EMVIEs 2014: DDB gets two shortlists in experiential marketing category

DDB MudraMax created two campaigns revolving around a historic event and a cultural celebration for its clients.

Day Three of the case study round for the EMVIEs saw more agencies came forward with their presentations. Some of the categories that were looked at were Best Media Innovation for Branded Content, Print, and Events. DDB MudraMax had two presentations on the final day - both in the category of Best Media Innovation - Events/Experimental Marketing.

The first shortlist for DDB MudraMax came for 'The Last Telegram' - a campaign for Birla Sun Life Insurance. In 2013, the Government decided that the telegram system had become defunct, and would have to be closed down. DDB MudraMax saw a huge opportunity in this to speak to their audience about retirement plans they offer.

The challenge for MudraMax was that Birla Sun Life targeted the HNIs who were comfortable in their life and did not want to talk or plan for their retirement. At the same time, they hate being told anything. So how could MudraMax talk to them without unnerving them?

They decided that if they could not do the talking, the trusted telegram service would do it for them. On the last day of the telegram service, they sent 5,000 telegrams between 6 am to 10 pm. The telegrams had one single message, "The telegram retired today with no plans for the future. Do you have a plan for your future?"

In addition to warning the receivers to the risk of not having a plan for their future, this created a lot of buzz with the Last Telegram trending on Twitter. Its Facebook Page received 5.3 million followers in 48 hours. In more concrete results, 27 per cent of the 5,000 HNIs were converted to clients.

The second case study was of Sugarfree Modak, designed for Zydus' SugarFree Natura. The problem of diabetes has been on the rise in India. And yet SugarFree Natura, Zydus' sugar alternative witnessed low consumption. The common perception was that SugarFree is meant for diabetic people and it does not taste nice.

With Ganesh Chaturthi around the corner, MudraMax designed a way to challenge this perception. Working around the cultural insight that Indians will never refuse prasad, they tied up with the most popular pandals in Mumbai. The traditional sweet modak was replaced by modak made with SugarFree. These were distributed in branded packets.

With this campaign MudraMax managed to associate health with prasad. And at the same time, they made sure that each of the one lakh samples were consumed.