How The Quint and Motorola covered Bihar elections with a selfie stick!

Raghav Bahl's The Quint partnered with Motorola India for the 'Bihar Mobile 2015' campaign that gave smartphone owning citizens an opportunity to turn journalists with the Moto X Play and a selfie stick.

Taking its commitment to provide a tech-enabled and digitally driven content experience to the next level, Quintillion Media's mobile-focussed news venture, The Quint, in association with Motorola India, launched the 'Bihar Mobile 2015' campaign. Quintillion Media, a digital media company, was co-founded by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur last year.

As part of the campaign, four representatives of the content platform covered the Bihar elections with their Motorola smartphone, the Moto X Play, and a selfie stick. The online news portal reached out to citizen journalists, students, or anyone with a smartphone, to give them the opportunity to turn their mobile phones into a media outlet and become a reporter for The Quint.

"The idea", says The Quint CEO Ritu Kapur, "was born of instinct. Our team of multimedia commandos experimented with smartphones for the past eight months. We were impressed with the picture quality of the Moto X Play. Our tech team ensured that both video and audio quality were perfect."

The objective of this initiative was to give viewers a detailed, in-depth and real news consumption experience, otherwise impossible with the paraphernalia of a television unit. Using the new Moto X Play, The Quint representatives were able to capture events as and when they took place.

Elaborating on the concept, Kapur adds, "Unlike OB trucks and big cameras, the smartphone is a familiar, non-intimidating tool that allows people to open up and chat, not just about votes and politicians, but also their life situations."

To execute the campaign, Motorola, which co-branded and sponsored the initiative, gave reporters at The Quint, Moto X Play phones in order to test it out in the hinterland. The brand also hosted a '
Bihar Mobile 2015 Quiz
' on the Quint website, where participants could win Motorola smartphones.

Rachna Lather, marketing head, Motorola India, states, "While Moto X-Play's features brought an unparalleled experience, its 21 MP camera and colour-balancing flash ensured that broadcast quality images and videos were shot in real time. The 3630 mAH battery with 30-hours of power, offered a non-stop communication channel."

Raghav Bahl, who was founder and managing director of the Network18 Group until its takeover by the Reliance Group, ventured into the digital news domain by launching Quintillion Media as a pure play digital media company. The Quint is Quintillion Media's first venture in the mobile space in India. The portal stands for 'difficult news made easy', and offers both original and wire-sourced content.

In June this year, Da Vinci Media, in order to launch its educational television channel Da Vinci Learning in India, announced a 50:50 joint venture with The Quint. Besides The Quint, Quintillion Media has the San Francisco-based digital publishing and analytics service Quintype.