Raahil’s blog: A messy affair for Byju’s

Earlier today Byju’s announced the appointment of Argentina’s football captain Lionel Messi as brand ambassador.

 

Soon after Campaign India published the news, we received plenty of comments on social media about this.

 

As expected, most of these were negative because the company was in the news earlier this week because of the massive layoffs across the country. While the company reversed the decision to close the product development centre in Kerala, close to 2,300 employees are expected to be laid off in the next six months to protect the health of the larger organisation.

 

Byju's is said to have spent Rs 2,500 crore on advertising and marketing spends in 2021.  The deal with FIFA as an official sponsor is said to be worth around US$ 40 million. And now the Messi brand endorsement cost. There's also the small mattter of the BCCI sponsorship deal.

 

Byju’s probably looked to limit its damage by announcing him as the brand ambassador of a social initiative rather than just ‘brand Byju’s.

 

Speak to any marketer/agency head and claims are made as to how talent and retaining it is the number one priority.

 

Byju’s isn’t the first one to have done this and probably won’t be the last. But what organisations as large as Byju’s needs to do is set an example for the smaller organisations so that we see talent-valuing organisations too.

 

With moves like these, organisations can’t expect talent to resist churn and the next offer they get from a rival company for a 25% hike.