Flashback 2010: Most 'liked' digital campaigns

afaqs! spoke with few industry people to find out five digital campaigns that they 'liked' most and created buzz.

Though lot of brands launched their campaigns on digital media in 2010, yet some managed to create impact and generate buzz in the digital circles. Afaqs! spoke with few digital professionals in the country to find out five campaigns that they liked most and made lot of noise in the virtual world.

Virgin Mobile (Indianpangaleague.in)

The campaign highlighted Virgin's value proposition of STD at 20 paise. Virgin Mobile created more than 100 unique short films. Launched during IPL Season 3, these showcased young people taking digs (panga in Hindi) at each other's IPL team through a series of sporting quips across different cities and uploading it on Indianpangaleague.in and Youtube.com.

The campaign was conceptualised and executed by Bates141 and Mindshare. Recently, it won the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair award. Professionals believe that Virgin Mobile's IndianPangaLeague.in campaign was a first-of-its-kind large-scale initiative in the digital arena which presented the right, eclectic, mix of entertainment and fun to the 20-20 cricket series.

Anjali Hegde, chief executive officer, Reprise Media (India), thinks that it was indeed a very 'different' way of promoting a product by tugging at the passion chord of the youth. "The premise of the campaign was very close to a young man's heart - cricket and emotion. The 'close to reality' form of the films, the language and the emotions were a pleasant surprise for everyone and they soon joined the bandwagon taking 'pangas' and sharing the 'pangas'. What had always been a regular 'social currency' offline, soon became a cool online trend that allowed everyone to enjoy and participate in the banter," she adds.

Even Dinesh Swamy, associate creative director, Tribal DDB, feels that IndianPanga League videos had a right mix of cricket and regional humour, which made them receive more than one million hits. "Many people spend time browsing funny videos on social media and Virgin Mobile grabbed this opportunity and thus managed to get a lot of eyeballs," he points out. "The initiative showed the way and reaped the benefits of 'earned media' in the truest sense," says Vineet Gupta, managing partner, 22Feet, adding, "The lesson learned is that in ROI the 'I' is just as important as the 'R'."

Godrej (Gojiyo.com)

Gojiyo.com (created by Customer Centria) is Godrej's initiative to create a computer simulated space or virtual world, where internet users can sign up and create an avatar. Once registered, the members get a fixed amount of virtual money - measured in the form of 'Mio', the currency of GoJiyo - which members can use to purchase items such as clothes, caps, shoes and accessories in the virtual world.

Apart from shopping, members have the freedom to roam inside the virtual world, which is actually divided into various zones and sub-zones. For instance, a member can enter a zone named Solaris, which further consists of various sub-zones comprising the sea, a beach and a town area having cafés, showrooms, sports stadium, mazes, bridges and buildings.

Members are empowered to interact with each other through text and voice chat and also perform various activities such as skydiving, bungee jumping and rope walking. Interestingly, Godrej places its products at many locations inside this virtual world so as to let consumers experience them.

Why was it impactful? Hegde thinks that the concept of real life avatar and virtual life avatar was very effectively packaged. "While real life might bog us down with responsibilities and commitments, Gojiyo.com promises a world sans 'realities'. Experience was the mantra that was communicated and, which eventually, the users got to feel when they logged in," she says.

Nestlé (Facebook.com/knowyourneighbours.com)

A four-part TV commercial campaign was released by Nestlé starring Deepika Padukone and Purab Kohli. Each edition led to the next one like a romantic soap opera of sorts and aroused the consumers' sense of curiosity about what would happen next. Towards the end of the TVC the consumers were told 'To see what happens next log onto
Facebook.com/knowyourneighbours.com
'.

Sandip Maiti, Chief executive officer, Experience Commerce, finds it innovative. "Nestlé mixed two of the most primal Indian emotions together - romance and curiosity - interestingly and led people over to a very well-sustained and high-engagement Facebook page called Know Your Neighbours (with more than three lakh fans). A lot of people who saw the TVC, and were a part of Facebook, went over to the page to satisfy their curiosity and, in turn, engaged with the brand in an entertaining way."

Tata Aria (Buildadreamcar.com)

Tata Motors launched an online teaser ad campaign in September to build curiosity around the Tata Aria, which is a cross between an SUV and an MUV.

The automobile firm served banner ads titled 'Build a dream car' across various websites, including Zigwheels.com, Carwale.com, LinkedIn.com, Moneycontrol.com, as well as the Google content network.

When clicked, the banner ad redirected the user to a website, Buildadreamcar.com. The website was like an online workshop, where more than 500 car parts and accessories, which could be utilised to design and build (assemble) a virtual car from scratch were made available.

To develop the car, a five-stage process was to be followed. The user had to first register on the website and clear various stages. In the first stage, the user was provided with the basic car parts (such as engine, gear-box and tyres), which he/she had to fix accurately in the skeleton/chassis in order to move to the next stage.

In the later stages, the user was asked to bring together various interior and exterior parts of the vehicle, choose special accessories and finally select a colour for the car.

Once the building process was complete, the user was asked to write a review of the vehicle. The user who earned maximum points was awarded a free holiday trip. The site was created by digital agency Experience Commerce.

Namrata Balwani, chief operating officer, Media2Win, feels that the campaign was impactful.

Balwani says, "As an auto brand, Tata Motors used the digital medium, for the first time, to invite consumers to create their own dream car as a build-up to the Aria launch. The teaser contest created buzz on auto forums and blogs as well."

PepsiCo 7UP (Augmented Reality)

PepsiCo experimented with Augmented Reality advertising or ARvertising last year to engage youth with the 7Up brand in Andhra Pradesh (created by Hungama Digital).

For the uninitiated, augmented reality involves the addition of virtual elements to the real environment. Virtual elements could include computer-generated images, video clips or textual information pulled from the internet, while the real environment includes elements such as a printed picture, object, building or landscape.

To retrieve additional or 'virtual' material, the user would need an information 'reader' - such as a web camera connected to an internet-enabled computer or the camera of a GPRS-enabled mobile phone - which can identify the real object and then pull out 'virtual' information contextually related to the object.

In the case of 7Up, PepsiCo did a two-month campaign titled You Click, I (Allu Arjun) Dance. It created videos of Allu Arjun - a Tollywood actor, who is famous for his dancing skills and is also 7Up's brand ambassador in the South - performing seven different dance styles, which were hosted on the website, www.7Up.in.

A small-sized code, 'black and white picture or graphic image', was also developed, which the company printed on 600ml 7Up PET bottles, distributed in AP. This coded image was the virtual key or enabler for users to access the dance videos.

To access these, the online user was required to open the 7Up website and click a link - titled 'Now everyone can make Allu Arjun dance' - on the site's homepage.

It would then prompt the visitor to connect his computer with a web camera, select the dance-style video and point the camera to the coded image printed on the PET bottle. Once the 'black and white image' was decoded through the camera, which acted like a reader, the video started playing.

The videos could also be accessed on operating system based internet-enabled mobile phones.

For this, users were required to download a special software or application on their mobile phones. The user could then open the application, select the camera mode and point it to the image on the PET bottle, in order to play the videos.

Dinesh Swamy of Tribal DDB not only find it innovative but points out that, "Early birds always benefit if they hit the right chord. The company used emerging Augmented Reality technology interestingly to reach out to the youth."