Displaying items by tag: festival marketing

Last Saturday (10 Nov, 2012) I was quite amused when I saw #DilVsBill trending on Twitter. Dil (heart) vs. Bill sounded like the perfect hashtag reflecting the dilemma of every shopper. And with Diwali being round the corner, I wanted the story behind this. Browsing the tweets with the hashtag led me to a live webcast – it was fascinating to see fluffy white heart-shaped clouds fly out into the sky. Well, it was an interesting exercise to create ‘tweet clouds’ by Citibank to measure customer sentiments around Diwali shopping.

Diwali brings in a lot of expenditure in terms of new stuff for the house, family and gifts for relatives and friends, so we often tend to base our buying decisions on  the bill. But, Citibank plans to change this with its new EMI offerings on its credit cards at no extra cost. So, consumers could buy to their heart’s desire.

The campaign titled ‘Tweet a cloud, Dil Se’ went live at DLF Promenade in New Delhi and High street Phoenix in Mumbai on Saturday, just a day before Dhanteras. And, the online effect has seen the hashtag trending at the top on Saturday as well as the better part of Sunday.

Clouds made of helium in the shape of heart or rupee symbols were let out into the sky, based on the kind of tweets that dominated in the hashtag. People were encouraged to tweet about their Diwali shopping stories and tag them with #DilVsBill.

A specially created Twitter account ‘DilVsBill‘ spearheaded the entire tweet cloud momentum throwing in prizes like iPhone for the lucky ones too. In addition, online retailers like Yebhi, Snapdeal and Myntra also joined the conversations around #DilVsBill with prizes on offer. Citibank has partnered with 1700 merchants for the EMI privilege offer.

All in all, it’s an awesome campaign by a bank to promote its new EMI offerings. Judging by the tweets and trends, it seems to have made an impact and adding the online interaction to the offline activity made it even more exciting. Needless to say, most of the clouds in the livestream were only heart-shaped ones; I did see a ‘Shopping bag’ shaped cloud but certainly not any rupee shaped clouds!

Also, a quick Google search threw up this story about the creation of foam and helium clouds to create ad messages in the sky.

About the Author: Co-Founder and Blogger at Lighthouse Insights. A student of life, art and building relationships. Love to read just about anything and strongly believe that books make a beautiful world.

Reproduced with permission from the Lighthouse Blog

Festive season in India is big and not to be missed from a consumer targeting perspective. Brands will ramp up their spends with multichannel marketing strategy during this period. There’s simply lot of consumer spending going on during festivals/holiays and mobile is a key touch point to reach and activate consumers at almost every level of behavioral cycle from aiding awareness, engaging them to purchase/fulfillment journey as its with them at every single moment 

Call to action elements on mobile featuring an SMS keyword and short code where they can receive information or get instant call back making them listen to a voice portal providing information or engaging them can make festive themed traditional media actionable and savvy. Brands can get the word out about promotions, sales via SMS, voice, the mobile web and branded mobile apps, which can get integrated into all forms of advertising

Break the clutter

During festive period consumers are bombarded with lot of advertisements. So how can a brand secure the top of the mind real estate ahead of its competitors or alternatives?

The answer will range across consumer behaviours to trigger- from SMS alerts, giving a mCoupon on phone, gratifying them with packaged content (ringtones, songs, wall papers, tips etc.), sharing links with friends (creating a mobile viral), opening a Bluetooth etc.-incorporating mobile, local and targeted approach is what is necessary 

Mobile is unique and hence you can target your audience by demographic, contextual, behavioral, and even location based targeting. Location based targeting in unique and can be powerful link to point of sale purchase or gratification making a strong connect with consumers with the right offer at the right place

Store or product locators, discounts, shopping/wish lists, gift suggestions, product information or tips can be great mobile tactics to leverage or even simply adding a mobile call to action makes radio, print, outdoor and in-store media work harder and makes it more trackable. Mobile pay-per-click and pay-per-call advertising can be efficient ways to convert.

Walk that extra mile 

The main reason that marketers need to include mobile media at festive time is because that’s where the consumers are, on their phone checking prices on sites, Google, sending photos of a gift idea to their spouse or friends, talking about suggestions/recommendations on Twitter and Facebook, and checking in from stores on mobile social networks like Foursquare

“In many cases the consumers that spend the most time doing those activities are also the ones most likely to have more disposable income,” Also, consumers that engage with your brand on their mobile devices are more likely to have a favorable brand impression, and purchase intent

All of this combines to make mobile media a must for the holidays. Mobile advertising has proven to be able to drive brand consideration, intent to purchase or other relevant action.

Look cross channel

Like any other marketing medium, cross-promotions and a seamless transition for customers between the different channels is necessary. Site promotion codes should work on all channels, but having special mobile coupons to increase adoption should be encouraged and tried

In fact, many are predicting a noticeable increase in the use of mobile coupons this year. Consumers are starting to get more comfortable with using their mobile phones outside of calls and texting and will be willing to experiment with relevant mobile offers that provide a clear value exchange

“Geotargeted coupons and ads will have a much higher redemption rates than online versions, and can potentially make a non-shopper into a shopper by adding that extra incentive”. One of the leading retail brand used pin code methodology to identify the area and give relevant offers, which had high conversion rates

Also, since social and mobile typically trend close together, having a mobile site with share to social abilities and vice versa is an easy win. Brands can make a splash by thinking creatively about their brand and what the customer would want.

“The possibilities are endless. Lets get talking”

One97 can help you create a strategy for mobile promotion, loyalty or retention on mobile device and manage it for you

About the Author: Srinivas Mothey - With an experience of 10 years in creating successful businesses in the digital  media domain, Srini has had front row seats at various Internet media, mobile media and technology companies driving sales and operations. At One97 he spearheads the mobile marketing business providing solutions to brands and advertising agencies for driving marketing and sales programs