From textbooks to AI, S Chand is rewriting the rules of education marketing

NOIDA: With over 16 years of experience across marketing, communication and general management, Priya Malhotra brings a strategic and integrated approach to brand building across B2B and B2C audiences. She has been associated with S Chand Group for over 12 years and currently serves as senior vice president marketing, having previously held leadership roles across marketing and corporate communications. Her experience spans product marketing, digital marketing, branding, corporate communications and experiential marketing, with a focus on understanding consumer behaviour, building brand relationships and driving business outcomes. In this conversation, Malhotra discusses how S Chand is balancing its legacy with digital-first education, building trust in an evolving ed-tech landscape, and using technology, AI and experimentation to shape the future of learning.

1. S Chand has transformed from an 86-yr old publishing house into a diversified education ecosystem. How do you market a heritage brand to digital native Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences without alienating the trust built with older generations of parents and educators?

It is not to choose between heritage or being contemporary. It is about taking the trust that has been built over generations and expressing it in ways that are relevant to today’s learners. Our legacy gives us credibility with parents, educators and institutions, while our focus on digital experiences, new age content and engaging formats helps us connect with younger audiences. We are therefore evolving the way we communicate, rather than changing what the brand stands for. The objective is to make the brand progressive without making it unrecognisable.

2. With major moves like acquiring CPD Singapore to enter international curricula and launching TESTCOACH for CUET test-prep, how are you positioning S Chand’s expanding portfolio to maintain a unified, cohesive brand identity?

As the business expands, maintaining a cohesive brand becomes even more important. We look at the portfolio through a common brand promise rather than treating every product or acquisition as a completely independent proposition. Whether it is about school education, international curricula, competitive examinations, digital learning etc., the underlying objective remains the same – academic credibility, and quality content. Also, each product needs to have its own proposition and personality for its specific audience. So, our approach is essentially to have one strong parent brand, supported by differentiated offerings, rather than creating a collection of disconnected brands.

3. Following the retrenchment in the VC funded ed-tech space, credibility has become a major challenge in education. How is S Chand leveraging its legacy to position itself as a stable, trustworthy alternative to pure play digital platforms?

For S Chand, our legacy is not simply a milestone; it is a validation of our long-term commitment to education. We have worked with generations of educators, parents, institutions and learners, and that gives us a level of institutional credibility. However, we don’t believe legacy alone is enough. Trust has to be continuously earned through the quality of our content, products, technology, partnerships and customer experience. Our positioning therefore is not about being an alternative to digital platforms, but about bringing the stability and credibility of an established education company into an increasingly digital education environment.

4. Through offerings like Mylestone and Smartivity, S Chand advocates for hybrid learning. What does your consumer research show about how parents and schools want digital tools integrated alongside physical textbooks?

What we see is that the conversation has moved beyond making a choice between physical and digital learning. Parents and schools increasingly recognise that both can play complementary roles. The physical book continues to provide structure, familiarity and focused learning experience, while digital tools can add interactivity, personalisation, practice and engagement. What is important is that technology should solve a genuine learning need rather than being added simply because it is available. Our approach to hybrid learning is therefore to make digital an extension of the learning journey and not a replacement for the teacher, the classroom or the book.

5. The partnership integrating Google Lens into printed textbooks blends traditional print with augmented learning. How do you market a print-digital hybrid product to ensure high adoption rates among traditional classrooms?

With any print digital innovation, the biggest marketing challenge is not necessarily awareness rather it is making the benefit immediately understandable to the teacher and learner. Our communication therefore needs to focus less on the technology itself and more on what it enables in the classroom. If a teacher can clearly see how a familiar textbook can become more interactive or useful through a simple digital layer, adoption becomes much easier. We also believe that adoption has to be supported at multiple levels like teachers need confidence in using the tool, students need to find it engaging, and schools need to see a meaningful learning benefit. The role of marketing is to simplify that journey and demonstrate the value through relevant, practical use.

6. S Chand recently entered the AI space by licensing its educational datasets. As a marketing leader, how do you communicate the value of AI-driven tools to an audience that may still harbor skepticism about AI in early education?

Our approach is not to market AI simply because it is the latest technology. We need to start with the educational problem we are trying to solve and then demonstrate how AI can add value. For parents and educators, transparency, academic quality and responsible use of data are particularly important. So, our communication needs to be grounded in evidence and educational outcomes rather than technological hype. The opportunity for S Chand is to bring the credibility of an established education company to the AI conversation using technology thoughtfully while keeping the learner, educator and quality of education at the centre.

7. For FY26, S Chand reported ₹798 Crores in revenue. What role will experimental and digital marketing play in sustaining this top-line growth over the next fiscal year?

As the business evolves, marketing also must evolve from being primarily communication led to becoming insight led and measurable. Digital gives us the ability to understand audiences more closely, personalise communication, test propositions quickly and optimise campaigns based on actual behaviour. At the same time, experimental marketing allows us to explore new formats, platforms and ways of engaging with consumers. Experimentation does not mean pursuing every trend. It means testing ideas with a clear hypothesis, learning quickly and scaling what genuinely works. The larger objective is to build stronger brands, deeper customer relationships and sustainable demand across the education ecosystem.

8. Educational purchasing involves a complex decision-making chain—institutions, teachers, parents, and students. How do you tailor your integrated media strategy to influence each link in that chain effectively?

Education marketing is particularly interesting because there is rarely a single decision maker. A school leader may influence adoption, a teacher may influence recommendation, a parent may influence purchase, and the student ultimately experiences the product.

Therefore, an integrated media strategy needs to recognise the different motivations of each stakeholder rather than communicating one generic message to everyone.

For institutions, we focus on credibility, outcomes and institutional value. For educators, relevance, usability and classroom impact are important. Parents look for trust, quality and value, while students respond more strongly to engagement, convenience and experiences that feel relevant to them. The role of marketing is to connect these audiences through one consistent brand story, while adapting the message and channel to what matters most to each stakeholder.

As S Chand continues to bridge its publishing heritage with digital learning, AI and new-age education formats, the role of marketing is increasingly about making this evolution meaningful to every stakeholder in the education ecosystem. For Malhotra, the focus remains on building relevance without compromising the trust and academic credibility that have defined the brand over generations.