All of advertising and marketing is the creation of a compelling story of an organisation’s purpose. And the captivating communication of purpose. Now, in an ideal and conscientious world, the story-telling trajectory would look something like this.
Purpose >> Proof >> Story creation >> Story communication >> Profit
But we don’t live in an ideal world. And usually, proof has shockingly little to do with either the purpose or the story being spun around it. Marketeers and advertisers have been getting an increasingly bad rap over the years for using claims that range from the bizarre to the blatantly untrue, in desperate pursuit of profit. And legally passable seems to be the only line in the sand for far too many organisations.
It’s also important to acknowledge that not all marketing is equal. Just like all products being marketed most certainly aren’t.
Most of us will shake our heads in bemusement that in 2023, tying the idea of masculinity to motorcycles still seems to be the most effective way to move stock, but beyond that flicker of annoyance over the hackneyed trope, we’ll likely move on. We won’t, however, be quite as charitable when fairness creams are marketed as a means to self-worth or as the desirable standard of beauty. We made a loud enough noise, and even forced brands to change their names.
Educational products certainly belong to the handle-with-care category. The rules of engagement need to be vastly different from the selling of almost every other product. Mostly because of the vulnerability of the people on the other side of the aisle.
Education is that complex beast where your consumer and user are two completely different sets of people, with often diametrically different expectations from your service. So how do you create a winning marketing strategy that caters to the aspirations of both?
We go back to what I started with: proof.
Your proof lies in the product you’ve actually created – the problem you’re actually invested in solving. And there’s no way of winging that.
Are you an educational product that, at its heart, seeks to help kids score the highest possible marks in their exams? Or a product that doesn’t give two hoots about marks, is only interested in creating a joyous habit around learning?
Bottomline: it will work only if you’re marketing what you’ve truly created. Telling potential and existing customers a story that’s not authentic to your purpose is a fool’s errand, because there’s no way to back it with the credibility that comes with all the interventions and avenues one has (hopefully) built in the service of said purpose. It’s the ONLY way to sustainably build a brand in a sensitive category like education AND bring in customers that don’t churn out (Don’t churn out what?) because the business couldn’t be true about who it is, and so the brand couldn’t decide what it wants to be. And those customers will leave stink bombs on your social media feed. Simply put, in a space like education, the business is the brand. They can’t be mutually exclusive beyond a certain level of scale.
And yes, we can argue endlessly about the ethical trappings of marks being the ultimate benchmark, the reality of our country is that for an overwhelming majority, education is still the most reliable gateway out of generational poverty and deprivation. And marks are the key that unlock that gateway in the current system. I belong to the joy-of-learning camp of educators, but it would be churlish and disingenuous to not acknowledge this truth about developing countries.
Trouble begins when the makers and marketers of one kind of product start trying to build stories that cater to a people that aren’t meant to be your customers in the first place. And trouble grows when those customers sooner or later discover that your product’s ecosystem is built around a foundation they don’t subscribe to. Do this enough times and trouble really explodes.
We’ve seen some examples of brands that have become cautionary tales when this invariably plays out. This strategy of mis-selling through dream-selling is ultimately bad for the brand (both internally and externally), bad for business, and bad for the ecosystem. And it’s silly to imagine you can sully the ecosystem with no harm to yourself. So now you’ve created the vicious cycle from hell for everyone involved.
Which is not to say that you’ve got to have every box checked and every answer figured out before you make an assertion of purpose that is now set in stone. Brands, like people, evolve and grow all the time. The beautiful thing about education is that while it feels like so much has to come together to be successful, it actually takes very little to make parents happy and shower you with loyalty. All they really need from you is to take care of their kids and deliver on the big promise. Most parents will even forgive a thousand tiny mistakes and failed WIP experiments if they’re made in good faith and in service of the promises you make.
Is that really such a difficult bar to clear?
The author is Ravi Bhushan, founder & chief executive officer of ed tech company, BrightCHAMPS.