Mumbai: upGrad, Asia’s Higher EdTech leader has released a new campaign, with a humorous twist to encourage working professionals to become Lifelong Learners to drive maximum career growth, at a time when industry requirements are evolving every day. Marking the third leg, this Ad film further strengthens the brand’s ‘Fast Forward your career’ campaign and brings together a comical scenario wherein professionals are seen using a variety of techniques to climb up the corporate ladder, right before the appraisal season.
Conceptualized in partnership with The Yellow Shutter and Co-produced with Boathouse Media, the ad film is directed by the filmmaker Shashwat Gandhi and is voiced by the award-winning actor Vijay Raaz. upGrad takes a quirky route to establish the urgency amid working professionals who tend to park upskilling for the future and never get around to pursuing it. Aligned with its mission of driving career outcomes, the higher-edtech leader recorded another milestone with the Q-o-Q career transitions peaking at 1233% during Q1 FY2021 and 1149% in Q2 FY2021 as compared to the same period the previous year, according to the recently released upGrad Career Report. The report also highlights the steady increase in the career hikes to the upGrad learners being awarded in the range of 180% – 450% after course completion.
Talking about the new campaign, Arjun Mohan, CEO – India at upGrad commented, “Our latest campaign brings out the hard-hitting reality of the corporate world where professionals often rely on their existing skill-sets to retain a competitive edge. Now more than ever, we are witnessing the redundancy of dated skills in the face of ever-evolving job requirements, which is making it tough for our workforce to move beyond the average hike bracket of 4% – 6%. As we approach the annual appraisal season, this tongue-in-cheek workplace humor will further encourage professionals to pursue new-age, outcome-driven education, and hands-on industry skills with upGrad, for charting out a progressive career path, decisively.”
Gaurav Arora, Founder, The Yellow Shutter said, “upGrad as a brand believes in staying creatively bold while figuring out realistic nuances of TG’s life and connecting with them. Being a creative production house ourselves, this resonated with us at The Yellow Shutter. We wanted to bring a fresh flavour of creativity while maintaining the essence of the brand campaign from 2020. Thus, we strategically continued with the donkey route, however, giving it a witty spin and creating something laugh-worthy yet extremely relatable. Together, we aimed at keeping the creative edge alive while adding unique angles in the visual space to showcase an everyday story with a twist.”
The filmmaker Shashwat Gandhi added, “We wanted to create visuals that are unique, which nobody had seen but everyone could relate to! To mock the ‘gadhas’ who engage in boot-licking and sycophancy during the appraisal season, we replaced their heads with a quirky ‘gadha’ filter and made them ‘hee-haw’ in various moods. The process of making this was equally fun and hilarious as the film itself!”
The newly launched Appraisal campaign is now Live across the digital platforms of upGrad.
Credits:
Co-Production Houses: The Yellow Shutter and Boathouse Media
Co-Founder and Creative Head: Gaurav Arora
Director: Shashwat Gandhi
Executive Producer : Charulika Julaniya
Head of Business and Growth: Dilpreet Kaur Sandhu
Head of Production: Harsh Pandya
Script Writers: Neha Rana and Drishti Sanyal
