Direct Acquisition & Retention
Client Akanksha Foundation
Brand Akanksha Foundation
Entrant Ogilvy & Mather
Brief Akanksha constantly faces a shortage of teachers. With zero marketing budgets, social networks were their only option. But how could an NGO break the clutter of social messages and get noticed? Our reasearch showed that 40% of our teacher applicants comprise corporates wanting to quit their 9-to-5 to try teaching. We wanted to increase engagement with corporates and drive up teacher applications.
Cultural Context Our inspiration came from childhood memories of how Teacher’s Day is celebrated in India. Typical celebrations involve giving a break to the teacher by having senior students switch roles and take on the responsibility of teaching junior classes.On Teacher’s day, we approached leaders of companies and asked them to take a class at Akanksha. In return, a student would fill in for them at work.
Solution
 Three CEOs, an RJ, a Chef, a renowned Fitness Guru and even a Police Inspector took classes, while Akanksha students took their place at work. Videos of these Job Exchanges were shared by these industry achievers on their professional and personal networks.In less than a month, the teacher’s application surpassed annual average.
Insight We had found that while a lot of people would like to help, they perceive teaching to be an expert’s job. At the same time, people imitate society leaders and industry role models. So if we were to convince leaders from a wide spectrum of fields to become our ambassadors, we could reach out to all their followers. And to do this, all we had to do was introduce the leaders to the joys of teaching.