ITC and Radio Mirchi kick off 'Classmate Spell Bee' Season 6

The spelling competition is open to students from Standards 5 to 9. The winner will win a grand prize of Rs 2 lakh and the opportunity to witness the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 in Washington

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | February 24, 2014

Classmate, a leading education and stationery brand by ITC, believes that each child is unique. Inspired by this belief, the company and Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM have launched season 6 of 'Classmate Spell Bee 2014' at the beginning of 2014. The theme for this year is 'Every child is unique and so is every word' and centres round Classmate's brand philosophy of celebrating uniqueness.

Classmate Spell Bee provides an appropriate platform for students to identify their strengths and achieve recognition for their unique spelling skills. The innovatively crafted competition attempts to bring forth the most talented spellers from Indian schools as they showcase their mastery of words and spellings. The spelling competition has travelled to more than 750 schools in 27 cities and reached out to more than 250,000 students from standards 5 to 9. Students from around India can still participate online at www.classmatespellbee.in in one of the most exhilarating experiences, crafted specially for them. The top 16 participants of the competition also get to showcase their skills on national television on Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids and Discovery Tamil.

The National Champion of Classmate Spell Bee 2014 will win a grand prize of Rs 200,000 apart from the opportunity to witness the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee with a parent in Washington, USA, in an all-expenses paid trip. The four semi-finalists will win a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each.

Chand Das, Chief Executive, ITC's Education and Stationery Products Business, said, "Classmate has always endeavoured to recognise, nurture and celebrate the uniqueness of every child. Classmate Spell Bee 2014 takes Classmate's brand thought of celebrating uniqueness further as it gives students yet another opportunity to identify and showcase their distinctive talents and skills on a nationwide platform. The brand promises to support a child's dreams with an equally unique & world class set of stationery products like notebooks, writing, drawing, art and math instruments.”

Hitesh Sharma, COO, Entertainment Network (India) which runs Mirchi FM, said, “Spell Bee has evolved over the past five seasons to become one of the most robust school level properties. The endeavour to educate children about the basics of the English language has only grown exponentially since the property's inception. Already in our 6th season, we are expecting tremendous success and massive participation. This year the competition will see participation from 27 cities through our on-ground efforts and through strong participation online as well. It gets tougher as participants from previous seasons re-enrol to make this championship fiercer. Like every year, the competition will be televised to encourage and prepare students for the upcoming season. We are hoping to see a scholarly cut-throat race between these young students.”

In the initial phase, an on-ground exercise where children were given spelling tests has garnered astounding participation. The spelling fever continues to spread as students progress to the gruelling city finale round and the best performing students will make it to the semi finals from there. The top 10 students from each city will then appear for an online test which will choose the best 16 spellers from across India. These students will then battle it out in the grand finale to win the title of Spell Bee Champion.

Abhishek Anand, Marketing Manager and Himavan Singh Dahiya, Brand Manager from the marketing team at ITC's ESPB, have leveraged this multi-layered engagement platform that deploys radio, television, digital and social media including a specially designed mobile app to drive engagement and participation, to build on Classmate's brand thought and take it to the next level.

The competition this year is powered by The Times of India and is in association with Seven Seas, NECC and Air India. Times NIE are education partners on the property.

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