Behind the scenes with Cuemath’s rebranding exercise

A new logo and colour palette, as well as expansion plans are on the cards for the math-focused edtech platform.

The COVID pandemic has accelerated digital growth. Many brands have pivoted to the digital medium to reach consumers. With the evolution of education – moving offline to online – there has been a pivot in the edtech sector as well. Cuemath is one such edtech platform that offers classes that use a practical approach to math and coding.

The company undertook a rebranding exercise, which includes a new logo and colour palette. According to the company, the rebranding represents the evolution that Cuemath has undergone in the past one-and-a-half years.

“We intend to project ourselves as a brand of consequence, where the intuition for math trumps marks and performance in exams. This needed a fresh way of looking at our brand, its visual identity, and communication objectives,” reads a company statement.

Arvind Iyer, marketing director, Cuemath, mentions that the company has strong ‘unit economics’, i.e., it doesn’t lose any money on consumer acquisition. “However, on an overall level, since we are reinvesting all of our revenue back into growth, we aren’t profitable yet. So, profitability right now isn’t a goal, but growth is the focus. Our focus is to drive growth and become a ‘unicorn’, a $1 billion company by the end of 2022.”

He reveals that Cuemath follows a targeted approach to marketing, in which it monitors funnel conversion metrics closely. “Everything we do is a reflection of what parents, students and teachers seek, and find useful. Having said that, our focus this year is going to be building brand awareness and performance marketing to acquire new students through all our social, digital, TV and PR channels.”

The brand wants to come across as mature to parents and, at the same time, have a friendly look and feel for the students, in terms of the user interface, etc.

The company’s refreshed tagline is ‘Get better at Math, Get better at everything else’. It also has a new logo – a simpler and angular rocket with an oval window, which indicates momentum. The rocket is supposed to symbolise the path towards achievement and is the company’s way of saying that nothing is unreachable. The company claims that the rocket indicates the path to achievement. The path and the rocket point towards the North Star, representing mastery over math and coding.

The wordmark also has subtle geometric elements, like the 45 degrees formed by the V in M and the acute angle of the A. Further, a starburst is now a crucial part of all the creatives. Iyer mentions that the global math market is currently worth around $20 billion.

“We grew 3x times last year (2020), and are on our way to grow more than 3x this year (2021). This exceptional growth is mostly outside India. As of today, we are present in 20-plus countries and aim to go to 50-plus countries by the end of this year. Since we are math-focused, our ambition is to win the global math market.”

The company’s key markets are across four regions – North America and Canada; the Middle East, especially Dubai and Qatar; APAC; and UK and Europe. “We plan to scale 3-4x times in the US alone this year. This plan includes strengthening our presence in existing markets, as well as entering countries in Africa and South America,” mentions Iyer.

He adds that the pandemic pushed the envelope as far as the company’s business goes – it used to have a hybrid online and offline model. There used to be physical classes that kids could attend, as well as classes on the online platform that they could access.

“The pandemic pushed Cuemath to become a fully online platform and move all the different aspects of its product and the whole experience online. We had to get all our teachers and students online. We had to get them used to online classes and still deliver results. It was crazy, but we somehow managed, and we’re still here.”

Iyer says that a good thing that happened during the pandemic is there is an increased interest in the company from other countries, given that the barrier of attending a physical classroom has been lifted.

He adds that the curriculum is adapted from what is taught in schools. It is then taught differently to the students. “In the past, to learn math, people would memorise formulae and apply them to solve problems. We want to take a practical approach to teaching math. Even in a post-pandemic world, we see relevance to the work we’re doing, since AI and machine learning will be the languages of the future.”

Iyer explains that most kids coming on to the platform are from higher grades, since that is the time that math becomes tougher for them and they might require help with the syllabus. He adds that the teachers also undergo a stringent screening platform to come on to the platform to ensure that the children understand the course material being taught to them.