Last Updated on 25/11/2020 by Hrithik V
WhiteHatJr. is a unicorn EdTech start-up based in Mumbai, India that claims to teach coding to kids. The platform also advertises it’s courses on their website with the words “Your kids are 40 classes away from Silicon Valley”.
Yes, this is the infamous platform that is promoted through the advertisement of a boy name Chintu who is shown to have developed his own app after he learned coding from WhiteHat Jr. which is why investors are fighting outside his home to invest in it.
Image source: www.digitalready.co
The idea has not been appreciated by many, and while people called out to it, some resorted to making funny memes and jokes. While some others took to social media platforms with their concern.
As if Chintu weren’t enough, WhiteHatJr. campaigns and advertisements have gotten more absurd using business influencers and pioneers like Ratan Tata, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai for their profit.
Wait, if you think that’s too much, we haven’t even started yet.
Who is Wolf Gupta?
WhiteHatJr. Introduces Wolf Gupta, a 12-year-old kid who apparently is working as an Artificial Intelligence Researcher at Google. Apparently, WhiteHatJr. has changed the age of the kid in different posts of different social networking sites. As if that’s not bizarre enough, WhiteHatJr. has changed the salary of the kid in multiple Social Media posts as well.
But don’t you worry, we have smart people out there, and they were swift to criticize WhiteHatJr. and the made-up Wolf Gupta for the same.
Image Source: www.twitter.com
WhiteHat Jr’s ‘Wolf Gupta’ advertising is not misleading – it is fundamentally dishonest and deceptive. The magnitude of the deception of this ‘growth-hacking’ has affected many.
When people like Pradeep Poonia and Aniruddha Malpani criticised and tried exposing WhiteHatJr. and Byju’s for all the misleading advertisements, they sued both of them for defaming WhiteHatJr.
The Delhi High Court heard the arguments in the defamation case launched by Karan Bajaj, WhiteHat Jr’s founder, against Pradeep Poonia, yesterday.
Page 5 of the legal notice by Karan Bajaj has this:
advertisements concerning an imaginary child who the Plaintiffs christened “Wolf Gupta”
Presented above is the document where WhiteHatJr. admitted to the fact that Wolf Gupta is an imaginary character.
This is very misleading to the audience who believed that a kid name Wolf Gupta does exist and hence enrolled their kids in the platform, not knowing that it is a marketing gimmick.
If all this was not enough, Wolf Gupta has a LinkedIn account as well, which is another gem of Byjus.
Wolf Gupta’s story was fiction and what is more upsetting is that WhiteHat Jr continues to evade responsibility or price for their deceptive and unscrupulous marketing and communication tactics.
As assumed by many, it also seems that the social media team of WhiteHatJr. isn’t getting their salaries on time, taking into consideration the post which was posted on the WhiteHatJr.‘s Facebook account which shows Deepa Malik promoting the WhiteHatJr. while the caption talks about Cricketer Shikhar Dhawan wanting kids to learn Coding.
The problem that lies in all these advertisements and the promotion methods is the fact that Wolf Gupta is an imaginary character that has never been disclosed by WhiteHatJr. till it was mentioned in the legal notice. This wouldn’t have come into the picture if it wasn’t for Pradeep Poonia who exposed the story as being fake in the first place.
Withdrawal of the much-used advertisements (as they were exposed, not because WhitehatJr. gained some consciousness) does not prevent the brand from cheating. The harm has already been done to students and their parents in terms of the money, efforts and time spent on it. Not to mention the mental trauma that some of the students had to face because of the teachers at WhiteHatJr.
As per WhiteHatJR students enrolled for at least 40 classes visit silicon valley virtually. But people, in general, using the internet can visit almost any place on the earth, what is so special about that?
