Category: Best use of a channel/platform

Title: Indian Panga League for Virgin Mobile India

Share a little about your organisation/ brand

‘Virgin Mobile‘ branded services are being offered to the Indian consumers by Tata Teleservices through a brand franchise with Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile India will provide Tata Teleservices with experience in designing, marketing and servicing of ‘Virgin Mobile‘ branded products for the youth segment.

Executive Summary

It was an advertising campaign with over 100 films created for the digital media exclusively; each film not exceeding 15 seconds. The 3 months old campaign was aimed to create fun, humor & wit surrounding the IPL frenzy. Indian Panga League was an initiative taken by Virgin Mobile & was an attempt to connect with the youth to show them the other side of Cricket.

By creating viral content online, Virgin Mobile was able to interact with a million cricket fans & leveraged it in the midst of IPL season three. At the end of the campaign, Indian Panga League garnered over six lakh views on YouTube in 30 days, over 3000 fans on Facebook, 150 Followers on Twitter. We began the campaign by marketing the videos on YouTube & then took it on to Twitter to make the video links viral following it with Facebook to create & maintain a loyal fan base. There was a contest running along with the campaign which further increased the participation level amongst its followers.

Nature of the programme/ activity/ campaign

Business to Consumer

Duration of the said programme/ activity/ campaign. Start date-end date

Start Date: 11th April, 2010 to 1st May, 2010

Background

Virgin Mobile had to promote their new promotion of STD @ 20 paise per minute. What better than an integration with the IPL theme as its about connecting within place in the whole of India.

Objectives

• Awareness of the Brand
• Positioning as a Youth Brand
• Awareness about the new scheme of 20 paise per minute on STD
• Maximizing the YouTube Views for the brand

Strategy and Planning

The Videos were seeded on YouTube and planned to be shared with the IPL buzz in mind. The shareability of the videos increased as it reached out to people.

Stakeholders

Customers (Existing & Prospective) were targeted to be informed about the new 20 paise per minute STD calling scheme

Choice of channel/s

YouTube was the prime focus as a platform. The title, tags and optimization was key for this campaign. Also Facebook & Twitter were used to plug the videos and run some contests to increase awareness.

Implementation

A team of 7 people for the same where one strategist, one account manager and five executives were held accountable. 100 videos were uploaded in batches according to the matches on the IPL

Impact and Outcome

YouTube got over 6,30,975 Total Views, 300+ subscribers. The same has been recorded for the official videos. The unofficial videos downloaded and uploaded by users had lacs of views as well.

Learnings

YouTube was a platform where the outreach and awareness program was executed. Facebook on the other had could have done better. IPL integration with the core communication with a subtle push worked for the brand.

What next

The programme is under maintenance mode and hopefully we will come back with a new version of Indian Panga League next IPL.

Testimonials

WATConsult has played an integral role in shaping our online campaign. With 6 lakh views on YouTube within a span of 1 month, the team has executed on the account & has inculcated a creative aspect with the use of tagging & commenting. We appreciate their approach towards an innovative direction for our brand- Ankush Manchanda

External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with strategy

Bates 141 – Video Ideation & Shooting BC Webwise- Website

External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with implementation.

NA

Suitable title

Indian Panga League for Virgin Mobile India

Fact Sheet

Name of Company: Virgin Mobile

Category: Telecom

Case Study submitted by: Sahil Shah

Website: http://www.virginmobile.in/

India Social Case Challenge- edition 2

Category: Best Short-term campaign

Title: Airtel ‘Real Fans’ Youtube Contest

Share a little about your organization/ brand

About Webchutney:  Webchutney works with leading companies in India by developing memorable experiences for brands to connect, engage and build sustained relationships with their consumers online. Our clients include Airtel, Microsoft, Unilever, Marico, Titan, Samsung, MasterCard, Barclays, Nokia and Canon among others. We work with them in areas of online advertising, website design, mobile marketing and social media.

Executive Summary

‘Real Fans’ was India’s first Youtube contest conceptualized for Airtel, which invited real, passionate fans to make cheering videos for their favorite team and upload them on the ACL T20 YouTube channel. It gave fans the platform to showcase their creativity, their talent, their passion, and their madness for the game.

The level of interaction achieved between the brand and its consumers was evident in the massive buzz generated and translated into other social shores, with fans sharing video links on Facebook, Orkut, and Twitter among others. The contest picked up maximum viral mileage with fans sharing this energetic experience through word-of-mouth and other mediums, with hundreds participating and many more voting for their friends/peers to win.  As a result, it became the Most Subscribed Youtube channel (all time & the month of September 2010) with 500,000+ channel views in just the first 30 days!

The campaign was successful in giving fans one thing they love the most, a platform to express their love, passion and cheer for their teams. It also effectively established Airtel as an enabler of talent and amplifier of passion for the youth in this country.

Nature of the programme/ activity/ campaign

Business to Consumer

Duration of the said programme/ activity/ campaign

Start date: August 2010

End Date: October 2010

Background

No other sport in India can claim the position of cricket in respect to its popularity and revenue generation. The Indian Premier League (IPL), since its inception, had ushered in a new era of club loyalty in Indian cricket fans. The fan frenzy over the 2010 edition of IPL and its massive success was testimony to the passion and intensity that only cricket had the privilege to enjoy in India. And with the recently concluded IPL, all eyes were on the Airtel Champions League T20 tournament in South Africa- hailed to be 5 times bigger than the Indian Premier League, featuring the 10 best domestic clubs of the world.

Three club teams from India were taking part in the ACL T20. Unlike the IPL, where loyalty among the millions of fans was divided into 8 teams, ACL brought the same millions of fans together rooting for the 3 Indian clubs.

ObjectivesOur objective was to leverage brand Airtel’s association with Champions League T20 and use the cricket card to engage and interact with the Target Audience in their natural online habitats during the ACL T20, 2010.

Strategy and Planning 

To unite the frenzy and passion of a billion strong nation sparked by the single common denominator – Cricket, we conceptualized an infectious, energetic experience for fans to express and celebrate themselves while rooting for their favourite teams to win in the form of a contest.

The initiative invited real, passionate fans to make cheering videos for their favorite team and upload them on the ACL T20 YouTube channel which was created for the contest. It gave fans the platform to showcase their creativity, their talent, their passion, and their madness for the game. The phenomenal response received for the contest also triggered an immediate connect with brand Airtel as an innovator in its category and set it apart from the competitive and overcrowded telecom VAS market in India, which was another aspect of conceptualizing the online (Youtube) competition.

The criterion for awarding the prizes was based on the number of views a video received over the duration of the contest. And the top 10 video owners with maximum views were flown to South Africa, with their partners, to cheer for their teams live at the venue!

Stakeholders

India being a billion-strong cricket-crazy nation, we were dealing with vast and un-exhaustive target audience.

Choice of channel/s

We chose to build and execute the creative interaction on one of the most popular and active video sharing networking site with 300,000 odd users in India – YouTube, to run this contest.

The confluence of cricket and YouTube, for the first time in India which was never heard of before, was bound to spell success for the contest.

Implementation

The idea behind the contest was simple: Provide an interactive online forum to millions of cricket fans in India to upload cheering videos of themselves or friends to showcase their enthusiasm for their favourite teams and use the power of their personal social networks online and offline to make those videos go viral by garnering support. This would generate buzz for the tournament as well as the brand, since the entire campaign was founded on user-generated content and their enthusiasm to spread the word across all corners to win and watch the tournament live in South Africa.

Creative Team:

• Senior Copywriter: Sattvik Mishra
• Audio Video Engineer: Akshay Raheja
• Creative Head: Gurbaksh Singh
• Client Servicing:
• Senior Account Executive: Himanshu Joshi
• Account Director: Anika Sharma

Impact and Outcome

The ‘Real Fans’ Youtube contest set many benchmarks since its launch. Starting off as India’s 1st YouTube contest page, the ACL T20 became the Most Subscribed channel (all time & the month of September) with 500,000+ channel views in the first 30 days.

The buzz also translated into other social shores, with fans sharing video links on Facebook and Twitter. The contest picked up maximum viral mileage with fans spreading the word through word-of-mouth and other mediums, with hundreds participating and many more voting for their friends/peers to win. The whole social arena was abuzz with the excitement surrounding the ACL T20 YouTube Contest.

The level of interaction the brand had with its consumers and the response thus generated can be seen in the massive number of video submissions we received- over 2500 video submissions.

The response of the contest received was a catalyst for taking the ACL T20 contest into its second phase, with 3 winners receiving prizes every week.

Learnings 

With the response received, it was clear that the confluence of cricket and YouTube, which had never been attempted before in India, was not just a challenge but a successful partnership to create buzz, spread the word and ideate an innovative branding strategy for Airtel as well as the event (tournament) using the power of social masses and media.

What next

The campaign is now over.

Testimonials

Won the Best Social Media Campaign Award in the Telecommunication category at international IAC (Internet Advertising Competition) 2011 awards.

External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with strategy

No, Offline agency involved with Real Fans was Rediffusion.

External Agencies: Any partners who helped you with implementation.

No

Suitable Title

Airtel ‘Real Fans’ Youtube Contest

Fact Sheet

Name of Company: Airtel

Category: Telecommunication

Case Study submitted by:

Website: http://www.airtel.in/

I remember my first class in Economics – “Evolution of money”.  The lecturer took us through the lugubrious story right from barter to paper money, while we were dozing off in the last benches of the classroom. I was reminded of this story today, when I sat reading about ‘mobile money’. Money has come a long way and changing face every day. For those of you who might not know, it is a pretty new concept in India. Mobile money was introduced in India as a pilot project in Pune in May, 2010. After the successful test, now the services are commercially available to all Yes Bank and Nokia customers wherein they can pay for shopping and bills directly from their Nokia mobile phones. Mobile marketing could potentially change because of this service.

Yes Bank received regulatory approvals from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to act as the custodian of funds for ‘mobile money services’. They have entered into a partnership with Obopay and Nokia, owing to their widespread retail network. Obopay has been a pioneering service provider for payments via mobile phones. Airtel Mobile Money Transfer existed but it served only as an extension of mChek.  Beam is another service, which had begun with the mobile money services and had begun recruiting rural youth as sales agents. Beam was essentially targeted at rural youth. However, Nokia’s agents would enjoy more trust and reach.  Eko is another such service which uses mobile technology to democratize financial services for the un-banked.

News source: Business Standard, Plugged.in

What could be the possible impact:

• Mobile money can be quite a game changer in the banking sector, mobile marketing and utility payment services. It is connecting the common man with banks. India has 600 million mobile subscribers and 46% of these mobile users don’t have a bank account. PC penetration as we all know is quite low in India.
• P2P (person to person) money transfer service will be embraced by the rural population at large. There is an existing service which allows immigrant workers to send money back home but charges an additional 2-5% of the total amount, for the services. A desire for cheaper service would be more than welcome. Micro-credit could largely benefit  from it.
• Mobile money services provide for two types of accounts on the basis of usage :-

1. “Easy pay” is for paying utility bills
2. “Easy Send” is what interests me. It allows me to send money to recipients who also have a mobile account. Money transfers would become extremely easy.

However, there could be a few bottlenecks in the successful implementation:

• Currently this service is only available at the Yes Bank. For pan-India operations they might have to tie-up with other bank gateways.  Alternately they would have to install the system at every store, which could prove to be a quite a task.
• RBI is seeking to plug in all the loopholes that might lead to scandals and scams.

This particular service currently is available only on Nokia handsets but would soon be made available on SMS, GPR and IVR and will not be limited to Nokia users which would make it seamless. It has the potential to connect all of us and could become a mass media for consumption. I am really keen to see how this would eventually grow beyond a particular network. Would keep you posted on the interesting developments about the concept.

Case studies featured :

1) TATA DOCOMO – A child of the social web

2) Nokia “Search for N”

In my last post I had reviewed the case studies submitted by Not-for-profit organizations; this post does a recap of the telecom & mobile sector. I am sharing two extremely insightful case studies submitted by TATA DOCOMO & Nokia -

TATA DOCOMO – A child of the social web

Objective of the campaign was to –

• Build consumer engagement
• Address and resolve complaints
• Crowd sourcing
• Build brand advocacy
• Micro communication

Stakeholders: Youth of India specifically 15-24 urban

Apertures used: Facebook, Twitter & Orkut.

Nokia “Search for N”

The Nokia N97 was the first touch device in the high end Nseries segment. It was positioned to make one’s internet experience personal through it’s customizable home screen that allowed one to select widgets of their own choice and create short cuts on the home screen itself for instant access. The KRAs were to:

1. Establish the category of personal internet and create excitement around widgets (since most people were not aware of what widgets are)
2. Reach out to the technology leaders and explorers and highlight benefits of N97
3. Communicate the seamless experience via Nokia’s Ovi Store on the N97. A high decibel Social Media campaign was kick started with a virtual treasure hunt called “Search for N.” The hunt was to find clues that were centered on various aspects of the N97 such as the personal home screen, widgets, QWERTY keypad etc and allowed us to familiarize consumers with the device.

Capitalized on the reach and popularity of the web editors and reach out to the tech and geeky community

Stakeholders: Technology leaders

Apertures used: Facebook, Twitter

Initiative included –

1. Identify the right web partners: Partner with sites and blogs having huge popularity and credibility amongst technology/mobile followers.
2. Create interesting content: Develop the hunt clues and questions in an innovative format that makes it a worthwhile experience for consumers
3. Deliver it through an interactive format: Design an interactive hunt for people to follow the clue and discover the answer, yet make it simple and interactive – maximize participation. Participate through Search for N Widget.
4. Make it compelling for consumers through 360 buzz: Reach out to consumers across social media touch points, create hype and excitement around Search for N, inform and invite a large number of people.

The web editors: Thinkdigit.com, Techtree.com, Fonearena.com, Digital Inspiration and Brajeshwar.com