upGrad’s brand campaign features its real-life alumni journeys

upGrad's campaign discusses the hardship and struggles faced by learners in a candid setting. It is conceptualized by its in-house team.

Riding high on its commitment to driving desired career outcomes, upGrad’s new brand campaign not just talks about real-life success but also presents the hard-hitting realities of each learner. Conceptualized by the in-house content team, the brand film discusses the hardship and struggles faced by learners in a candid setting. It further captures how upGrad supported them to achieve their career goals followed by their perception change towards the online learning format. 

The objective of the campaign was to highlight the real differences between upGrad courses and its online counterparts and how the brand has managed to create positive impact on the lives of 70,000+ learners and counting, as reported by the global higher Edtech company..

Divided into parts, one of the films opens with the story of Ankur Sharma, who decided to take a leap of faith with upGrad and its esteemed university partner after battling multiple second thoughts which kept him on his toes. 

Ankur, who previously held three to four jobs to support his family, overcame all  his obstacles with the aid of his upGrad Buddy. These upGrad Buddies are dedicated to each learner to track their progress and help them overcome academic and non-academic challenges throughout the module. In this case, Ankur’s upGrad Buddy pushed him to not quit his dream half-way and complete the project & the exam, which otherwise Ankur would have left for certain reasons. This further helped Ankur in securing the position as a Product Specialist at Dynamsoft, a Canadian Software company.

From being made fun of for learning new skills at his age to making a change and altering his career path, here’s another journey of Tuhin who’s decision to switch his career from hotel management to product management through an upGrad course, was extremely pivotal.  He did not let preconceived notions prevent him from advancing his skills while holding a senior position at a leading brand.

The third story is of Anish Sharma who had more than seven years of expertise in a variety of fields when he arrived, but it wasn't until he enrolled for an online program with upGrad and its university partner that he began to see the benefits of online education.

He enrolled with the intention of advancing his career, but Anish discovered the importance of Lifelong Learning along the way. He now uses his newly acquired skills in his everyday work as a People's Analytics Consultant with Capgemini Invent.

These brand films have been directed by Manoj Tapadia - who is a filmmaker and has also collaborated with several brands like Dove, Symphony, Dettol, HDFC, Tata Tea, Maggi, and Havells, etc. “The challenge was how to make it entertaining and engaging because there are dime-a-dozen testimonial ads. It was spontaneous, like a live shoot,” he highlighted. 

“It was our deliberate effort to bring out such real stories from upGrad alumni, which resonate with the concerns of the millions who want to pursue upskilling to fast forward their careers. This also helps build trust and credibility of our courses and their impact at large”, said Ankit Khirwal, Head of Marketing at upGrad.

The brand campaign #RealStoriesRealImpact is now live at upGrad’s social media channels and attempts to inspire others to turn their life in the way they want to, just like these alumni did.