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India Advertising 2.0 - Part 1
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We recently blogged about the SpillUrDil campaign by Cornetto and have decided to come out with an India Advertising 2.0 series, where we will review what traditional companies are doing in the online space. I’ll be adding my 2 cents here and there…t
In this post we’ll look at the online initiatives taken by HLL. Hindustan Lever is undoubtedly the largest FMCG co. out here in India.
We’ll take a look at what they have been doing exclusively for the Indian audience and not the global marketing activities of Unilever.
Axe:
Let us start it off with the legendary Axe. Every corny creative chaps dream brand to work with! The AXE Unlimited page has a decent amount of oomph in it. Though nothing to cause an extreme case of excessive salivation.
They got a contest going on there currently.
The site is engaging enough to catch your attention for a decent amount of time and might even convince you to register to know what is inside the Locker.
There’s also the Axe Effect page.
This site showcases some of Axe’s latest ads. Axe ads always flirt with the line of decency and at times even go over the top! I’m sure some of you might re-call the three some rolling ad of theirs!
The CloseUpUniverse campaign was done quite some time back.
They aimed at being the ‘Funkiest youth dating site’ and the idea wasn’t bad – with CloseUp symbolizing youth and freshness, but online dating is a completely different ball-game in our country.
The fairer sex commands only 30% of the online population in India (According to NRS and IAMAI), though I feel its more like 15-20%.
One of the primary secrets to running a successful dating site is to get the girls onboard! And that’s the main reason that SunsilkGangOfGirls is quite popular amidst the guys!
Which brings us to SunsilkGangOfGirls:
Undoubtedly the most talked about online campaign in recent times.
The site shouts out 5.5 Lakh + registrations and around 30,000 gangs created. But has this campaign really been successful?
Rahul Welde (GM Media, Hindustan Lever), talked about GoG during the Digital Marketing Conference, he mentioned how the whole campaign revolved around the digital medium. TV, press, radio and other mediums were used to compliment the online effort and that GangOfGirls has done wonders to the image of Sunsilk and that now it’s more of a youthful vibrant brand.
Well I am not sure if the sales have increased or not, but where the site really lost out was on user-engagement. Online forums with zero marketing spend and having around 30,000-1,00,000 registered users are commanding more page-views and seeing more active participation from its members that what GoG’s is seeing.
We went around South-Bombay and asked 20 girls (between the age group of 18-30) whether they had heard about GangOfGirls.com? 16 of them had! Pretty impressive.
How many of them were active or visited regularly? A depressing figure of zero.
How many of them understood what a blog was? 2.
Ok, I agree the sample size was too small – but it would have made a little more sense to use a bit of pull marketing than a complete push marketing initiative.
Let us look at another of their recent initiatives, GoG TV.
Brilliant concept, I love the TV commercial.
But I’d like to ask you, how many girls are comfortable with Video cameras or possess handy cams?
How many of them know how to transfer the video from the camera/phone on to the computer?
How many of them understand different formats? 3gp, Mpeg, avi etc?
How many of them will take actually the pains to shoot, transfer, edit and upload a video?
ContentSutra too had an interesting post on GoG some time back:
“The site seems to have expanded its offerings, and forged alliances—interestingly, there’s a Jobs section, powered by Monster India, Astrology in collaboration with Astrolife, relationship and fashion related content in collaboration with print publication New Woman….
HLL seems to be going all out for increasing its offerings at GoG: are they losing users to other social networking portals, or is this just a preemptive move to prevent an exodus? Also, who’s paying for that content - is it a platform for Monster, Astrolife and others to attempt to connect with users, or is HLL paying for it? If the former (though unlikely), then its interesting that what began as a brand building exercise for HLL has become a source of revenue. If the latter, it will become more and more expensive for HLL to keep increasing the offerings. I’ll be surprised if they stop advertising…”
Kudos to HLL though for trying out something really radical and new, but after investing so much time and money – they could have definitely executed the whole campaign in a much better way.
Clinic All Clear:
Pretty cool stuff! Awesome execution. Now here is a campaign which could have done with a little amount of push marketing and then the viral effect would have definitely kicked in.
You can choose to flirt with Vaani or Ruzeveh. Vaani looks pretty cute and they’ve done some real nice video work! I tried asking her for a bite in the office and almost got myself murdered!!!
Some other online initiatives by HLL:
They’ve got information about the various Lakme products, fashion tips and tricks, a medium to ask questions and even a salon finder!
Nothing spectacular. Some information about the product and they have a contest running.
Well another contest is running here. Something interesting is the ‘Surf Excel Stain Terminator’ – Which is a knowledge pool, created by housewives who have tried and tested methods that remove any kind of stain.
Well this is quite funny! The domain name expired yesterday.
Was pretty decent when I saw it day before.
Lux:
An interactive page; main feature is the Style Search - you can choose between being Cute, Hot, Trendy or Funky and it tells you the general tastes of such women!
Update:
Forgot to mention the X Appeal - Friday Night Fever campaign by Lux. Ads are currently being aired on TV.
Then there is the Cornetto – SpillUrDil campaign, which we recently covered. ADs are on TV, billboards, radio and just about everywhere!
We’ll be covering other such campaigns in our next series of India Advertising 2.0
WATConsult – Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy
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A lot of other MNCs are now waking up to the web. Colgate too has a site called maxfreshclub.com. They seem to be advertising on the web as well. It is only a matter of time when fmcgs increase their spends on internet marketing…
This phenomenon, esp the GOG has been intriguing me for some time…I started writing about it todayy, but then came upon your post, so linking to it instead
Lot of good stuff at this site, will return when I have more time…
Well we've reviewed ScootyGals.com and India Advertising 2.0 - Part 2 is coming soon too.
Stay tuned for that!
Thanks for the mention apu!