‘Zee Marathi’s high reach helped create the perfect integration for BYJU’S’

BYJU’S, the educational-tech company, recently associated with Zee Marathi’s popular drama series ‘Mazhya Navryachi Bayko’ in its bid to drive growth for the brand in Maharashtra. 

Talking about the insight behind this association, Atit Mehta, Marketing Head, BYJU’S explains, “We were looking at Maharashtra as a key market, one that has a predominant Marathi speaking and viewing audience. If you are looking at a Marathi-speaking audience, then you must look at the most popular show on a channel with the greatest reach. That was how Zee Marathi came into the conversation and with it, its popular show Mazhya Navryachi Bayko (MNB).” 

The brand and the channel worked together to create a subtle integration weaving in the BYJU’S name with the MNB storyline. Over the first three episodes, the foundation for the integration was laid as the show told the story of a young school-going student who was more interested in iPads and other devices than in studying. His parents, who had to balance work and home chores, struggled to monitor his educational progress. It is finally in the fourth episode that the family is introduced to BYJU’S, thereby providing the child and parents with the ideal solution to the conundrum they were dealing with. 

Talking about the brand’s seamless integration with the show, Mehta elaborates, “It is important to note that the parents and child were not interacting with the BYJU’S app out of the blue. After the first three episodes or so, when the story had been built up and the integration took place, we measured the impact and we saw a steady jump across all of our key deliverable metrics.” The association also worked positively for the channel by encouraging viewers to embark on a journey of intrinsic learning. 

Talking about the partnership with the brand, Amit Shah – Cluster Head, RHSM, ZEEL said, “Our partnership with BYJU’S is a step towards leveraging the power of education. As a consumer-centric organization, through this partnership ZEE aimed to offer an innovative learning platform that will contribute to our viewers’ lives by enabling them to embark on a journey of intrinsic learning. We will continue to work towards building an inclusive environment for our viewers by striking a balance between what we showcase and what the consumer needs.” 

Ashish Sehgal – Chief Growth Officer, Advertisement Revenue, ZEEL said: “As a platform, our objective and focus is to not only add value but enhance lives and what better way to do that than through education. With this objective, we tied up with BYJU’S and used the most trusted no.1 channel of Maharashtra, Zee Marathi’s power of content and influencers to deliver a holistic solution to our advertisers and viewers.  We believe that communication is not just about advertising but contextualizing the same seamlessly within content & strategically using relevant platforms to deliver a desired impact.” 

One of the biggest positives for BYJU’S was the feedback the brand got from parents after the integration. Mehta explains that while the users of the app were children, the brand’s communication and association with Zee Marathi was aimed at the parents. 
“From this integration, the parents were able to understand a lot more things about the app that the 30 second commercial couldn’t communicate. For example, parents learned that BYJU’S doesn’t need internet connectivity and can actually work offline. This understanding of the product features was communicated beautifully through the integration, enabling a growth in downloads of the app,” adds Mehta. 

BYJU’S is also considering replicating this integration in other key, regional markets such as the South, the Bengali and key Hindi speaking markets.