India Social Case Challenge- edition 2
Category: Best Short-term campaign
Title: Tag a Friend Holi
Share a little about your organisation/ brand
Asian Paints is Asia’s third largest paint company, with a turnover of Rs 77.06 billion. The group operates around the world through its subsidiaries Berger International Limited, Apco Coatings, SCIB Paints and Taubmans.
Indigo Consulting is a marketing and technology agency providing measurable, result-oriented website development and online marketing solutions.
Executive Summary
Asian Paints were certain about strengthening their relationship with the online audience and hence required a social marketing campaign that would convey the core message of the Asian Paints brand, that of safe vibrant colours, and had the capacity to go viral. Their objective lay in creating a campaign that was self sustainable, viral and true to their brand persona of Asian Paints. Thus, Tag-A-Friend-Holi application was conceptualised.
The application allowed users to play holi with other users across the globe with a chance to win an iPod nano and also conveyed an eco friendly message pertaining to water conservation. The application successfully linked Asian Paints with safe colourful fun and engaged users with the brand ‘Asian Paints’ at every level. This creative strategy met the needs of creating a curiosity, engaging users in social interaction and maintaining an active buzz during the festive period of Holi.
Nature of the programme/ activity/ campaign
All of the above
Duration of the said programme/ activity/ campaign. Start date-end date
Feb 2010 – April 2010
Background
The client Asian Paints is India’s largest paints company, ranked among the top ten decorative coatings companies in the world, with an annual turnover of INR 66.80 billion. Asian Paints requested a social marketing campaign that would convey the core message of the Asian Paints brand, that of safe vibrant colours, and had the capacity to go viral.
Objectives
In order to increase brand awareness, Asian Paints were keen to take route of Social Media Marketing Background. With the then prevailing water crisis, we worked around the idea of a social media application that would engage users in a game of virtual Holi, thus saving gallons of water and still allowing them to celebrate with family and friends all over the globe. The aim was to create a campaign that was self-sustaining, viral, consistent and true to the brand promise of ‘Safe, Vibrant Colours for your spaces’
Strategy and Planning
- To take advantage of the festival of Holi, as it has traditionally been associated with colourful fun. This would make it an ideal occasion for people to connect the Asian Paints brand to wholesome fun and safe colours
- Imparting a message of deeper importance, conserving water at a time of a water shortage crisis, would associate Asian Paints with genuine concern for people and the environment
- We developed the Facebook application named “Tag a friend Holi” due to an increase in water crisis, we ensured that users had a fun, colourful Holi without wasting gallons of water
- The application allowed users to pick pictures of their friends and splash it with their favourite Holi colours that were mapped to selective Asian Paints colour palette and then publish the coloured picture on their friends wall
- An iPod Nano was offered to the user who tagged the most no. of friends
- The application was promoted on the Asian Paints website, mailers were sent out through afaqs database and a PPC campaign on Facebook was carried out.
Stakeholders
There were no particular stakeholders involved as the initiative’s basic purpose was to create some awareness and brand presence on a social forum. In saying so, it was targeted at everyone and anyone who had a presence on Facebook.
Choice of channel/s
We chose Facebook as the platform to run this viral campaign simply because of its reach to a large no of users who were not only suited as prospective customers but were also likely to engage in game applications on a social media forum.
Implementation
Tag-A-Friend Holi, an application on Facebook enabled users to play a virtual Holi. The application allowed participants to splash the profile pictures of their friends with a customizable tool of choice (pichkari, balloon or the hand) and a palette of colours provided by Asian Paints. Once the participant had finished splashing a friend’s picture, they had the option of saving and publishing the image to their profile and the victim’s wall and album. Since the medium used was a social networking site, the participants could aggressively wish a happy Holi to the dear and far they would never meet face-to-face during Holi. As an added incentive, the participant who played the most ie tag/colour the most number of friends, would win an iPod Nano.
Impact and Outcome
The fun factor of the app was its biggest selling point, the participants promoted it themselves on Facebook, though Indigo Consulting did encourage more to participate through email. For 8 days from 26th February to 5th March, 2010 the application added -
- 16,755 monthly active Facebook users
- 924 Facebook fans
- 334-the highest number of victims by 1 person
- 23,819 times the app was successfully played
- 1,59,914 page views
- 67,434 unique page views
The campaign met its objectives. Tag-A-Friend Holi beat competition from similar Holi themed applications on Facebook by over 10,000 monthly active users. The application went above and beyond the call to promote the Asian Paints brand thanks to its environmental message. It successfully linked Asian Paints with safe colourful fun. More importantly this virtual Holi helped conserve water and prevent the use of harmful dyes without ruining one of India’s most iconic festivals. Tag-A-Friend Holi also won the Social Network Standard of Excellence from the Web Marketing Association’s Web Award competition in 2010
Learnings
The application met the need of users separated by distance to play holi with family and friends across the globe via the social network forum. Conveyed the message of the Asian Paints brand message of safe and vibrant colours. Brought to light the eco friendly message involving water conservation. The incentive to win an iPod nano encouraged greater user participation.
What didn’t work was the longevity of the application was restricted due to the duration of the festival of Holi.
What next
Following the success of Asian Paints Tag-A-Friend-Holi Facebook application in 2010, the following year in 2011, we revised social media strategy to seamlessly connect Asian Paints’ association with colours and one of India’s most popular festivals – Holi, with the most anticipated sporting event of 2011, The Cricket World Cup tournament.
The application garnered close to 35,000 page views with more than 10,000 monthly active users within the first week. The application was played extensively amongst users from India, USA and UK, with the most active users hailing from the cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi.
Testimonials
http://uat.indigo.co.in/ap/facebook_app/home.html
External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with strategy
External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with implementation.
Suitable Title
Tag a Friend Holi
Fact Sheet
Name of Company: Asian Paints
Category: Consumer Products
Case Study submitted by: Alistair Rego
Website: http://www.asianpaints.com/
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