ITC Classmate: Unique talents

The digital campaign was done to build engagement with fans by leveraging Children's Day.

ITC Classmate, a brand of student stationery products, decided to bring out the child in everyone by making them share their unique talent along with their picture and get doodled this Children's Day. Conceptualised by social media agency Windchimes, the campaign was on for a week (November 12-19) and reached more than 3.2 lakh people on
Facebook
. The contest received more than 250 entries from fans and the brand gained 1500 fans organically. The brand page now has 107,918 fans on Facebook.

The objective behind the campaign was to position Classmate as a media savvy brand with a heart, and also bring out the brand insight that resonates with the target audience.

Speaking about the campaign's brief, Nimesh Shah, head, Windchimes Communications, says, "The brief was to build engagement for ITC Classmate with fans by leveraging Children's Day with the brand thought of 'Uniqueness'. All of us are different in our own way and we all have something unique about us that make us stand apart. The brand thought has always encouraged the audience to stand for what they are. We wanted to bring out the unique factor in a manner that is fun and cherished. So we asked users to send in their unique talent along with their picture to receive a personalised doodle."

As per Shah, ITC Classmate benefitted from the campaign as it was able to build affinity with its customers in keeping with its brand insights. Such activities personalise the brand and bring it closer to the users; that was the biggest gain for the brand.

The campaign was promoted on Facebook and Twitter. Once the users started getting their customised doodles, they shared it on their profiles, thereby making it extremely viral. Through these shares, the brand was inundated with more participants.

By letting people celebrate their uniqueness, Classmate has added the necessary personal touch to the digital campaign. For one, Facebook has the audience that the brand wants to communicate to and as a platform, it has encouraged to help communities which in turn bring in affinity and engagement for the brand.

"We knew that by making personalised doodles, people will want to show it to all and share it with their family and friends and we wanted to ride with that behaviour. Facebook turned out to be the best platform to achieve this objective," Shah says when asked why the agency decided on a Facebook campaign.

As of last year, ITC's stationery business was pegged at more than Rs 700 crore. The goal was to cross the Rs 1000 crore mark over the next 18 months. ITC made its foray into stationery by extending the brand Paperkraft to students with Classmate in 2003. Around 2007, ITC entered the writing and geometry instruments space and in 2010, launched art products with Classmate Colour Crew.