Case Study: Learning a lesson in meme marketing with Unstop & Flipkart GRiD

This year, Unstop aimed to reach a larger number of engineering students for Flipkart GRiD 6.0 and expand their reach to colleges across the country. To increase awareness, they utilized memes and Gen Z language. Here’s a case study on how they did it. 

Category Introduction

Unstop is a talent engagement and hiring platform for students and graduates. 

The number of students that graduate is 4 crore. It will be 10 crore if we add vocational courses too. Whereas the companies are around 3 Lakh only which shows how there is a huge gap. With 11 Mn+ Gen Zs already a part of Unstop, their aim is to make them more employable and give them access to the right set of opportunities. This is done through our collaboration with 800+ brands who want to engage and hire the right talent, on the basis of their skills. 

The estimated size of the Global HR Tech market by 2030 is $50Billion. Along with this the estimated size of the online recruitment market by 2030 is $100Billion. With the influx of AI, VR / AR technologies and capabilities, the HR function is bound to be disrupted by virtual assistants, automation tools, upskilling and reskilling. 

Brand Introduction 

It is a playground for talented individuals to learn, upskill, showcase their skills, gain CV points, and get hired to unlock their true potential throughout their academic journey. With 11 million users & 50 million monthly page views, Unstop touches 3 million monthly active users at present. Founded by Ankit Aggarwal as Dare2Compete, the platform was re-branded in 2022, from a go-to place for competitions to a playground of opportunities of various kinds called, Unstop. 

Summary

From social to offline, Unstop made sure to leave a mark in the minds of engineers across the country, inspiring them to be a part of India’s #1 Engineering Competition. 

But a little differently. Whenever Unstop wanted to invite engineering students to register for GRiD 6.0, they ditched conventional marketing CTAs. They spoke in the language which the GenZs understand best. 

The language of memes and quirky posts.

Objective 

In 2023, Unstop broke records with Flipkart GRiD 5.0 by getting 4,76,000+ engineering students to register for the challenge. This year, Unstop wanted to break its own record and reach even more engineering students for GRiD 6.0. It wanted to access college students across the country – any engineering student, any college, from any corner of India could register. Unstop wanted to increase the awareness of the event and in turn increase the overall registrations. 

Brief

Get Gen-Zs who are engineers to register for Flipkart GRiD 6.0 by connecting with them in the language they understand best. 

Creative Idea 

A CTC of INR 32 LPA. In 2024, for most engineering freshers in India, this seems like a distant dream. They begin to doubt it. To wonder how much is driven by their college name and their academics. 

They do what GenZs do often and a lot- they overthink.

The creative idea for Unstop was to engage with the GenZs and invite them to take that one step. Just one step into the competitive arena, where all that matters is their skills. 

To register.

And if Unstop was simply going to tell them to register, they will hit another wall- as GenZs do not like to be told to do anything.

Hence, Unstop wanted to speak to them in their language. Through their favourite memes and pushing the idea out on the theme. The theme which said – The Choice is Yours. 

Challenges

Unstop did not have a significant media budget for the campaign. 

Keeping that in mind they decided to create an approach that is prudent and focused on just spreading the message. All activations were led by content on digital. 

Execution 

The execution focused on social platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

Unstop’s priority was to get engagement and traction on the posts they were sharing on their social media channels. From their launch being with a meme on the famous ‘Utho Anarkali’ trend to using Gen Z lingo like Pookie, Ghosting, and more to connect with the students, they spoke in the language Gen Zs love. 

Midway in the campaign, Unstop ran a OOH campaign that was amplified and promoted on social media channels. They developed the billboard concept with their project partner Ginger Monkey. Abhishek Asthana, aka Gabbar Singh shared the OOH campaign on his Twitter handle which helped gain traction too. 

Zor zor se bol ke scheme bata rahe hain – there are PPIs worth INR 32 LPA waiting for you with #Flipkartgrid6.

Register now: https://t.co/Oh94sOifBL #flipkartgrid #hackathons #flipkart #competitions #casestudy #Engineering #CodingChallenge #programming #coder pic.twitter.com/Ync4THTqv1

— Unstop (@Unstop_World) July 19, 2024

Great set of creatives aimed at Engineering students for a Coding competition.

3.2LPA 🥲

By Unstop & Flipkart Grid 6.0 pic.twitter.com/E9Y2HGoNeu

— Gabbar (@GabbbarSingh) August 6, 2024

Results 

Quantitative

Impressions on the website: 1,92,38,341

Social impressions have been: 11,56,873

The registrations reached a global high in 2024.
With the latest season being the biggest ever with 5,17,000+ engineering students registrations. 

Qualitative 

Students engaged with the content that was created for GRiD. From students to HRs, we saw a positive reaction pooling in from the community because of how relatable the idea was and how it spoke about an opportunity that was going to help them bag a job based on their skills.

“Flipkart GRiD has been a challenge that is loved by our student community. This year at Unstop, we wanted to go all out and focus on aspects that can positively push them to register and realise their potential. Gen Zs speak in memes and after building a community of 11 million+ of them and breathing their air everyday, we knew we had to ride on their meme knowledge to get the record numbers for GRiD 6.0. All the campaign elements have been crafted by the internal content, creative and brand marketing teams at Unstop.  We invested in bringing in Ginger Monkey onboard, a thought partner to put together the creative idea that can bring more impact around the OOH leg of the campaign,” said Alekhya Chakrabarty, VP – Marketing & Growth, Unstop.