Simplilearn urges consumers to upgrade their professional skills

The maiden TV campaign by the online certification training provider features actor Irrfan Khan.

Simplilearn, the online certification training provider, has launched its first television campaign (TVC) 'Get Certified, Get Ahead', to create awareness about its platform. The TVC, which features, actor Irrfan Khan, aims to encourage working professionals to acquire new technology skills and certifications.

Conceptualised by the Bengaluru-based agency Propaganda, the TVC compares the workplace to a game of chess where every professional's goal is to make it to the next level.

This national campaign highlights Simplilearn's plans to increase the visibility of its online certification courses in trending categories such as big data and analytics, digital marketing, cloud computing, project management, and IT security to white-collared professionals spread across Tier-I and Tier-II cities.

Kashyap Dalal, chief product and marketing officer, Simplilearn, hopes that the communication will be able to break the inertia that exists in the audience and motivate them to be more pro-active about their careers.

"We expect this TVC to establish Simplilearn as a category leader in the certification training/skill-building space," says Dalal.

Since its inception in 2010, the platform has claimed to have trained over 5,00,000 working professionals from over 100 countries till date. It also claims to have close to 20,000 new monthly registrations. The available courses and programmes are either through online self-learning or live online instructor-led training.

Simplilearn targets individuals in the age group of 23-45, from the metros, who are a mix of young professionals who want rapid career growth, middle managers who would be facing career stagnation, and individuals who want to rejoin the workforce such as female employees who have been on maternity and personal breaks.

The most popular programmes on its platform include digital marketing, big data, data science, Android App development, and project management.

According to Dalal, the biggest marketing challenge they face is that even though the customers know the benefit of training for the right skills and getting certified, it takes some amount of discipline and motivation to devote the time needed to learn new skills.

"A lot of them tend to procrastinate and postpone the decision to train. Our biggest objective on the marketing side therefore, is to motivate our audience to devote the time and energy needed to learn new skills and get certified," Dalal informs.

The company has been active on the digital platform to reach out to its customers. It has experimented with radio and outdoors in the last six months.

"Our broad strategy is to build much greater brand awareness through television and other ATL channels, and have highly targeted digital marketing via search and social to convert customers," notes Dalal.

Talking about the campaign, Priya Jayaraman, co-founder and director, Propaganda India, says that they had to come up with a creative that would establish certification training as a category and build awareness around it.

"In order to be able to do this, it was important to uncover the core insight at workplaces, the desire to get ahead and how one relies on luck while doing so. The narrative had to be sharp, relatable and one that wakes people up," she explains.

Apart from television, the campaign is being promoted across digital and radio channels.

With offices in Silicon Valley and Bengaluru, Simplilearn has a footprint in over 150 countries. Its course contents are recognised by more than 40 global accreditors, including PMI, Axelos, Scrum Alliance, Peoplecert, and The Open Group.