Mahabharat’ shown on DD and ‘Mahabharat’ that aired on Star TV were way different in terms of narration, storytelling etc. Also, in a school we regularly have new stories of student achievements to share. Sharing these stories will always fetch you a high recall value.

NEED FOR REBRANDING

3 Leverage your strengths and legacy credentials. A brand that has been around for long has over time built a legacy and holds credibility. Also, when you are working on rebranding you are leveraging on your strengths and making changes accordingly. It makes sense to continuously communicate about your strengths to build a high brand perception.

1 To create a new brand positioning in the minds of all stakeholders it is important to keep inventing and repositioning ourselves in the mind of the stakeholder. To keep ahead of time and competition, continuous communication is crucial.

4 It makes it easier to communicate your unique story that aligns with the parent’s perception. A complete rehaul of the brand is a tool to highlight and share our unique stories. Stories which otherwise would be lost in history.

5 Evolving expectations from education are placing new kind of requirement set from schools. Education today is becoming more and more learner centric. The rote method of learning no longer holds true and the future of education is moving towards personalised learning. So, it is important to communicate the same to parents. It is also important to make the required changes in the system to be able to facilitate personalised learning. When you do decide to rebrand, you need to first do a brand audit. Look at the current SWOT analysis, the need to rebrand, the trends of the industry 10 years from now to incorporate rebranding. Rebranding is of two kindsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;intrinsic and superficial. In an intrinsic process the product or service is completely overhauled while in a superficial one the brand changes their identity. What does your school actually need to change when they are looking at rebranding themselves? Here are seven elements you need to consider: 1 Key messaging (change in vision and mission statement) 2 School culture 3 Style guide 4 Logo 5 Website/ digital 6 Stationery 7 Advertising

REBRANDING PROCESS: 1 The first step to rebranding is introspection: who are you, what do you stand for, what you want to be known for, what aspect you are looking to rebrand. Basically, you need to define what your brand story currently is and what is it that you want it to be. Once that is defined you can go ahead with step 2.

4 Plan to execute the rebranding process effectively. It makes perfect sense to roll out the communication of rebranding correctly. Some of the ways of doing that is to have launch parties for announcing the rebranding, external and internal PR campaigns. 5 Make sure you create a brand guideline. Once a brand has gone through the rebranding process, it is important that all parties and stakeholders involved use the same logos, same messaging, colour palettes and other important aspects correctly. Maintaining a standard communication is crucial to build the desired brand perception. 6 Make sure you document the full process. Rebranding is a long-drawn process and to create the right perception it is important to document the same. Lack of documentation may lead to loss of important information, which eventually will make the whole process a futile one. We recently looked at rebranding our schools and preschools and what I share here is my experience of going through this process. We crafted a branding note for all our stakeholders sharing the purpose of rebranding, created new digital friendly logos, rebranded our stationery, revamped all our branding and creatives etc. A sample of one of our creatives is shared below:

2 The second step to the rebranding process is to conduct a research. There are various stakeholders in a school some of them being parents, students, teachers, government agencies and more. It is essential to understand what each of them perceives of the brand currently, what their expectations from the brand are and what is the employeesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perception.

Old

3 Communicate with all stakeholders. Communicate with the people concerned right from the beginning. Let them know that you are rebranding. Share essential information like the timeline, budget, changes in the competitive landscape, key objectives for rebranding etc.

New

Lina Ashar is Founder, Kangaroo Kids Preschool and Billabong High International School

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

MAKING

YOUR MARK

uniqueness in a more defined manner. In the era of competition, along with the number of options available, it has become necessary to have unique branding strategies. Due to its importance, branding wields a lot of power and hence, even one distracted mistake could attain disastrous results and a bad rapport. It can also alter the perception of people about your brand, casting a negative light on the institution.

Pawas Jain writeback@scoonews.com

Branding plays a major role in building the identity of any institution as it is the first impression that a consumer has of it. It should deliver what you aspire to be. It will also help in differentiating your institution from the rest. Branding also aims at representing the promise of services you offer to your customers. In the era of never-ending competition, it has become crucial for all institutions to build a strong branding strategy in order to grow and tell their customers about the differentiated facilities they provide when compared to their competition. Branding of schools is also necessary to gain the trust of the customers and stay focused on the vision of the institution. Branding is one of the most important aspects of spreading the word about an institution as it helps schools to stand out from the others and showcase their

There are certain mistakes that schools tend to make while branding that can cost them a heavily, if not rectified at their earliest. Institutions tend to forget the scope of branding and keep it limited to only logos and taglines. Logos and taglines are an important aspect of branding, truly, but there are many more that need to be given equal importance. As the brand represents you, it should have a different personality that represents your services and can easily be recognised by the customers. Hence, it is important to pay due attention to the areas that require it the most.

May 2019

Firstly, the use of multiple logos for marketing your institution can affect the brand image in a negative way. The brand may get diluted if multiple logos are used for marketing a single institution. The use of a single logo helps to keep your brand strong and consistent. The schools often do not showcase enough information to the students and parents which hampers their selection process when it comes to choosing the right school. At times they fail to provide proper guidance to parents and students about how to apply to their school and other such extremely relevant information. It majorly acts as a barrier in making your brand a success. The brand acts as a packaging for your institution and a boring brand would never attract customers (parents and students). Schools generally do not pay any heed to branding that leads to a plain and boring strategy for branding. A compelling branding strategy includes the use of captivating

Pawas Jain is founder of content and marketing consulting company, TBC Consulting which works with leading brands and startups across the country on brand building, marketing and content production

images, engaging videos, etc. to motivate the target audience for taking the next step and believing in your institution. The wrong use of content affects the identity of the school in a very negative manner. The content needs to go beyond the schoolsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; accomplishments, activities, events, etc. To attract the attention of the parents, it is necessary to showcase the facilities that are limited to your school and talk about the things that parents need to know and care about. A tagline for the brand plays an important role in selling your school. Generally, schools make a mistake of using multiple taglines or no taglines at all. A tagline gives you an opportunity to attract the parents and students by using emotionally compelling phrases which would make one take note of your brand. It is necessary to use just one tagline for the brand to strengthen marketing efforts. Multiple tagline puts a negative impact on the brand. It is important to keep the tagline as short and crisp as possible. The tagline

should be the one that sums up your message clearly. Generally, the schools do not pay attention as far as the quality and the quantity of students are concerned. The branding strategies should be made keeping in mind the necessary quality and quantity of students they want to attract and strategise accordingly. Institutions tend to ignore the importance of brand and do not give the due time and attention that is required to build a powerful brand. This may lead to hampering the opportunities for future growth and progress. It is crucial to build an appealing brand to have a competitive edge in the market and attract huge number of applicants. The branding of schools generally lacks diverse and engaging elements to make it a success. It leads to poor retention and lack of engagement of the target audience. The use of vibrant colours and design elements is a must to make your brand

stand out of the crowd. The marketing materials should have a consistent layout to maintain the consistency of the brand. Branding strategies should be developed by professionals and every school should have a consistent branding team to carry out all the work related to branding and strategy. This helps in eliminating inconsistency in the brand and gives it a professional touch. The schools fail to differentiate their brand which make their branding strategies fall apart. It is necessary for the brand to be unique to be able to cut through the clutter. The schools must be unique to be remembered by people. Good designs make the institutions stand out of the crowd as it acts as an ultimate differentiator among diverse schools. A strong well-developed brand helps in building loyal customers and in building the reputation of an institution. It may prove to be a valuable asset for the organisation if carried out in the right direction.

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

MARKETING is not about an AD or a CAMPAIGN; IT IS ABOUT

STRATEGY Prajakt Raut writeback@scoonews.com

iven the rise of new-age schools and the increasing competition in the education sector, creating an effective positioning for your school and supporting it with an appropriate marketing programme is imperative. It has become extremely important to build and strengthen a school brand and it is an effective marketing strategy that can differentiate one school from another.

Irrespective of whether an organisation promotes its brand or not, people think about it in a certain way and in the manner they know about it. The only thing an organisation can do is to take initiatives or i n t e r ve n t i o n s t h a t c a n

Now, when we talk about marketing, the usual notion is that we are talking about advertising or a department called marketing. However, marketing is not a department. Rather, it is a much bigger concept that involves all stakeholders associated with the brand. Marketing is an interpretation of a larger strategy of an organisation that is reflected through different means of communication. Marketing or advertising is just one of the departments that are assigned with the responsibility of creating awareness about the overall strategy. Marketing in a true sense happens when every stakeholder of the organisation pitches in individually to spread a word about its products or services. Advertisement and marketing is an art of managing perceptions of your stakeholders about your brand.

May 2019

fy an organization’s brand and create a familiar image about it. When people close their eyes, they should get a fairly consistent image of the brand. The brand personality should reflect in television/print advertisements, website, mobile apps and every single thing that the organisation does. Let’s also compare brand personalities of two brands offering similar products – Complan and Horlicks.

Prajakt Raut is Founder Applyifi and Founding Partner The Growth Labs

Complan has created the personality of a child who can grow faster and taller by consuming the product. Even the image of the child is shown raising hands and the fonts appear to stretch. Horlicks has created the personality of a child who can improve his or her attention and concentration by consuming its product and fearlessly appear in exams. The image of the child is shown standing with arms folded with determination on her face.

influence the thinking or perception of people about the brand.

MARKETING IS BASED ON THREE FUNDAMENTAL BLOCKS

The brands may periodically alter their communication but remain consistent in their personality and positioning. While these nuances can be effectively executed by the ad agencies, the organisation and its employees are primarily responsible for formulating the marketing strategy.

1 BRAND POSITIONING

3 MESSAGING AND MEDIUM

Brand positioning is about defining what you want people to think about your brand. Eg. while some schools may position themselves on their lineage, some may want to position themselves as a ‘sports inclined’ school while others may want to position themselves on the quality of infrastructure, etc.

The position and personality of a brand can be communicated through a multitude of mediums such as television, print, radio and social media.

The positioning may differ from one brand to another as per the context. For example, positioning for a premium school will be quite different from a non-premium school. The positioning also depends on the competitive environment. If there are many schools in the vicinity, each school has to position its brand in a way that people understand why it is unique from others. It should create an impression about the school in a manner the school wants people to think about it.

2 BRAND PERSONALITY Brand personality refers to maintaining consistency in how the brand is represented in all forms of communication – i.e. consistency in colours, fonts, style, age group of the target audience and overall imagery that allows people to identi-

It should be noted that a brand impression is a living thing. It is a goal, not a journey. It needs to be nurtured over a period of time.

MARKETING STRATEGY STARTS WITH THE BRAND Since marketing is a strategy, it has to start from the school management by defining what it wants people to think about the brand when they see or interact with it, what makes its brand unique and what it wants to be known as or known for - pedigree, premium, great teachers, value-driven, futureready, great environment, etc. The marketing strategy should be a promise that the organisation can deliver and reflect across all its products, services and experiences. It is about making sure that every stakeholder, right from gatekeeper and accountant to principal, teachers, students and teachers reflect the brand. That is the reason it is also important to consult each and every stakeholder to formulate the marketing strategy. Once the strategy is in place, the ad agency or adverting department can crisply convert that into a set of memorable words using different position statements or platforms.

DO NOT FORGET THE PRODUCT There is a saying in the marketing

world – ‘If the product is bad, good adverting will kill it faster’. This simply means that no matter how the organisation wants to position itself, they have to be able to deliver on that positioning. And it is not just that one aspect that they will position their brand on, but all aspects that are fundamental to the stakeholders getting value from your school that is important for you to deliver well on. The organisation can pick any particular aspect of the overall experience and then build the entire brand around it without losing focus on the rest of the aspects. Engage Your Stakeholders Through Different Mediums of Communication Advertisements are certainly one way to reach out to the target audience. However, there are other powerful mediums that schools must explore:

Blogs and Thought Leadership Articles The school, students and teachers can contribute blogs regarding various aspects of academic life, career options and other relevant topics to draw attention towards the brand. Blogs are very easy to write because the authors don’t have to exhibit topnotch journalism or creative writing skills. All they have to make sure is that their blogs get the points across to the target audience. Hence, anybody can write blogs. The senior management, principal and teachers can write insightful thought leadership articles on the current trends and practices or industry pain points and solutions to establish the school as an influencer in its community. Blogs and thought leadership articles fall under the category of content marketing. It is a free, viral and easy to use powerful medium, but rarely used by schools.

PROFILE FEATURES The school can showcase the achievements of students, parents, teachers or any other stakeholder on its website to build its community. Some other ways to engage stakeholders are through conducting events, seeking feedback from the community and posting case studies on the website. The schools have to realise that marketing is a strategic responsibility of the top management. The ad agency can just help them put it in a professional way in front of the audience.

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

NEGOTIATING

THE ROCKY ROAD

Rohit Manglik writeback@scoonews.com

he American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, sign, term, symbol or a combination of these entities intending to provide distinction to the services and goods of one seller or group of sellers than those of their competitors.” Of late, the education sector has begun to understand and recognise the value of branding. However, it is a well-recognised fact that the journey to effective branding, marketing and communication in the education sector is not a smooth run.

The Million Dollar Question of Perception: To begin with branding, marketing or communicating your intent of promoting your institute to the society, these all revolve around the question asking, “How does society, particularly students and their parents, perceive your initiative?” Whether your alumni (only if you have passed out a few of your batches) take you as welcoming, non-intimidating, flexible, alternative, supportive, or underrated, non-progressive, outdated, challenging, and a total waste of their resources? These are some of the factors that will decide your reputation, primarily. Hence, count this factor very first in the slew of confrontations you may face against marketing/branding of your venture. Unless you take care of people’s perspective, you will be taking a shot in the dark, not knowing exactly which of your promotional measure(s) will work! This will make your efforts of branding/marketing vulnerable to

May 2019

Rohit Manglik is CEO, EduGorilla, a one-stop education community

your generalisations and speculations. Consequently, these speculations may brand you as ‘unappealing’ or ‘bland.’ What’s more, your initiative will very likely fall prey to the more robustly and strategically planned initiatives of your competitors. Getting Familiar with your Audience’s Preferences: Since students and their parents are your primary target audience, it is important to take into account their preferences and aspirations. It is important so that the core vision of your enterprise fully reflects the aspirations and goals of your audience. Once this is achieved, there are no breaks and stops in your achieving the goal of your audience developing trust and loyalty for your institute. A punchline as “Our Students are our Yardstick” may reflect parents’ and students’ educational aspiration, for example. Furthermore, you can also strive for posting exemplary stories and interviews of students regularly on the website of your undertaking. This will go really far in earning you trust and loyalty of students and parents. The Need to Ensure Consistency in

Branding in All your Channels of Marketing:Various marketing and branding channels demand a consistent messaging. There must be a uniformity in the exhibitions of the images, logos, the quality of the videos and even in the slogans of your business. This is extremely crucial if you want to develop a sense of familiarity, dependability, and trust among your audience. To overcome inconsistency, it is highly recommended that you develop a sort of guide or handbook entailing guidelines regarding the styling and making of your images, logos, the colours and fonts used in them, their positioning, the designing of your website’s headers and footers. Do History and Community Make Inroads into your Branding? It really produces an impact when your enterprise partakes in community-programs and other such philanthropic endeavours. This is noteworthy as students and parents consider the enterprise’s longevity and its charitable measures during its lifetime. Parents prefer institutions having a record of at least 50 years when considering the credibility issues of the college(s). This is simply because the longer the institute runs,

its reliability earns its pursuers in the same or even amplified proportion. Moreover, this generous value must reflect through your website and other media of communication. For this, again, you need to pay attention to the fonts used- their size, style, and colour definitely hold importance. Learn from your Competitors: It is really is quite a learning experience when you see what others of your ilk are striving and innovating. Note the nuances and the transformations that your competitors are taking the support of. While one of them may highlight their students’ success as their benchmark, the other can weave community programmes into its communication with its audience. Similarly, some other college may hold a pool recruitment drive for its students to beagle its prospective customers/pursuers. Hence the key to branding and marketing educational institutions and companies is to identify your target audience carefully and be consistent in messaging. Education can make a huge impact on people’s lives, and your marketing should aptly reflect this.

May 2019

COVER STORY

Branding, Marketing & Communication in Education Sector

MISS OUT AND BE LEFT OUT! Marketing and branding of educational institutes should reflect their ability to change people’s lives and the world, says ANUSHKA YADAV

e tend to believe that branding, marketing and communication are important factors in any field until we put them in the education context. While branding can be dated back to 1100 BC, school branding is a relatively new concept that surfaced in the early 1800s. Today, parents and children are the customers while other schools stand as competitors in the business-like market. Gone are the days when parents had a handful of schools to select from; today, they want their kids to go to schools that have the best of everything. But how do they get to know that they are getting the absolute best of education? This is where an institution’s strong brand identity comes in. To become the best, schools need to develop and market their brand which makes them stand out in the race of vying for students and, in some cases, funding.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION It is time that we, as educational institutions, ask relevant questions… Do we have a strong and recognisable brand? Does our institution have a reputation that generates positive emotional response? While considering such questions, it is imperative that we evaluate the value and unique selling propositions of the institution as well as what negates and drives the customer. However, the key to branding and marketing of educational institutions lies in remembering that education is a powerful tool. Your brand communicates to and with your audience. They deserve to know the vision behind your institution reflecting through the brand identity. It promises what the student experience will be like. Here comes the question, whether

May 2019

major institutions with a deeplyingrained brand need marketing. Of course, they do. Just like infrastructure of any school needs renovation, their brands need renovation and touch up with the changing times. Today, school branding is about finding the institution’s unique competitive advantage. However, many schools struggle as they develop their own communications department that often ends up delivering messy messages. Effective message delivering requires the entire faculty along with leadership to commit as one voice to the brand promise. Proper branding, marketing and communication helps students to decide whether the school is a potential match to their requirements. Without branding, the same institutions tend to suffer and get lost amongst typically similar schools.

Adding to the point, Dr Swati Popat Vats, President, Podar Education Network, and Early Childhood Association India, maintained, “There are two types of Indian schools, one that spends only on branding and marketing at the cost of teacher salaries and quality curriculums and focuses on advertising about large spaces, air-conditioned rooms, extracurricular activities, senseless technology integrations that look nice but have no pedagogical impacts. And the other are those that are doing great work with children, have a superb curriculum, pay their teachers well but are unable to reach out to parents because their advertisements and marketing do not focus on these things.” With a similar point of view, Devidutta Kanungo, Vice President - Education, People Combine,

shared, “Schools are not defined by just the classrooms and the playgrounds. More and more, schools today are learning communities which reflect the value systems, priorities and convictions of the educators, leaders, students and the parents who come together to form it. And these value systems vary largely from school to school. Therefore, in today’s world, where there are so many schools competing for attention, it is absolutely critical for schools to develop a strong brand image which clearly reflects the school’s value system as it will not only enable it to reach the right set of parents with whom its value proposition will resonate, but also to the right teachers who will become part of the school because they trust and believe what the school stands for and in turn, they will make the school’s brand and value proposition stronger. Today, a

school without a clear brand identity and a clear and eloquent plan to reach out to the segment it aspires to cater to, will very quickly get lost in the cacophony of social media noise.”

MAKING A DIFFERENCE In a world where information is readily available on just a click, parents and students tend to search for the best institutes on the internet. Dr Swati firmly believes, “Education is the birth-right of every child. Quality education on the other hand is something that every child needs but does not get. Some schools deliver quality education and some don’t and this is where parents need to know which schools to choose for their children so that they are assured that their child will get an education and not just be literate.” The world wide web and social media

May 2019

COVER STORY have been major marketing development of the last decade. From adding SEO content on your website to showcasing your campus and available facilities through social media platforms, everything makes a difference! It is the perfect way to blossom an open persona and present your school as a place that is open to criticism, scrutiny, transparency and easy communication. Nonetheless, schools often tend to fall in the trap of branding through mere websites, brochures and even tours. However, brand development is the key ingredient that is often missing. Brand development is possible only when branding missteps are avoided, and how do you cross these hurdles? Showcase your brand in education magazines and work on your brand development through advertising companies such as Mad About Ed, which would help you achieve the right student demographics by creating a brand that stands out in a crowded market.

KEY BRANDING ELEMENTS Talking about key ingredients, you might want to know the key elements to school branding… First and foremost, school branding is nothing without the school name which may include the full or partial or even an acronym that the school is or wants to be popularly known as.

Secondly, as seen in this image, it helps to have a visual representation of the school that identifies the school brand through a mascot or logo. Schools may even choose to have an interlocking logo with two or more letter interlocking to form an alternative logo or identity. An important element that has been given much importance in the recent years includes a trademarked logo with movement. Another impor-

tant part of this element also includes the school colours that an institution might choose as a form of recognition.

Thirdly, a school’s vision is best represented through a careful selection of words in its motto, catchphrase or tagline. The branding slogan is typically used to create a memorable phrase that summarises the school’s and its pupil’s character; something that unites them. As seen in the image above, The Emmbrook School’s motto Learning Together: Succeeding Together helps in establishing its brand identity, history and character. “Branding should be about your principles, practices, and pedagogy and not about your mascot or name or how many schools you have. Marketing should be about your impact on the learning skills of children and not about false promises, tall promises about creating geniuses. It’s time to be real about education, it’s time to ditch the frills and froth of false branding and marketing and get real about children, childhood and education. It’s time to talk about the ‘why’ you do the ‘what’ and ‘how’ it is necessary for children. It’s time to be a brand…a brand that stands for trust and market your practices instead of how you ensured that five children stood first! It’s time to use branding, publicity and marketing to talk about the impact your school can bring on all children and not only on the achievers. It’s time to rethink and recalibrate your marketing to be about truth and not false promises.” says Dr Vats. She also wishes for schools in India to be careful of the concepts of branding and marketing, “Impactful branding should be about advocating parents about the benefit of the curriculum and materials that the school invests in, for their child. Marketing in Indian schools should be about changing traditional mindsets that harm children instead of glorifying ‘material’ additions in schools.

May 2019

Do not talk about physical assets in your marketing, talk about children…all children. Avoid making tall promises, talk about the deep impact you have made on children and their education. The number of years you have been in education or the number of children you have touched or the number of schools you have is not as important as the kind of changes you have brought about in education and how you made each child a winner. Never spend on branding and marketing at the cost of teacher salaries or curriculum. Never ever make discounts your selling point... people who discount fees will discount education! BRANDING AND MARKETING BENEFITS Amidst a plethora of benefits of branding and marketing in the education sector, here are a few major ones: It reflects and increases school and student pride. It builds brand trust and loyalty. It unifies school sports and clubs to a single identifiable logo or mascot. It validates the school’s mission and core values; further, establishing the school’s history. It provides the school with discernible identification and recognition. It aligns with the school’s internal culture and external reputation. It establishes authenticity and helps in creating an emotional connect. Pramod Sharma, Principal, Genesis Global School, believes, “It is necessary to introduce impactful branding and marketing in the education sector because it is the most powerful tool to maximise our impact and influence on all the major stakeholders. While most businesses do this for profit, education sector has a nobler aim of creating futures. Hence, the most fundamental unit of education sector, a school, needs to brand itself as a space in which tomorrow lives. It is also true that without proper marketing, branding and advertising the best of products fail. Having said that, there is more to education sector which goes beyond marketing and branding for the simple reason that while false or hyper branding might take a school to the top initially, the fall will follow soon. In other words, branding and marketing, in order to be impactful needs long and sustained effort and strategic planning keeping in mind the requirements of the larger community which we aim to serve. One has seen countless schools

Branding should be about your principles , practices , and pedagogy and not about your mascot or name or ho w many schools you have. Marketing should be about your impact on the learning skills of children and not about false promises, tall promises about creating geniuses Dr Swati Popat Vats, President, Podar Education Network, and Early Childhood Association India

who had a dream start but were soon lost in the mists of time. Which means that a major aspect of impactful branding and marketing is the desire for staying relevant, more so because the scholars we serve today are citizens of tomorrow. One needs to be aware of the latest trends and be ready to take risks instead of basking in the glory of past achievements. While the latter strengthen the brand they will falter if the planning for future gets lost in the triumphs of the past. Branding and marketing must be done keeping in mind the lives affected by it. This will help us in keeping the priorities right thus keeping us motivated to our goal of promising futures.” Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan International Group of Institutions, holds the view that, “India’s education sector needs a new brand and marketing strategy because of several reasons; firstly, the number of players in K12 education has grown exponentially over the past two decades, especially in large cities. Whereas in the past there might have been one or two schools in most neighborhoods, today it is not uncommon to see several. Secondly, by and large new entrants have modelled themselves

similar to the existing players, thereby creating commoditisation. There are some differences created through graphic identity, such as lettering and logo, but this is largely superficial. Thirdly, differentiation is mostly in terms of curriculum offered from among SSC, ISC, CBSE, IGCSE and IB, and less so on ‘philosophies of education’ and other variables. Lastly, K12 generally attracts less top-class marketing talent and generally sees less marketing investment than other sectors. There is of course some admissions support communication, but very little genuine brand creation marketing.” Pinto believes there are four thrusts that hold a school in good stead: 1. Investing in genuine holistic marketing at a brand level 2. Responding to stakeholder needs at a school level 3. Securing the best practices of the past while exploring innovation 4. Updating products and services with the times It is an established fact that education is a big business in today’s world; if

India’s education sector needs a new brand and marketing strategy because of several reasons; firstly, the number of players in K12 education has grown exponentially over the past two decades, especially in large cities. Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan International Group of Institutions,

schools expect parents and students to spend big bucks on tuition, it is a necessity for them to have a strong, appealing and worthy brand with effective marketing through bona fide communication. “Should education be a business and spend on Branding and Marketing? Well, yes education should be a business, because business is not a bad word. People who really ‘mind their business’ know that one cannot ‘play’ around with quality; business is all about good practices and keeping the customer happy! And this is what Indian private schools should do, keep the child and parent happy by ensuring that the parent is educated about what is right for their child and by investing in the right materials to ensure that children get the right education that is developmentally appropriate and meaningful for life.” concludes Dr Vats. Thus, the key to marketing and branding educational institutes is to target and showcase everything you do; education is a powerful tool that has the ability to change people’s lives and the world, and your marketing should reflect that with crystal clarity.

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

VISIBILITY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT

ASPECT OF MARKETING Tushar Bharadwaj writeback@scoonews.com

he last two decades have been phenomenal in terms of the emergence of private, new-age institutions across India. A number of schools and universities endowed with modern infrastructure and educational technology, have been founded by corporate houses. Corporate funding has fueled the growth of these institutions and many new projects are likely to come up in the next five to ten years. Not so long ago, there were just a few renowned private schools (known as public schools in India) and even fewer private universities in the country. The scenario today, is very different. I shall try to focus on the existing scenario at the school level.

Tushar Bharadwaj is Dean of Activities, Marketing and Admissions and a member of the Senior Management Team at The Assam Valley School, besides being a Formula-1 enthusiast and a passionate quizmaster

May 2019

Most of the prestigious private schools are over a century old and unfortunately, many of these schools have failed to reinvent themselves and are struggling to keep pace with the schools founded in recent times. The schools founded in the 19th and early part of the 20th century pride themselves on their heritage and the achievements of their alumni. A certain class of the Indian society has always believed in the model of education being imparted by these elite schools and have remained their loyal clients. The very term â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;clientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is quite strange when it comes to education but the corporatisation of modern education has converted schools into

business houses and the parents are being viewed as ‘clients’ and the children as ‘consumers’. Yes, education is getting transformed into a ‘commodity’ from a ‘service’ with great rapidity. The advent of new schools has sparked off a huge competition amongst them and the older schools too have been affected by this sudden competition as they no longer find themselves in the comfort-zone they were used to. Schools are finding it increasingly difficult to fill up their seats both qualitatively and quantitatively. Unfortunately, many good schools do not have a Pan-Indian client-base any longer and they are depending on the local clients. Hence, there is a need for the new schools to brand and position themselves well in the market to attract the right kind of clients. Similarly, the older schools have to redouble their efforts in rebranding themselves as modern schools. Visibility is the most important aspect of marketing and the schools must come up with ways to make themselves visible to the clients. The traditional word of mouth publicity is no longer effective because the parents today weigh several options before deciding on a school for their children. A lot of research goes into selecting the right school and the ones which are more visible are the ones considered first. The parents today, take many aspects into consideration and look at a number of schools and examine their suitability and at the end of the process, an informed decision is made.

It is almost mandatory for schools to have a dynamic website with SEO capabilities to enhance the visibility of the school. From my personal experience, I can mention that 80 to 90% of the prospective parents visit the website of the schools they are interested in and hence it is important for all schools to invest in a good and userfriendly website to attract the clients. Being the Dean of Admissions and Marketing at my school, parents ask me a wide range of questions before deciding to register their children for admission. Infrastructure, Pedagogy, Co-curricular Education, Sports Coaching, Medicare, coaching for competitive examinations, CareerCounselling, Life-skills Counselling, Outdoor Education, Teacher-Taught ratio, Pastoral Care, Fee-structure and quality of Faculty are among the common topics parents are interested in and some of them even show interest in the demographic structure of the staff and students. It is important for your website to have the required information, presented in a concise and effective manner. Having a virtual reality campus tour embedded to the website is an added advantage and many schools have already done so. Many schools have provided a muchneeded Parental Dashboard on their websites which is an excellent way of communicating with the parent community. WhatsApp groups and bulk SMS systems are equally important and effective.

This is the era of digital marketing and all schools must make use of this cost-effective and powerful tool to reach out to their clients. Facebook and Instagram are excellent platforms to highlight the achievements of the school and its alumni. These technologies make you reach the masses with ease. Subscribing to online admission portals and school search portals is another way of making the school visible. The presence of these online tools in the market is a powerful evidence that schools need to market themselves to stay ahead of the competition. A number of agencies organize School Fairs across the nation and beyond which provide the schools with a good platform to set up their stalls and interact with prospective parents and also an opportunity to showcase your school in those areas where you do not have a client-base. Having a virtual reality campus tour embedded to the website is an added advantage and many schools have already done so. The key aspect here is to understand that the education sector in India is as competitive as any other sector and it is only going to get tougher for the schools to admit the required number of students each year unless they start to market themselves and make themselves visible to the clients. A separate budget needs to be allocated for marketing and the schools must experiment with various ways of marketing in order to identify the right tools. As long as there is competition, marketing is a necessity. After all, if you don’t tell, you won’t sell!

May 2019

FEATURE

COMMON BRAnDING MISTAKES & HOW TO

AVOID THEM It is important to be careful while branding your school as even minor discrepancies can cause more harm than good, writes PARVATHY JAYAKRISHNAN

May 2019

From a business point of view, branding in the marketplace is very similar to branding on the ranch. A branding program should be designed to differentiate your product [school] from all the other cattle [schools] on the range; Even if all the other cattle on the range look pretty much alike.â&#x20AC;? Al and Laura Reis, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

here are always popular names of schools that crop up in your search in any city. They could be popular because of their sporting achievements, academic excellence or distinction in infrastructure and facilities. But merely being good at something will not help your school attain popularity or reach out to the target audience. That depends on how well the school communicates its values and achievements to the outside world. This is very important especially for the migrating population who would be on the lookout for good schools for their children each time they move to a new city.

Branding and the trust that a brand provides is a critical deciding factor while choosing a school. Well, it is not just true for schools, it’s true for anything in the market. If you can afford it, won’t you blindly choose an iPhone over any other brand of mobile phone? You trust that an iPhone will deliver the best features and services and you really don’t want maintenance issues to crop up.

Parents have a longer commitment with their child’s school which is why they want the best for them. So schools should not be afraid to show off on social media what they do. Branding is not merely having a logo and a tagline. It is about what the school stands for. However, it is important to be very careful while branding your school as even minor discrepancies can cause more harm than good. Here are some common mistakes that need to be avoided while branding your school: 1

Not being different: When there are so many schools, you need to explain and show how you are different from the rest. Copying other schools will only dilute your brand quality. You need to be positively different from others to get noticed by parents. The language used on the school’s website and the content posted give a true idea about the school and it

when necessary and use the latest technology to update the look and feel of your website. However, do not reinvent your brand too often either. Constant reinvention is also a sign that the school is not sure of itself or the services they want to provide.

needs to be done with utmost care. Complex logo design from amateurs: The logo should be easily identifiable and understandable. Sometimes to reduce the cost, schools give the job of logo design to an amateur “wanna-be” designer and this can prove fatal to the brand. Great brands have familiar logos that can be easily identified. Similarly, a school’s logo should be easy and effective. Not living up to the brand’s promise: This is one of the worst mistakes that you can make while creating a brand. If you promise that your school will provide a service and if it cannot, it will be seen as a betrayal of trust by parents. You need to post content which is consistent with the brand’s voice and message. Inconsistency in this aspect will be noticed fast and it can harm the image the school has made. Not keeping in mind the target audience: For schools, the target audience is parents and students. When creating your brand, you need to show how your school will be a good choice for students and parents alike. Specifically, if your school has good infrastructure, you need to also show that your school is safe. Parents may be skeptical to send their child to a school with great infrastructure if safety is not prioritised. Same way, a school that showcases academic excellence should also show how their teaching methods are unique or how it is beneficial for the child.

Not being consistent: Often brands fail to use the same logos, colours and themes. This is a huge mistake that should be avoided at all costs. Schools need to create a brand guideline and stick to it so that the trust is maintained.

Ignoring your brand’s aging signs: Even the most popular brand ages and they need to be rebranded or improved from time to time. You can be consistent with the brand’s values and still stay relevant with few updates. You can improve the look and feel of your website and logo

7 Not using interesting elements for your brand: You need to give compelling and high quality images and content to interest a parent visiting your website. A boring website with dull colours will not be attractive. However, using too much colour will also render the site trivial, so be careful to balance it out. 8

Using poor photography and videography: Photos can make or break a brochure or website. Photos should express the life of your school through images of your students, faculty and staff in action. High quality videos also make a difference in viewing experience which in turn influences the visitors to your website or social media handle.

Having multiple people handle the branding: All branding activity should be done from school by a person or a group of assigned people. Continuously changing people in the group or having someone work on it offline can affect the quality of work and end up in inconsistency.

A good school can only reap the benefits of their efforts with proper branding. Hard work and good branding go hand in hand. The hard work that a school puts in needs to be shown to the public through social media handles like YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter. Schools should update them regularly and encourage parents to keep themselves updated about the activities of the school. Schools can take feedback of their parents and students to constantly improve the experience. Times are gone where the efforts of a school were merely communicated through word of mouth. Schools need to stay updated to keep with with the competition. May the best branded school win!

May 2019

EXPERTSPEAK

A SCHOOL’S BRAND IS LIKE A CALLING CARD Reekrit Serai writeback@scoonews.com

hink about the time when you go out shopping. Do you just randomly pick up items from the shelf and throw them into your shopping cart? Well, no. Apart from checking the prices, we check the quality of the product, the reviews about the product, the trustworthiness of the company, etc and then make up our minds whether to actually buy. To think of it, the entire process is quite time consuming, involving hours of research, and honestly, no one really has the time. What actually triggers our purchase is the brand name. We do not question a product if it belongs to a reputed brand. We trust the brand and hence, we believe it to be a good product.

The concept of ‘branding’ is far beyond just the brand name. It is the true identity of a company – who they are, what they do, their reputation, the quality of their products and various other things. According to Forbes, “The main benefit of branding tools, and reason to employ them, is to boost profits.” A whopping 89% of B2B marketers say brand awareness is the most

important goal, followed by sales and lead generation, as per Content Marketing Institution. Therefore, it is safe to say that brand marketing is very important to all businesses, from those selling toys, breakfast cereals, developing new technologies, to corporate companies and educational institutions. According to Circle Research, 77% of B2B marketing leaders say branding is critical to growth. As educators, we can therefore take the cue from branding and marketing campaigns of successful businesses and create a positive perception of our education institutions as well. These days, parents are less prone to follow the traditional concepts of a formal parent-teacher meeting or having a conversation over the phone. Parents these days judge a school by the efforts the school has made to create an image through a variety of digital communication means. The use of social media— Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Youtube, Instagram, LinkedIn et all—has dramatically helped in improving our relationships with parents and has provided them with real-time communication on upcoming events and vari-

May 2019

ous other issues. The branding strategy of Satluj Group of Schools through social media and other media with effective content, has really reaped positive results for us and has put the institution at the top of the ladder. As per Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to promote brand awareness. Branding and marketing, therefore, can be an effective way to put schools on the map. According to Pam Moore, CEO and founder of Marketing Nutz, on an average 5 to 7 brand impressions are necessary before anyone even remembers a brand. The school’s brand is like a calling card. It is how the school is identified and remembered. A research by Harvard Business Review found that, 64% of consumers cite shared values as the primary reason they have a relationship with a brand. When someone sees your school picture or the logo or the school colours, it evokes a certain emotion in them. It can be of admiration, indifference or anything else depending on the reputation of the school and how well it has been marketed. With so many stellar institutions out there, the school’s

Reekrit Serai is Director & Dean, Satluj Group of Schools, Haryana & Punjab

brand is the only chance to prove its exclusivity. So, as educators, we need to ask ourselves how we want to be perceived and then translate that into the school branding. When it comes to communicating and connecting with customers, in this case, prospective parents, branding and marketing plays a very significant role in whether they select a particular institution for their child They refer to the school’s achievements, top results, infrastructure, etc. to gauge the quality of the school. All this will make a difference only if the school has been perceived uniquely and positively in all the above grounds. This is something that only good marketing and branding can help with. Branding has become necessary for schools just because of its sheer number. A decade or so ago, parents had to select from only a handful of schools. Hence, selection was easy. Now, with an increase in income, parents are willing to spend more on the education of their child. As a result, more educational institutions are cropping up. India has somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million schools. With each school having their own loyal fans and them in turn posting numerous reviews and

comments, parents are getting more confused as ever. The best way to get noticed is to communicate your uniqueness to the parents. According to an EY-FICCI report on the education sector in India, the K-12 school system in India is one of the largest in the world with more than 1.5 million schools and 250 million+ students enrolled. India’s education market is worth $133 billion with $ 56 billion in private spend, out of which $ 40 billion is in K-12 Education, as per Kaizen Education (KE), 2014. The private spending in the K-12 sector is growing at a CAGR of 12%. It is therefore safe to say that, as the industry is growing by leaps and bounds, the education sector is becoming more competitive market day by day. The brand helps in creating the first impression of the school. It gives it a sense of consistency that prospective parents look for. It builds trust. According to research by Lucidpress, the average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 23%. Good branding can therefore, be integral in marketing a school. Apart from the huge exposure and the increased admission rate, the branding helps to develop the

uniqueness of the school. It can be the school’s legacy, infrastructure, curriculum, faculty or academic prowess. Building the school’s brand around these features will help sell the school to parents looking for these special attributes. At the end of the day, a brand is important because it is an identifiable characteristic of the school, the way that everyone recognizes the school. It helps cement relationships with parents who know of the school, as they tend to trust more established brands. The brand helps to differentiate it from other schools. It helps to increase the school's exposure as parents and pupils are able to assign a particular image and colour scheme to the institution. According to IBEF (India Brand Equity Foundation), 2016-2025 is being defined as the period of educational boom in India. With the increasing urban population, the demand for good school is only set to grow. To ensure a stable expansion, strategic brand-building shall be key to the success of any school.

- With inputs from Ms. Sayoni Bhattarcharjee, Satluj Innovation Team

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE

Ed Branding and Marketing Mantras UNLEASHED! Team ScooNews reports on the recent MAD Conclave, Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first conclave on marketing and communications for the education sector

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE here was method with the allimportant element of ‘madness’, at the MAD Conclave, India’s first conclave on marketing and communications for the education sector. Conceptualised as ‘Market ed like a pro’, the conclave on April 13 at Taj Land’s End Bandra, lived up to its promise of curating learnings on the applicability of branding strategies, effective use of marketing tools and the power of influential media.

A full house, comprising CXOs, directors, principals, educators, marketing heads, brand strategists and others from the education segment with a vision to take their brand forward, the day unfolded with thoughtprovoking dialogues by eminent educators who have woven marketing and branding in their growth strategy, marketing gurus who answered questions pertaining to the need for targeted marketing and focused branding in the education indutry and shared their success mantras, and industry experts who shared their tips on effective use of social media. Setting the ball rolling was ScooNews CEO Ravi Santlani. After a cheery ‘How’s the josh?’, he presented a range of simple ideas which have powerful messages, which a school could leverage to achieve optimum marketing. “Money can’t buy you viral campaigns. Using Google adwords, paid campaigns on Facebook, full page print ads in newspapers is something everyone can do,” he pointed out, adding, “What is more important is how do you do branding not looking at it or thinking about it, but by doing something amazing—and branding follows later.” His suggestions to school owners includ ed activating the institution’s social media via genuine campaigns and reporting about the same. “We need news that has the power to inspire people out there to try and replicate the good stuff that is done,” Santlani maintained, suggesting Walls of Kindness on certain designated walls of the schools where the needy can help themselves to objects donated by the students and staff, painting initiatives on the walls of slums, and adopting parks and heritage spots that schools can get involved in to engage students and win eyeballs in the larger community. “People will tend to click pictures, share it on social media, and hence a viral campaign will be born. Look at the social impact without focussing on marketing, done with a sense of giving back to society. The emotional marketing which comes

Ravi Santlani

along with this is something that cannot be bought with any kind of money,” he declared citing campaigns like Mirinda and Horlicks which garnered hundreds of millions of views. An inspiring and proactive start to the day, for sure! The momentum only increased with the next speaker, Nishi Misra, Principal, Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya, who started off conveying warm greetings from the school that was founded by the late Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, with a vision of sending out female leaders, into newly independent India. “And a leader is simply nothing if not of service,” pointed out Misra as she went on to share more about the school’s unique Project Sankalp, through a video, ‘Why should I whisper?’ which was previewed at the MAD Conclave. “The girls decided to work on a hygiene product which was specific to women and that was a sanitary napkin,” she shared, about the production unit manufacturing low cost sanitary napkins which are distributed to the women of the village, which was set up by SKV. “The project included educat-

May 2019

ing the women, who previously used cloth or other unhygienic alternatives. Despite the initial resistance we remained undaunted and continued to supply the napkins for a whole year.” At the end of it, it became clear that the school had achieved a lot but the need was felt to go further and add

Nishi Misra

even more value to it. “Could we make this into a livelihood machine? Throwing the problem to the students of the Commerce department, the students made an end to end business plan starting from starting an SHE, making a charter, finding out markets and we put this into implementation at the vil-

lage level.” The chosen village now possesses sanitary napkin producing machines, with SKV buying the sanitary napkins from the village women and distributing them free of cost to the women of another village. “This has really increased the confidence levels, aspirations of the women. If a

mindset is changed it is half the battle won. The impact is so meaningful it has influenced generations to come,” stated Misra. SKV has now become conscious of getting something in return which they hadn’t bargained for— barrels of

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE Ammara Habib, Head of Business, Mad About Ed, shed more light on what is Mad About Ed and how it came to be. “It is India’s first and only creative agency that only caters to the ed sector,” she explained, adding, “As per my experience with my previous project, where I interacted with over 350 schools, I found out that schools were very keen on gaining marketing insights. When it comes to curriculum, pedagogy, getting sky high standards, our schools have got it all. However, when it comes to creative design that could depict the brand and also match the requirement of a pay per click, there was a gap and a slight struggle.” She reached out to Ravi Santlani, looking to collaborate and help schools regularly use marketing principles in all communications and branding efforts. “Turned out Ravi too was sitting on those ideas and was raring to execute them. Long story short, several weeks later we brought to the education domain Mad About Ed, India’s first creative agency which now officially offers branding, marketing, design, communication, PR and event services all under one roof.”She explained that what makes Mad About Ed different and exclusive is that the team has either dedicatedly worked for the education sector, or has been associated with it. “One thing we have in common: we are all mad about education and would love to create wonderful legacy brands.” Habib added, “The schools and educators present here are extremely good at what they do from imparting learning, to inspiring careers they have relentlessly worked hard to take Indian education forward. The MAD team is here to help the educators tells these stories to the world. In short, we are to take care of your branding, marketing, design and communication needs. Growing your brand and leaving a legacy behind. The MAD Conclave is an attempt to share the insights and learning of what marketing and branding can bring to your brand.” Ammara Habib

publicity. Sending sanitary napkins to flood-hit Kashmir and earthquake-hit Nepal, flood-ridden Kerala, the movement caught on and spread. “This is Gandhi’s modern charkha—when you are free, make a napkin. There were awards, the Sankalp unit has become a

major landmark in the school, other schools which have followed. Project Sankalp—delivering dignity from darkness to light,” smiled Misra, winning a resounding applause from her captivated listeners.

May 2019

Shedding more light on the theme, ‘Marketing is not about an ad or a campaign; it is about strategy’, Applyifi Founder Prajakt Raut pointed out, “Advertising and marketing is an art of managing perceptions of your stakeholders about your brand. Irrespective of whether an organisation promotes its brand or not, people think about it

Prajakt Raut

in a certain way and in the manner they know about it. The only thing an organisation can do is to take initiatives or interventions that can influence the thinking or perception of people about the brand.” Ritesh Daga, Business Development Consultant, Google, spoke on ‘Why you can't afford to ignore Google Ads’. He focused on the extensions of marketing strategies from a digital standpoint. Using Google’s data and knowledge about the education industry, he believes educators can “reach out to the right audience.” While focusing on the statistics, Daga talked about the digital ecosystem in India, the education vertical and using Google ads. “The number of internet users will grow from 438+ million to 650 million in the next few years. It means half of India will be online and the majority will be from rural areas.” Thus, breaking the myth of digital belonging to the

metros. When asked what has catalysed this change, the audience spoke in perfect sync “Jio!” “Absolutely!” he concurred, “Today, we have affordable smartphones and data prices with accessibility to the internet.” On being surrounded by digitalisation, he said, “There’s a research that says, on an average an Indian uses a smartphone 150 times every day. As an advertiser, you should be drooling at this because you have 150 micromovements. The primary points of research in the education sphere are word-ofmouth and online. There are 130 billion education-related searches a year; highest at the beginning of the academic year.” The three key pointers he asked educators to keep in mind included: be where your audience are, online is heavily influencing offline, and multiscreen and single screen have to work

Ritesh Daga

together for better communication. He recommended schools to reach out to the right audience using the Google ecosystem, including Google search, Google Display Network including ads and banners, and YouTube, as the properties interact, providing powerful insights into consumer behaviour and intent. “If a picture speaks a thousand words then videos speak a million words,” he added. However, he believes it is a must to have a lead form of admission enquiry in place linked to your advertisement. Concluding his talk, Daga advised, “Find the right user at the right time with the right message” as he urged schools to focus on keyword targeting, affinity segments, placement, topics, remarketing, demographics, geography and targeting by ‘content’ or ‘audience.’

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE

Anil Sharma

Anil Sharma, Founder, Newton Schools, started off drawing the audience’s attention to the Tic Tac mints boxes on the table. There were just a few red boxes among the many whites and greens. Pointing out that marketing is about differentiating, he declared, “If you can just do this, you have sorted out your marketing. On highways, billboards abound with advertisements of schools, but unless you become that red Tic Tac, it’s not going to work. The outdoor medium is no longer viable as everyone has got onto it. Newspapers have become unviable as they have pages of ads.” Sharma maintained that stakeholder engagement in school marketing is the way forward, as it is a long term, strategic way to engage people, which every school can do. A good stakeholder engagement programme, customised for every school, followed by regular auditing to ensure it is well implemented, is the key to a school’s

Gopalkrishna Vishwanath

success, he shared. “This changes the way people see the school, it improves the profile of the school and it automatically results in admissions which is what marketing is all about.” Pointing out that a school is nothing but a service, from the marketing point of view, he added, “In today’s changed world, people expect a certain level of service from a school, just the way they expect the same from the other products and things that they engage with.” Engaging with all levels of stakeholders, helps improve the profile of the school and it becomes a great institution, an acknowledged leader. “It takes time, but it’s what schools need to aim for as opposed to just putting up another billboard before admissions,” he concluded. In the presentation titled ‘Creating consumers from content-the Quora way’, Gopalkrishna Vishwanath, Top Quora writer, shared insights

May 2019

into his post-retirement hobby which has become a formidable passion today. He discussed intelligent content strategy to build a strong educational brand. Vishwanath’s writings had 1.5 million views last month alone. It used to be 3.6 million before but he says that the number has come down because of sheer competition. Quora, launched in 2010, had 190 million visits in 2017 and today it is 300 million and increasing. An English-only language platform it has now been introduced in a number of languages including French, German, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Marathi, which enables it to reach out to a much larger audience. “Quora is a platform to ask questions about anything under the sun,” shared Vishwanath. “You can choose categories that interest you. While answering questions, you can use audio clips, diagrams, link websites to make it eminently readable. Quora has good quali-

played on the screen. The well clued-in listeners responded, “They have become generic words.” Impressed, she continued, “Yes, they are all launched as individual products; we refer to all antiseptics as Dettol today,” she pointed out, moving to the story of Smartclass. “Our product had a similar story. I’ve been proudly associated with transforming regular classrooms into digital classrooms,” she said, describing the journey of Smartclass from a concept to becoming a brand that everyone wanted to be associated with. She believes in building brands or products that become generic, defining a category, and becoming game changers, “Smartclass has become synonymous with digital education.”

Divya Lal

ty control. You cannot enter Quora with a fake name. They also have a BNBR policy- Be Nice Be Respectful. Quora also allows the users to control the quality of content posted. Users can upvote or downvote an answer. They detect plagiarism and do not allow it.” He discussed how students can use Quora to their advantage by asking questions on the platform, which can be answered by teachers from all over the world. “Teachers can use Quora to find like-minded people and exchange views with them. You can interact offline with them as well. You can even ask or answer a question anonymously,” he averred. ‘From Smartclass to Digital Education - Everything You Need To Know’ – this interactive session saw Divya Lal, Managing Director, Ebix Smartclass Educational Services, tee off by asking the audience the common factor of several products dis-

Unlike many products, the story of Smartclass has been the strongest for 17 years, as “the first Smartclass was established in 2002.” Lal explained the success story, “Mostly, innovations are based on disruption but smart classes were never a disruption as it never took away anything from an educator, it simply augmented the game by saving time.” She firmly believes that “the biggest element that’s behind the success of a good product lies in asking whether you are really serving a need. It stands true for education institutions as well.” Lal believes Indian schools needed smartclasses for three reasons namely, lack of time, diversity of learners with whom visuals work best and finally, a curriculum with abstract concepts takes a long time to be explained through a blackboard and textbook. “Value proposition continues to live and evolve from schools to home, and from teacher training to parent sessions. We live in a country that’s diverse in its cultures, economic disparity and its ability to have access to the same quality of resources, making technology the real equaliser. Today, through our iconic brand every child has access to high quality learning material and we’re breaking the boundaries of enabling with an equal opportunity to each child,” Lal added.

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE

Meeta Sengupta

May 2019

Meeta Sengupta, Founder, Education for Strategy, held forth on ‘Building Presence and Influence for Education’. Tracing her journey from investment banking to education, Meeta revealed how, being a teacher who believes in transforming students’ lives, she found a useful and easy social media platform - Twitter! “Twitter is not just easy, it also requires low bandwidth. Thus, I can always share what I’ve learned in such conference through my tweet; making it an effective peer learning network.” Sengupta also shared her experience with her first Twitter experience with the #NQT, an acronym for Newly Qualified Teachers, a safe space wherein educators were “building communities of caring practice.” This motivated her to start the online chat and hashtag #EduIn in 2013. #EduIn started as an initiative to reach out to many teachers at once and know their opinion on issues that matter. She believes, “The advantage of using Twitter is that you choose your own frequency or how you engage with the medium depends entirely on you. We started with discussions on big issues that impact education, once a month.” The chat was open for active contributors as well as those who wanted to “join in and listen.” Despite being warned about trolls, she was determined to “engage people who were on the ground such as educators, parents and stakeholders.” She believes such discussions help people to have a realistic view of their atmospherics and “gather information on ground about policies that were being implemented.” In order to shift the public view and expectation from the myths of edtech, Sengupta brought three to five experts on board every 18 months to discuss its advantages and disadvantages. Concluding her session, Sengupta said,

“Thanks to Twitter, we now know of each other’s work. When I walk into a meeting, I know three people from Twitter mostly who are peers, seniors or researchers across the globe. Thus, I invite you to join in the conversation and let’s see what we can build together by connecting with each other, and sharing resources and experiences we have.” A most lively session with Pratish Nair, Founder and Managing Director, the Prahlad Kakar School of Branding and Entrepreneurship followed, wherein Nair started off displaying how well the participants had branded themselves. He teed off, asking one participant the name of the person sitting next to him. Clueless! “You have been sitting in this ballroom since the past two hours, and haven’t even looked at the person next to you— it’s like the Mumbai local,” he joked, even as he encouraged, “Stand up, shake hands with the people around you and learn their names!” As the participants did so, he beamed, “There’s a warmth in this room! This is what I did 15 years of my life. I’m a corporate coach and I believe every person is a brand in themselves. There are three kinds of brands in this room—the quiet kind, interested in getting maximum information before going back home. The second is the dangerous one—‘Yeah, start, let me see what you can do’ type. The third brand is what you just did— ‘Hello, my name is Pratish Nair, let’s collaborate and be a better brand’. I believe today to make any difference we need to collaborate. Those times are gone when everyone had Parle G— there are more options today.”

Pratish Nair

Sharing the journey of the PKSBE, he revealed, “‘I have survived my whole life collaborating. Today, in our third year, PKSBE has had nearly 90 students who have graduated from us, students making a mark in films. All this happened because of collaboration and persistence. Prahlad Kakar, brand guru, believes, ‘Brand is not a body, shape, size or colour. It is a soul.’ Every person in our company reflects our brand. Brands don’t give excuses— they evolve, they change, not like Nokia or Kodak.” Next he randomly chose a woman participant to select ‘the most good looking man in the room’ to dance along with, “because brands have a choice”! “When brands collaborate they dance with each other

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE and not alone. We don’t just teach entrepreneurship and ad-filmmaking; we are going to teach something more important… Most of us are a victim of fear. From the very beginning of our life, we have been fed, in a silver spoon, fear.” Even as he joined the two participants in a happy, fearless jig, he moved on to the next point of his agenda, encouraging participants to draw an elephant holding an Alphonso mango in its trunk, and share their ‘art’ with him. The results were hilarious but even among the peals of laughter, he pointed out, “A true brand is one that knows to laugh at itself when it makes mistakes. Use the drawing as your ‘Aukaat card’, for a reality check. The day you say you are done, you are indeed over and done with. Education is basically a ripple effect. You do something nice, I copy it. I do something nice, and you copy it. Eventually we need people who can think and act at the appropriate time.” Advika Nair, India’s youngest TED speaker and Nair’s daughter, had her listeners smiling as she came up on the dais to share a little anecdote that proved “the possibility that kids are much more creative than adults.” We cannot dispute that! Arunabh Singh - Director, Nehru World School, Ghaziabad discussed the education sector's branding, marketing and communication challenges in a session titled Communications 101: Bloopers to Blockbusters. “We, humans are able to communicate in abstract thought, we can also communicate a fictitious thought and we can even communicate an absolute fantasy. While we communicate we bring order and we bring more and more people to believe in us. I believe that every school is actually trying to get people to believe a story. We are trying to get people to agree on a narrative of education. If you're able to do that, you’ve made an inroad into the population that you’re trying to target,” Singh explained. Communicating “the story” is a challenge that most schools face. He opened the session to the audience and collected valid queries that they had and then invited professionals in the field to answer them. Each teacher may have small success stories in their classroom but how can you get these stories known to more people? The consensus was that the best way to do it is through social media. The school’s YouTube channel should showcase the art, theatre and plays that are done in school as short

Arunabh Singh

videos. Schools can also create visuals of teachers doing wonderful work. It is also important to look at schools who are updating their social media handles regularly and in a right way. The query on how to promote a new extension of a legacy school with a limited budget, found the following response: You need to build upon the brand equity. Try and correlate the present with the past and try and build that bridge. How important are alumni networks? Very! It was agreed that alumni networks for legacy schools run worldwide. They are the single biggest reaffirmation that the school is doing it right. Current and past parents are also equally important brand ambassadors. Arunabh ended the session with something to think about… “Often schools don't train their teachers thinking ‘What if we train the teacher and he/she doesn’t stay’. But imagine the scenario where we don’t train the teacher and that person stays!”

May 2019

Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder, EuroKids International Limited, shed light on ‘Scripting a Successful Marketing Story’, narrating the account of the group's growth from 1 to 1000 schools and how they achieved it.

Eurokids believes in “Child First” philosophy, which has been their motto since in 2001 up until now. “It is important to find your brand promise and then live it and communicate it,” he emphasised.

EuroKids preschools was started in 200. Currently, EuroKids is a network of 1064 preschools in around 380 towns and cities. In 2009, they ventured into K-12 schools and today it is a network of 11 schools in 6 cities. In 2017, they acquired Kangaroo Kids education Ltd and today there are 106 Kangaroo Kids centres. They also have Billabong High international schools which is a network of 24 schools.

“In schools there is a customer and a consumer. The customer (parent) pays for the product and the consumer (student) enjoys the benefits of the service. In our segment, it is important to know that the customer and the consumer are different. In education, even if the consumer is given a superlative experience, it doesn't translate into great equity unless the customer is also aware of it,” Rajan underlined.

Prajodh explained that an institution by itself is a product and that the product is the hero. So maximum time must be spent on perfecting the product. He added that it’s not just enough that you have a good product, you need to package and promote it well.

It’s also important to stay relevant, he pointed out. “EuroKids has changed the curriculum seven times since 2001 to stay up to date. Brands go through the sameness syndrome. Most schools talk about the acres of land they are on, the infrastructure, the labs they

Prajodh Rajan

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE own etc, but what does your brand really stand for? We need to communicate that as well,” he explained. He concluded that it is important to focus on finding solutions rather than focussing on the product. While talking about price, think about the value proposition brought to the table and when talking about promotion, think of education. It was then time for a real shot of ‘magic’, via Matthew Spacie Founder, Magic Bus, who presented an entrancing session on ‘From Childhood to Livelihood’. Spacie shared how he came to India 23 years

ago. In the course of time, he wanted to help young people, do something different to help them come out of poverty. He associated himself with some charities but they did not engage him much. His passion for rugby led him to form a rugby team. He chose 20 young boys who lived on the streets and he coached them to play the sport, without thinking how much it would change their life. Twenty years later, 10 boys still work for Magic Bus and are in very high positions. He trained the boys at the city’s posh Bombay Gymkhana four nights a week. On weekends, he would rent a bus and drive to a slum in Colaba and they would pick up 50 young kids and take them for a magical weekend away in the mountains of Lonavala or Alibaug. Those boys were made the mentors of these 50 young children. Today, they have 10,000 young people who come from the same environment that deliver the Magic Bus programme. (50 percent boys and 50 percent girls) This is a massive network that delivers the programme across the country!

Matthew Spacie

Magic Bus did considerable work on identifying nutrition, health and all the things that were required for children to get out of poverty. In India, only 6 percent of all Indians have played any sport. So, people would not understand even that aspect of what Magic

May 2019

Bus was doing. Spacie explained that he thought getting the youngsters jobs was the solution to eliminating poverty. However, within three months of getting jobs they left the job or ran away or came back asking if he could help them get another job. “This was a realisation that we cannot try and fix things quickly. When a 12-year-old joins Magic Bus, he/she is on a seven-year committed journey. Magic Bus is using sport as a medium to transform the lives of these children. Once, the child is 15, Magic Bus finds out where their interest lies and connects them to the industry they wish to work for. Magic Bus ensures that they will place the child in a job that suits them and equips them with the basic skills needed to perform the work.”Magic Bus hopes to reach out to 1.3 million children in the next three years! Up next was Vaibhav Chhabra Founder, Maker’s Asylum. He explained how Maker’s Asylum strives to foster design thinking, creativity, problem solving and collaboration skills in adults and children alike. Their Mumbai space has a fully functional metal lab, a wood shop, laser cutting lab, an electronics and robotics lab. They have a space in New Delhi as well and another space in Jaipur that is dedicated to textiles and empowering women artisans and to bring together students from India and France to work on some exciting programmes with artisans in the city. Maker’s Asylum has two converted rickshaws that travel around to teach students. One has a number of tools in

ing of Eyenetra office, where Chhabra was working, fell down destroying everything. “That's when the concept of Maker’s Asylum emerged and a lot of people wanted to learn and get access to tools to make things. We started working with kids in the last one and a half years. We create programmes for kids that let them work with things that are part of graduate school,” he shared. First year, they go through the “explorer” stage where they get access to all the tools and learn how to use them. Then they learn to solve problems and in the last stage, they co-create for the world and work on the United Nations Sustainability goals. Admirable and how! Equally engaging was the handson project that Chhabra and his team assigned to the groups of educators in the ballroom, in the quest for ‘new heights’!

Vaibhav Chhabra

it including a 3D printer and a laser cutter and it goes around in schools teaching children about robotics. The second vehicle, made in collaboration with Hindustan Unilever, is a plastic recycling lab. It goes to school and teaches students about recycling plastic.

Over 10,000 people have been trained at Maker’s Asylum, over 500 projects have come out of it, over 20 startups have come out of it and all this organically. Maker’s Asylum is a self-sustaining social enterprise. Their story started when the ceil-

A panel discussion followed, ‘BrandStand: What does your brand’s identity stand on?’, comprising Manit Jain, Co-Founder, The Heritage Schools (Chair); Amrita Burman, Deputy Director, Sunbeam Group of Schools; Lt. Gen. Kulkarni, Director, Mayo College; Roshan Gandhi, Director of Strategy, City Montessori School; Ashish Gulati, Vice Chairman, Blue Bell

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE

Group of Schools; Reekrit Serai, Director & Dean, Satluj Group of Schools. Advocating the use of the word “advocacy rather than marketing in the context of education”, Manit Jain introduced the diverse group of wellestablished schools. He said, “Every school has a unique and compelling story. If we want to find the genius in every child, it’s our primary responsibility to find the genius of our institution.” Before opening the panel discussion, he urged the audience to reflect

on what their institution as a brand stands for. Amrita Burman shared, “The Sunbeam Group of Schools have always lived with this two-tier town syndrome coming from Varanasi.” On turning their disadvantage into their advantage, she said, “We associated ourselves with Varanasi, the oldest living city in the world and also the seat of learning. We branded ourselves with two popular taglines that have given us a place under the sun namely ‘ancient city, modern education’ and ‘creating

May 2019

temples of learning’ in the city of temples. Thus, we associated with the identity of the city itself, bringing traditional along with the modernity.” Lt. Gen. Kulkarni talked about building Mayo College as a national and international brand. “The other challenge for us is that sometimes your success can be the cause of potential failure because you’re a strong and historical brand, you’re associated with history,” he added. He believes in changing the institution and its branding strategies according to the chang-

ing times. “It is the age of the disruptor, the digital age. A school’s job is to provide tools to the child so that he’s able to adapt to new curriculum, career and culture. At Mayo, we believe in leadership, adaptability, strong character and providing kids global boots with Indian roots.” he added. Reekrit Serai spoke about the struggles through which Pritam Singh Serai built the school. On providing a gateway to students of smaller towns with varied challenge, he said “we are not premium schools neither are we a

budget school, we’re somewhere in the middle. We want to counsel these children and give them the right opportunities at the national level to grow. As a brand, we want our kids to get placed in colleges they could not dream of.” Tracing the journey of the Blue Bell Group of Schools, Ashish Gulati told the story of four women and educators who moved to Gurgaon to find meaning in their life through teaching. “The marketing function and the operations function are two sides of the same coin because service is essential-

ly delivered by the operations team and the marketing is built into the experience of the service. We had a strong DNA retention where leadership was internally nurtured, promises were consistently delivered with a strong culture. Our brand stands for the culture and soul of the school.” Delighted at celebrating their diamond jubilee this year, Roshan Gandhi said “Sixty years ago in the first lesson, the students wrote two words in Hindi on their paper, which became the motto and greeting

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE

May 2019

MAD CONCLAVE of the school; those words were ‘Jai Jagat’.” Amidst the post-independence environ with people greeting ‘Jai Hind’, Gandhi’s grandparents, the founders of CMS, wanted to deliberately contrast that because “they wanted their students to have a global mindset and global outreach with a belief that the world is one country and humanity is one.” “Our goal has been to provide quality education with international opportunities and without charging high fee or restrictions in the admissions process.” he added. Ingrained in the school’s philosophy and culture, it was a step forwards towards raising children who worked for world peace and unity. Amrita Burman

Lt. Gen. Kulkarni

Further, Manit Jain asked the panel to give a piece of advice on building strong positioning: “Believe in your story and it’s going to sell,” said Amrita Burman. “Conviction and consistency. We believe in - once a Mayoite, always a Mayoite,” said Lt. Gen. Kulkarni. “Don’t teach your kids what to learn but teach them how to learn,” said Reekrit Serai. “Don’t overpromise, deliver value and don’t oversell, give relevant information,” said Ashish Gulati.

Manit Jain

Reekrit Serai

Quoting the famous management guru Peter Drucker, Roshan Gandhi said, “‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’ meaning the most important part of any business strategy particularly in the school sector is focusing relentlessly on culture; when you focus on that, everything else follows.” Concluding the power packed and insightful panel discussion, Manit Jain added, “Don’t venture into symbolism until you understand what it is that you’re creating symbols for. Be true to your vision and values. More than market analysis, go with your conviction and gut and build that advocacy internally first.” The informative session was followed by the unveiling of the April issue of ScooNews titled ‘Teaching Entrepreneurship in Schools: Creating the Tycoons of Tomorrow’ by the panel members who were joined by Arunabh Singh, Nishi Mishra, Prajodh Rajan and Ravi Santlani on stage.

Ashish Gulati

Roshan Gandhi

May 2019

As the MAD conclave drew to a close, it was with a sense of fulfilment at having witnessed a symphony of ideas and new learnings.

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MADAWARDS

SALUTING BRILLIANCE! The first ever MAD Awards lived up to its vision of honouring the wildly creative, incredibly proactive and madly successful players in education The energising, eclectic MAD Conclave held in association with ScooNews at the Taj Land’s End, Bandra, brought together many of education’s brightest sparks from across the country. Some among them were worthy winners of the MAD awards, instituted to acknowledge and honour brilliance…

THE BRAND POLE VAULT AWARD Recipient : Lina Ashar Recognition: For being a true powerhouse! As the first woman in India to singlehandedly start a chain of schools and for being the most sought-after brand in the education sector.

May 2019

THE COLLABORATION POWERHOUSE AWARD Recipient : Arunabh Singh Recognition: For his fantastic achievement in successfully organising and spearheading the Bett Delegation to UK. He has, with great finesse, partnered with Learnit, collaborated with FICCI Arise and curated a delegation of 80+ educators. His efforts helped unite the education community in spectacular projects. This award is a celebration of his leadership which has benefited numerous educators across India.

THE DARE TO CARE AWARD Recipient : Nishi Misra Recognition: For inspiring the Sankalp Project the girls of Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya have undertaken, showing extraordinary concern towards the cause of women hygiene. The Sankalp project galvanised not only SKV and all the students but also all the villages it touched to stand up for better health and hygiene of women. For being a daring entrepreneur, driving the Sankalp project which not only gave back to society, but also achieved massive marketing success.

THE CHANGE AGENT AWARD Recipient : Gen. Surendra Kulkarni Recognition: For the positive and technology related changes he has ushered in Mayo College during his tenure. For welcoming change with open arms and bringing in a breath of fresh air with his open outlook towards implementing 21st century technology and thinking into legacy schools when going by the book is the norm.

May 2019

MADAWARDS

THE DISRUPTIVE FORCE AWARD Recipient : Heritage Xperiential Learning Recognition: For dominating the K-12 space in the Gurugram region with Heritage's unique philosophy of experiential learning, and overhauling the essence of new age education. For having successfully implemented experiential learning to the point where it literally defines the school and enhances the brand.

THE BEST FOOT FORWARD AWARD Recipient : FICCI Arise Recognition: For tirelessly advocating the problems faced by private schools. The success achieved in this regard has truly helped bridge the gap between private schools and government in the education sector, thus improving the quality of education.

THE EDTECH TRENDSETTER AWARD Recipient : Divya Lal Recognition: For her relentless determination in spreading the power of technology in education across schools in India.

May 2019

THE GRAND MAD AWARD Recipient : Matthew Spacie Recognition: For the decades of relentless work Magic Bus has conducted in educating and empowering underprivileged children across India, under his able leadership.

THE MAD ENERGY AWARD Recipient : Dr Swati Popat Vats Recognition: For the fierce energy she has brought in the space of Early Childhood Education and for her determination in building a one-stop Early Childhood Association in India. For being not only a national influencer but a global powerhouse.

THE BRAND MASTER AWARD Recipient : EuroKids International Recognition: For harnessing the power of marketing and communications to build the brand. Founded in 2001 starting with one school to now over a 1000 in over 350 cities, the success has been astronomical.

THE ED TWITTERATI AWARD Recipient : Meeta Sengupta Recognition: For harnessing the power of Twitter to deliver key messages and raise important issues in the field. Started a global conversation through #EduIn in 2013 and built a stronger community of educators through Twitter.

May 2019

EVENT

THE 2019 WORLD FORUM ON EARLY CARE & EDUCATION: JOINING HANDS FOR PAINTING A BRIGHTER WORLD

PARVATHY JAYAKRISHNAN & ANUSHKA YADAV share highlights from the World Forum on Early Care and Education, Macao, 2019

e’ve been following Bonnie and Roger Neugebauer and their amazing journey through Bonnie’s Global Cafe. On January 30, 2018, they seemed thrilled to share the site for the 2019 World Forum. With hopeful and sparkling eyes, Bonnie urged participants to share their ideas to make the biennial a huge success. On the other hand, Roger shared his experience with utmost calm, “In September last year, I travelled to Macao to check it out as a potential site for World Forum. I visited child care centres with government officials and college professors. Along the way, I met Robert Alexander, principal, Macau Anglican College, who

May 2019

shared with me that when he first saw the application for the event, he had to search through the atlas to find out where Macao was. Nonetheless, we hope that the early childhood community will be warm and welcoming to the children, exuberant and eager to learn and find the neighbourhoods fascinating where there’s a mesh of Chinese and Portuguese cultures.” Who had thought that a few months later, their vision would be transformed into a memorable and fruitful event with more than 700 delegates from 70 different countries with more than 350 speakers, a plenary session each morning, along with 10 concurrent insightful sessions three times a day...

On the bright and sunny, yet pleasant day of April 8, Early Childhood professionals and advocates from around the world came together under one roof at the Sheraton Grand Macao Hotel, China. Charming men and women, in elegant attire and dazzling smile, at their best demeanour were thrilled to be a part of the World Forum on Early Care and Education to share their knowledge, learn from the best and experience a superfluence of information on Early Childhood Education. The mission of the World Forum Foundation is to promote an on-going global exchange of ideas on the delivery of quality services for young children in diverse settings. The Foundation connects early childhood professionals in over 151 countries which exhibits their expansive reach and determination to bring recognisable change for a better future and a better world. Filled with scintillating dialogue, the 2019 World Forum featured childhood professionals and advocates

from across the globe. It was interesting to witness the creative approaches taken by experts on varied subjects such as family engagement, marketing, advocacy, education, and technology; all with a common belief to impact the futures of young children and their families. Spread over four days from April 811, the programme had over over 300 presenters from 60 nations enriching the audience with information on the best educational practices in their respective countries. This conference was like no other. Apart from deep meaningful sessions on Early Childhood Education, there were performances of children, dances and much more that thrilled the audience right from Day 1. The forum was filled with new learnings and it was a great venue to connect with experts in the field and exchange ideas and visiting cards. Merely attending the forum was a good way to reaffirm your commitment to children and Early Childhood Education.

Reema Ganguly, Principal, Amarjyoti Saraswati International Pre-primary School, Gujarat shares, “As a first time attendee, the conference stimulated instructional creativity. It was powerful, life changing and I loved the practical ideas and activities we got to engage in. I can’t wait to bring what I have learned back to my school. Hope more Indian educators take part in this conference every year to spread to the world how serious we are about Early Childhood Education.” Dr Swati Popat Vats, President, Early Childhood Association, India had three sessions at the World Forum. She spoke in the Plenary session with Rhian Evans, Chief Executive Officer of NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) USA on Workforce Trends And Issues In ECE. She spoke eloquently on Stress And Trauma In The ECE Workforce in a panel session which had speakers from around the world. She also conducted a workshop on Storytelling

May 2019

EVENT

WHAT IS THE MISSION OF WORLD FORUM? The mission of the World Forum Foundation is to promote an on-going global exchange of ideas on the delivery of quality services for young children in diverse settings. The Foundation connects early childhood professionals in over 151 countries which exhibits their expansive reach and determination to bring recognisable change for a better future and a better world.

and Warli painting from India. Dr Vats explains that the World Forum has many different groups that work for Nature, Child Rights, Indigenous People and they groom Global Leaders every year to work in their countries and be an advocate for solving various issues. “From India there have only been five to seven people attending the event every year but ever since Early Childhood Association became an alliance partner with the World Forum, the number of delegates from India has been increasing. There were 20 delegates from India for the New Zealand World Forum and this year 35 in Macau. Most of them were also

speakers in the various sessions,” says Dr Vats proudly. Jan Sanderson, Canada and Ghazala Rafique, Pakistan Research spoke on the need to focus on early brain development. Nicole Biondi, South Africa, Innovation Edge and Joe Waters, United States, CAPITA’s speech on “Working Today to Ensure the World’s Children Flourish Tomorrow” was informative. There were provoking and innovative thinking sessions that offered the opportunity to become more informed about issues impacting young children in order to be better equipped to think and act in innovative ways. Claire Warden from the United

May 2019

Kingdom presented a session on the topic “Representing Nature Action Collaborative For Children Working Group.” There were also sessions on “Sustainable Development Goals” and “Human Movement: Immigration, Displacement, Refugees” which were very enlightening. Monisha Panjabi, Master Franchise Podar Jumbo Kids, Gujarat explains, “In the two days that I spent I learned a lot about the various practices in the field of ECCE across the world. But what amazes me was the bundle of knowledge shared by my fellow Indian delegates and presenters. The topics covered by people from

India were very relevant to my areas of interest and culture. It was indeed an enriching experience to be representing India at the World Forum for ECCE. I have come back with many memories and friends whom I will always cherish!” The venue also hosted the International Children’s Art Exhibit. It marked the twelfth anniversary of the World Forum International Children’s Artwork Exhibit. Attendees were encouraged to bring one or two original pieces of children’s artwork from their country to donate to the exhibit. World

Forum

also

had

“Children’s Book Exchange” programme that created an opportunity to share on a global basis. Attendees brought their favourite children’s book to keep on display for anyone to view through the week. At the end of the conference, the delegates got to take home a book based on random draw. "It was my first World Forum event. From the time I registered, I was excited to be a part of this colossal event. Educators from more than 80 countries, all under one roof, is enough to create a buzz in you. It was simply a spectacular event and it was out and out a learning experience visiting schools, meeting delegates from

across the globe, sharing ideas, cultures, educational practices and exchanging gifts with delegates. To feel the momentum of the World Forum, one has to experience it. Words cannot justify the experience. Looking forward to be a part of World Forum 2021 in Vancouver-Canada,” says a thrilled Harsha Girish Ramaiya, Founder and Director of Small Wonders. An interesting and informative tour of child care centres in Macao was organised for the delegates as part of the event. As promised by Roger, the delegates were also offered a walking tour of the cultural and his-

May 2019

EVENT

toric neighbourhoods of Macao which was deeply appreciated. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re proud to tell our readers that this year being an alliance partner with the World Forum, the Early Childhood Association, India took 35 delegates from India and the number is increasing with every World Forum. Comprised of an excellent delegation, most of the delegates were speakers at the forum. The 4-day event was truly a lifechanging experience for one and all. World Forum has been raising the bar of their event each time by adding more elements to make it more inter-

May 2019

esting and engaging. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry if you missed World Forum, Macao. The World Forum event happens once in two years! Join early childhood professionals and advocates from around the world who will assemble in Vancouver for the 2021 World Forum to engage in work and dialogue to impact the futures of young children and their families. Nestled between majestic mountains and sparkling ocean, Vancouver is truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world, offering an unforgettable meeting experience. Are you ready for the 2021 World Forum? We are!

TAKE 2 ANUSHKA YADAV recommends four best brand marketing books for the education sector. Crazy about branding and marketing? You would want to keep these books on your shelves!

BrandED is the groundbreaking guidebook for educators who want to enhance communication with students, parents, and stakeholders to create a transparent record of value. It proves to be a great resource for designing and sustaining your individual brand as a leader and the brand of your school. Don’t let the great achievements happening in your school stop at the school doors, let the world know your story and create your brand with this hands-on guide. Written by rising stars in the field of education, the book empowers educators at all levels to take control of how the mission, values, and vision of their schools is communicated. An engaging collection of transformative conversations leads you to discover the opportunities and benefits of designing a brand for your school and sustaining a BrandED community to evangelise it. Timesaving and convenient tips and reflections at the end of each chapter make it easy to integrate the BrandED mindset and practices into your everyday routine.

BrandED: Tell Your Story, Build Relationships, and Empower Learning by Eric Sheninger & Trish Rubin

The Power of Branding: Telling Your School’s Story by Tony Sinanis & Joseph Sanfelippo A step-by-step guide in the Connected Educators Series, this book will help you to be informed, engage, and support your school community. It’s never too late to explore the benefits of branding and create an action plan for sharing the marvelous things unfolding in your classrooms and/or school. With concrete suggestions and in-depth case studies, you will be able to artfully create a brand name, symbol or design, share great events using blogs and more, empower all stakeholders and students, and teach digital citizenship K-12. After reading this all-inclusive guide, share how special your school is!

The classic go-to book for understanding the basics of branding and marketing with crystal clarity! Using famous case studies, the author has tried to illustrate how brands can garner great success. Aaker has introduced the ideas of “brand-as-person”, “brand-asorganisation” and “brand-assymbol.” As discussed in our cover story, you will be able to understand the concepts of brand identity and brand positioning through this book. It might be a “business” guide but like we said, education is a business today and it is an accepted fact. Use the wonderful examples penned down by Aaker and try implementing them in your schools; you can thank Aaker if they work out for your institution.

This decades-old book proves to be an indispensable tool for understanding marketing and branding. This edition includes an updated section that specifically explains internet branding. It highlights the biggest challenges of the online marketplace and ways to overcome such challenges using counterintuitive strategies. While reading this marvel, the reader learns the basics of how the most iconic brands have managed to build and maintain their legacy; it will help you understand the roadmap for doing the same. The lessons and insights mentioned in the book continue to be applicable even today; even though some of the suggestions, such as the one that suggests Amazon to be doomed if they tried anything except bookselling, inside the 2002 edition have been proven wrong. Filled with lots of examples, it is the perfect book to start with!

Best Classic: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout

Building Strong Brands by David Aaker

May 2019

TECH IT OUT EMAIL MARKETING:

MAIL CHIMP

TECH TOOLS TO HELP WITH MARKETING AND BRANDING EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES

An email marketing tool to help create unique campaigns and get the word out with email, social ads and more is the need of the hour. With the ability to connect your favorite tools, unlock new features that you already use, automate your busy work and optimise all your efforts by getting smarter with every campaign, it is a boon. Mail Chimp’s tools and platform allow you to get closer to your customers and understand what they want.

AUDITA BHATTACHARYA compiles the top 5 tools tailored for different marketing needs

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:

HOOTSUITE Managing several social media accounts at once can be tough. This tool helps you keep track of everything you are doing online. Sign up and link all of your accounts together, letting you access all your social media profiles all from one website. You can even schedule posts for a future date, which is helpful when you are setting up a social media campaign. You can then track your posts and see what’s getting viewed and what isn’t.

BUZZSUMO Do you know what kind of content is trending in your industry? Do you know what your competition is writing about and how they market it? BuzzSumo is perfect for levelling the playing field, revealing the topics you should write about, and helping you find influencers in your industry to market your content for you. Get content insights by discovering what content was most shared across all social networks and run analysis reports. You can get content alerts to be the first company to see content that mentions your keyword. You can also get alerts when a competitor posts new content, so you will never miss anything. With competitor analysis, you can track how your competitor’s content is performing and compare their results to your own performance. When you search for any keyword, you will be shown a list of the top-performing content.

CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT:

WEBINAR:

GOOGLE ADWORDS

GoToWebinar

Get in front of customers when they are searching for businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Only pay for results, like clicks to your website or calls to your business. Google is where people search for what to do, where to go and what to buy. Your ad can appear on Google at the very moment someone is looking for products or services like yours. Whether they are on desktop or mobile, a well-timed ad can turn people into valuable customers. Grow online sales, bookings or mailing list signups with online ads that direct people to your website. Increase customer calls with ads that feature your phone number and a click-to-call button. Google Ads can work for almost any advertising budget. Set a monthly budget cap, and never go over it. Plus, you can pause or adjust your spend any time.

CONTENT MARKETING:

May 2019

5 One of the most wellknown webinar tools on the market, GoToWebinar offers it all at a price that is reasonable for what you get. The company sweetens the pot by offering a free subscription to their popular web-meeting service, GoToMeeting as part of the deal.

ScooNews Magazine - May 2019 - Digital Edition

Articles inside

Branding, Marketing & Communication in Education Sector