Soha Ali Khan announced Anagha Sethuraman winner of Classmate Spell Bee 2014

EDUCATION

Soha Ali Khan announces Anagha Sethuraman as India’s spelling champ of Classmate Spell Bee 2014

Classmate, India’s leading stationery brand and Radio Mirchi’s spelling extravaganza Classmate Spell Bee 2014 culminated with an exhilarating finish as Soha Ali Khan announced Anagha Sethuraman of Maharishi Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School, Chennai as the National Champion of India’s largest school level spelling competition.  Saumya Malhotra Of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, Delhi was the first runner up. Classmate, India’s leading stationery brand by ITC, believes that every child is unique. Inspired by this belief, the theme for this year ‘Every child is unique and so is every word’ has been built around Classmate’s brand philosophy of celebrating uniqueness. The competition this year was conducted across India and engaged with more than 2.5 lac students across 750 schools in 27 cities by testing their mettle in English spellings.

In the initial phase, an on-ground exercise in schools received massive participation. The top 15 spellers from each school then competed in the online city finals round. The top performers from the city finals then competed in the Semi Final stage of the competition. From there only the top 16 students from across India went on to battle it out in the televised National Finals.

The National Finals of Classmate Spell Bee 2014 saw a grueling competition between the top 16 spellers of India in the search for the National Spell Bee Champion. The National Finals will be telecast on The Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids and Discovery Tamil pan India.

Commenting on the culmination of Classmate Spell Bee 2014, Mr. Chand Das, Chief Executive, ITC’s Education and Stationery Products Business said, "Classmate is amongst the largest brands in the stationery industry today and has crossed the 1000 Cr mark. The brand has always endeavored to recognize, nurture & celebrate the uniqueness of every child. We believe this association of Classmate with Spell Bee, is a natural fit, which has been utilized to engage with our core audience. Classmate Spell Bee 2014 has taken Classmate’s brand thought of celebrating uniqueness further and has given students yet another opportunity to identify and showcase their distinctive talents and skills on a nationwide platform. The theme for this season of Classmate Spell Bee is “Every child is unique and so is every word”. 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.”

Mr. Hitesh Sharma, COO, Entertainment Network (India) Limited said, “The Radio Mirchi Intellectual Property team started Spell Bee six years back and it sure has come a long way. What is heartening to see is that the passion and love for spellings is consistently growing amongst the young geniuses of India. The response and engagement that we received this year is astounding to say the least. Interesting additions to the program like the mobile app and the social media campaign, especially on Facebook have helped us get closer to the students and take the property to the next level. It was a privilege to witness the National Finals and I can assure you that the quality of spellers that we received at this stage was of a superlative level. I, on behalf of Radio Mirchi would like to thank all the parents, teachers and students who participated and supported our property and made it a huge success.”

Mr. Abhishek Anand, Marketing Manager & Mr. Himavan Singh Dahiya, Brand Manager Classmate from the Marketing team at ITC’s ESPB have leveraged this multi layered engagement platform that deploys radio, television, Digital & 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.

Classmate believes in encouraging children to excel in the field of their choice and Classmate Spell Bee 2014 has served to build this thought on ground, inspiring school students to identify and showcase their spelling skills through the competition.

The National Champion of Classmate Spell Bee 2014 will win a grand prize of Rs. 2,00,000/- apart from the opportunity to witness the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 with a parent in Washington D.C., U.S.A. in an all expenses paid trip. The 4 semi finalists will win a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 each. The grand prize for the winner of Classmate Spell Bee and those for the semi-finalists have been specifically designed to help encourage and enable students to follow their hearts true calling.

The competition this year is presented by Classmate; 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. This is an initiative by Radio Mirchi.