Coke spreads happiness on mobile

With a new tagline, 'Khushiyo ka Sangam', Coke has tied up with mobile video service NexGTV to run the campaign during the broadcast of Kumbh Mela ceremonies.

Coca-Cola, which recently launched its 'Crazy for Happiness' TV campaign, has extended the same on mobile TV with a new tagline, 'Khushiyo ka Sangam'. The brand has tied up with DigiVive's NexGTV, a mobile application that provides access to live TV channels and video on demand on handsets and the campaign will run during the special broadcast of Kumbh Mela ceremonies on NexGTV.

For the Kumbh broadcast, NexGTV has launched a dedicated channel with Coke as its main sponsor. For this campaign, besides clickable pre-roll video ads, NexGTV has come up with a preview screen branding for Coca-Cola.

Clicking on the pre-roll ad takes the consumer to Coke's 'Open Happiness' website. With this campaign, Coke expects to garner one million views on the platform.

DigiVive's NexGTV claims to have been downloaded by around eight million users across mobile platforms that include Symbian, Android, BlackBerry and iOS. Online video advertising network Vdopia monetises all NexGTV videos on mobile and the firm has so far partnered with brands like Microsoft, Sandisk, Apollo tyres, Samsung, Hitachi and many more.

Jaskirat Singh Gill, vice-president, marketing, DigiVive tells afaqs! that Coke wanted to extend the happiness campaign on mobile and align it with Kumbh Sangam. Hence, it was named 'Khushiyo ka Sangam'.

"The content of Maha Kumbh jelled well with Coke's happiness message and hence it associated with us for the channel in two levels, which include the pre-roll video ads and the preview screen branding," Gill adds.

Preetesh Chouhan, vice-president, APAC, Vdopia, says that especially for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, the communication is always based on a message. "In this case also, the message was happiness and it went well with the essence of Kumbh Mela. For Coke, here the pure RoI would be the reach and visibility gained through this medium, as it is very close to TV. Any smart brand would want to engage with audiences on such platforms," he adds.

Gill claims that the NexGTV platform is easily available to the masses in Tier II and Tier III cities, along with metropolitan cities and is highly consumed by them. "Coke as a brand would definitely want to cash in on such audiences," he says.

Chouhan adds that no separate creative is required for mobile streaming, and once a video of the ad is submitted, DigiVive and Vdopia jointly collaborate to make the video 2G and 3G compatible, and reduce the weight of the video to ensure seamless streaming on mobile.

As per Nielsen data for December 2012, NexGTV leads the mobile TV space with nearly 7 out of 10 mobile TV users in India using the service. According to Gill, NexGTV wants to reach 60 to 70 per cent of the Indian smartphone market and claims to have over 100 live TV channels ranging from news, entertainment, devotional, music and movies. The platform also provides video-on-demand services for movies and short films. It offers channels from the STAR bouquet, Sony bouquet, Aaj Tak, UTV movies and others as content partner.