WhiteHat Jr. ads draw flak from social media users

Social media users who didn't have children of their own were still shown ads for the platform which hosts live online coding classes for kids.

Most advertising is meant to help create brand recall, but in some cases, brand familiarity comes at the cost of negative brand perception. This has been the case with WhiteHat Jr’s ads on social media.

WhiteHat Jr is a Mumbai based edutech startup that specialises in teaching children how to code. The app helps children learn programming and encourages them to create games, animations, applications and more.

Although, something seems to have gone wrong with the brand’s advertising efforts. Many users took to social media to complain that they were being shown advertisements for the service when they did not have any kids of their own in the first place.

Whitehat Jr wont stop showing you ads until you find a girlfriend, get married, produce kids and get them enrolled in Whitehat jr.

— Gabbbar (@GabbbarSingh) September 14, 2020

One user points out that the tone of advertising invokes a sense of FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out to push parents to take up their services. According to an Economic Times report, it is estimated that WhiteHat Jr may be spending Rs. 10-15 crore rupees on advertising on digital media platforms.

There’s something deeply cringeworthy about ads that feed FOMO of Indian parents. Kind of upsetting actually.

— Amod Malviya (@amodm) September 19, 2020

One user also rubbished one of WhiteHat Jr’s TVCs, which portrays multiple investors from global companies fighting tooth and nail at a child’s doorstep to invest in a child’s coding project.

Just saw a whitehatJr Ad where Investors are fighting to invest in a kid's code project.

Forget the kid, I guess I might have to take one myself to find investors 🤣

— Anupam Acharya 😷 (@anupam_ach) September 20, 2020

In August 2020, BYJU'S acquired WhiteHat Jr. which in early August for $300 million. WhiteHat Jr’s social media also uses faces like Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai and Steve Jobs to push their classes – in a bid to encourage parents to help unlock their children’s potential.

Also Read: BYJU’S acquires WhiteHat Jr

At the time of acquisition, BYJU’s announced that it will make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr’s technology platform, product innovation while expanding the teacher base to cater to demand from new markets.