“Recognition is the reward” is truly what the  IndiaSocial™ Case Challenge, has become all about.

There were no cash rewards, no award ceremonies, no festivals… just pure rigour. From the submission form (not for the faint-hearted), to the  judging process that our esteemed panel of judges adopted, it has been about recognising the best social media work in India. We received a total of 37  submissions  of  social media work in India, of which 3 winners each under, Long-term initiatives and Short-term project categories have been selected.

There are several ‘non-winning’ entries that missed by a small margin; the quality of insights and work on these and many other was fantastic and we’d be sharing many of these with you over the next few days and weeks.

Here are the winners!

Long-term Initiatives

Position # 1

Pratham Books – Social Publishing Strategy at Pratham Books (Score – 8.1 : 10)

We’d like to think that we spread the love, so to speak, but realistically, we’re going to have to build a platform sometime soon to engage our community to co-create and do so much more to contribute to the cause of a book in every child’s hands…

Read case-study here.

Position # 2

Fastrack  – Fastrack Fans (Score 7.6 : 10)*

Our initiative is focused around the experience we deliver to the fans and both current and potential, driving them toward a better, and more personalized connection with the brand…

* One of the juges abstained citing conflict of interest.

Read case-study here.

Position # 3

Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd. – How the Cleartrip brand travels through social media (Score 7.3 : 10)

Cleartrip has upheld integrity and transparency as foundational values of our brand. Embracing these values has made it incredibly easy for the brand and the organization to have an active social media presence…

Read the case-study here.

Short-term Projects

Position #1

Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge (Score 7.0 : 10)

Consumer research reiterated that a loyal Cedia owner loved to get behind its wheels and just drive. So when it was time to launch the new Mitsubishi Cedia sports, HML wanted to reach out to their target audience and engage the travel fanatics in conversations around “a long drive”

Read the case-study here.

Position #2

Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation – The Heart Kids Tweetathon – And How Twitter Helps Save Lives (Score – 6.5 : 10)

…even in the midst of a deep recession, the 2010 event held on February 14th, brought in close to $5,000. As the Foundation’s cost to sponsor a child’s operation is around $1,250 the Tweetathon alone will be responsible for healing more than 10 little hearts!

Read case-study here.

Position #3

WWF – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour (Score 6.3 : 10)

Earth Hour is a global awareness programme by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. People participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily choose to switch off their lights of their homes and offices for one hour to make their stand against climate change.

Read the case-study here.

Final Shortlist

The entries that made it to the final phase in the case challenge were –

Long Term Initiative	Short Term Project
Fastrack	Channel V – Using Twitter to create buzz around the relaunch of Channel [V] in August 2009
Hard Rock Café	Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge – India’s Most Succesful Social Media Campaign.
MTV – NO. 1 Social Brand in India	UBL – Kingfisher Beer
MTV – Best use of Social media: Sony Ericsson MTV Roadies Battleground	Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation
Pratham Books	KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd – WidUS (Widget designing for University Students)
Breakthrough	WWF India – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour.
8 Day Academy
Celebrity – Priyanka Chopra
BLANK NOISE
BookMyShow
Tata Docomo
Nokia Email With Ease Campaign
Nokia “Search for N”
NASSCOM
Goanet
Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.

Evaluation Process

• Step 1 – All judges evaluated each entry and categorised them as ‘Keep’ or ‘Drop’
• Step 2 – For any entry which had votes between 2, 3, 4 or 5 ‘Keep’ votes, the judges who had voted for ‘keep’ stated, briefly, why they had voted so
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, against a case, it was dropped
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, for a case, it was promoted to Phase 3
  • Only the ones with 2, 3, 4 or keep 5 votes were voted upon again by all
  • A simple majority again decided who got promoted to Step 3

• Step 3 -  All the finalists got another detailed viewing by the judges, who then rated the case studies on a scale of 1-10
• Step 4 – Scores as given by all judges (if a judge was associated with a programme, he/ she would abstain and no scores would be granted), was averaged by the total number of judges who voted and winners selected

The evaluation process ensured that all the judges on the panel reviewed each case study and also evaluated over several phases.

Since the judges did not have access to one another’s scores prior to submission of their own scores, their own evaluation was independent and totally unbiased.

Judges Speak

The final results were arrived after a rigorous evaluation process by the panel. Here is what some of our judges had to say on the case challenge –

When it comes to effective social media usage, we often hear only about success stories in the US. There are wonderful, innovative usage in Indian companies and the IndiaSocial case study challenge has unearthed many such gems by crowdsourcing” – Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging

I hope this encourages social media marketers and agencies to craft strategies that are realistic, achievable, innovative and sustainable, those which effectively engage the community and deliver a delight” – Dina Mehta, Co-Founder & Head of Research, Mosoci

On behalf of allof us at IndiaSocial, I’d like to thank all our judges for putting in their time, effort and rigour to identify the best social media case studies in India. We’d also like to thank impact weekly and exchange4media.com, our partners for the initiative, for their generous support like always

Infact, pick up a copy of impact magazine’s latest issue (on stands tomorrow) which features all winners of the IndiaSocial Case Challenge – 1. Do share your thoughts and comments – it’s an Open invitation.

Cheers