How Dell’s marketing strategy aims at transforming education by driving change ft. Mayuri Saikia

Are you going to be glued to your computer all day? This is a sentence almost every Indian parent must have uttered to their children in the last few years. However, COVID-19 has changed the way technology is perceived. Now, education is becoming increasingly technology-driven.

However, students today use technology widely for their passion and to do things that give them happiness. Most of the schools also encourage the children to do work for the greater good of society, including going on cleaning drives, taking care of the animals, and more. 

Combining this insight is technology company Dell as it communicates the concept of ‘Doing is the new learning’ through its advertising, says Mayuri Saikia, Director of Marketing, Consumer and Small Business, Dell Technologies, India. 

Inspiring action through technology

Recently, the brand released its newest 'Back to School and College' campaign, which aimed to signify the brand’s PC as a tool that enables students to turn their ideas into reality.

The two brand films, ‘Lamps’ and ‘Mountains’ tell the stories of three students who use technology to come up with solutions for serious subjects. One of the films shows our protagonist, a young boy who comes across the news of a schoolgirl scoring well in her exams despite facing an electricity shortage. The boy, along with his friends, is inspired by the story and creates a design for handmade solar lamps and travels to the community to present the lamps to the children. 

The second film focuses on another young girl from the same group of friends as they set out to address the water issue in the mountains. With the help of Dell’s laptop, she and her friends created a microsite and designed a logo called 'Summit Savers' to organize a clean-up drive. This initiative taken by them later draws many individuals to the cause.

The brand’s campaign which features two college-going kids and one school-going kid, who happens to be the sister of one of the college-goers is aimed at resonating with family dynamics, ensuring visibility over the next five months.

Saikia elaborates, “The search for laptops increases during this time, leading to higher sales numbers. Similarly, for college students, the buying season typically peaks around June, July, or August, depending on the city. So, from April to around July, August, or even September, there's a peak in both school and college buying seasons.”

The period between April to August becomes important for PC sales as exams end in different parts of India depending on their education system. As new classes start, there's a surge in the need for laptops because many students opt for new ones. 

In 2023, Dell clocked in a market share of 15.3%, despite observing a 15.3% dip in PC sales on-year in April-June 2023 in both consumer and commercial segments. International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Senior Market Analyst Bharath Shenoy, in a report, mentioned that PC vendors successfully ran college campaigns and got good traction in the previous year. 

Dell aims to connect with students all over the country and share their sense of bringing about change in society. 

Reaching out to the youth 

Talking about the target audience, Saikia mentions, “Thanks to exposure to global content, whether it's music or movies, there's a sense of shared culture and connectivity among students. Hence, our target audience is diverse, not tied to a particular geography. It can be any school, any college, any part of the country. We target more than 300 cities.”

To bring the campaign's concept to life, the brand is organising a cleanup campaign in the Aravalli Hills encouraging mountain conservation and interaction with both regular tourists and those who may visit other hills in the near future.

Speaking about the media plan, she continues, “We are going with a digital-first approach. We are going to be wherever our customers are. The school students and the college-going students and their parents. You will see the campaign across YouTube, OTT platforms, social platforms, and various other touchpoints, ground touchpoints, which are wherever they're going.”

This isn’t the first time the brand has aimed to connect technology as a means for doing good. The series falls under the foundation of Dell's #PC4Education initiative. In 2021, the brand released its campaign #PowerTheirFuture which showed the relatable responses parents have towards their children spending time on their computers and laptops. Only to show the kids in the film working on something they love, as they learn about topics on their own.

It was in last year that the brand evolved to the next level. 

“That's where this consumer insight came in: children today are using their studies, education, and technology for the greater good of society. Hence, we had ‘Doing is the New Learning’,” she comments. 

With this in mind, the brand’s two films depicted a young girl learning how to edit music and working as a DJ, only to visit an elderly care facility to play music for them as they dance with joy. 

The other film highlighted the story of a guy who plays cricket, uses technology to learn how to sew from his mother, and then distributes all his old gloves to children who need them. The campaign’s aim was to spread happiness, something the youth today is passionate about.

As an extension of the campaign, the brand also included a series called 'Doing Good', wherein it collaborated with 88 schools in seven cities, as well as Radio Mirchi and the Smile Foundation to share the stories of students who are making a difference. 

This year, the brand is reinitiating the student connect program, ‘Doing Good Series 2.0’, in collaboration with radio stations and other media networks, featuring stories of young innovators driving change in various fields. 

This initiative will cover stories of over 100+ student ambassadors in Tier I cities, which will be promoted on radio, social, and will reach thousands of students.

Driving engagement via influencers

On the digital front, the brand has also collaborated with influencers for their various campaigns. One such influencer is pilot, Ritu Rathee Taneja, who utilised the products Dell offers to teach her young daughter, thereby showing that teaching and learning with technology are new experiences for everyone. 

Considering Dell is a technology-first company, it is also reaching out to consumers who are particularly interested in the kind of services a technological product offers, like gamers. 

Saikia states, “We offer gaming laptops, and we understand that gamers frequent platforms like Instagram and YouTube. We reach out to them through these channels to understand their needs beyond just the product itself. They seek tips, tricks, and guidance on gaming, so we provide content to help them excel in their gaming experience.”

By collaborating with tech influencers like Technical Guruji and Trakin Tech, they have made the process of identifying one's technological needs easier. These influencers have simplified the kind of requirements on the brand’s social channels that would suit the consumers. 

The brand also hosts events at Dell-exclusive stores, namely - Friday gaming and Saturday gaming. Saikia mentions that Friday gaming is held online, where gamers can play alongside big, popular gamers who provide guidance. On Saturdays, gaming events take place in Dell stores, allowing customers to experience the products and enjoy gaming in person. 

“We also organise multi-city gaming events to engage with the gaming community across different locations. Additionally, we participate in events like Comic-Con to connect with gamers directly, allowing them to try out our laptops and interact with gaming experts face-to-face.”

With this, the brand is also utilizing AI in deriving data-driven insights, providing a view of customer behaviour for planning content and media spends. According to Saikia, it helps identify shopping patterns, payment preferences and ensures faster resolution to customer queries using AI-enabled chatbots to guide customers through their purchasing journey. 

Ultimately, Saikia shares, “Our responsibility, whatever we are doing and touching the customer is showing how to make the best use of technology.”