Volume 2 Issue 2

THE SMARTEST & MOST CREATIVE USES OF INTERNET TOOLS BY BRANDS FOR SUCCESSFUL

MARKETING CAMPAIGNS IN 2012

2 12

―MARKETING GYAAN: STEALTH MARKETING & HOW IT WORKS

―KEEP UP‖ (MARKETING

UPDATES):

THE WINNERS AT THE 2012 EFFIE AWARDS, INDIA

INCLUDES: ‘CONUNDRUM‘— the monthly quiz on any thing marketing

MAGAZINE OF MARKETING BY THE SIMSREE MARKETING FORUM — BUZZ

“Some victories are Some victories are Some victories are achieved in the shadows, achieved in the shadows, achieved in the shadows, in silence, and without in silence, and without in silence, and without word or notice”word or notice”word or notice” STEALTH n. The act of mov-STEALTH n. The act of mov-STEALTH n. The act of mov-ing, proceeding or acting in a ing, proceeding or acting in a ing, proceeding or acting in a covert way; The quality of be-covert way; The quality of be-covert way; The quality of be-ing furtive or covert ing furtive or covert ing furtive or covert

Stealth Marketing

S tealth Marketing, also known as undercover mar-keting, is an aspect of marketing in which an audi-

ence is not aware that they are being marketed to.

T o use a parallel, if the marketing industry was for example, the military, the stealth marketers would

be the covert ops, secret agents, spies.

S tealth marketing tactics are meant to market to one’s subconscious. The objective is to make someone

feel that they need or want something, without actually going out and saying ‘buy this, our product is great, or check this out’. Stealth marketing uses intricacies and subtleties to lightly hammer a message into your mind.

Y ou are standing at the Statue of Liberty; a guy comes to you, and asks whether you can take his

picture with the big stone monument. You say yes, the guy hands you his digital camera, goes away and poses with the statue, you click the picture. You see the pic-ture on the small LCD screen and admire the quality of the picture. The guy then comes to you and shows you the different modes in the camera and asks you to click a picture in the Sepia mode.

Y ou are now curious: you now start asking the guy what different modes are available, what is the

price of the camera and other features of the camera.

W hat happened just now was that you just experi-enced marketing in the stealth mode. You were

unaware of the fact that the guy was one of the 60 ac-tors who were deployed by Sony Ericsson to market their cameras .

O ne common example is product placement in mov-ies, and another would be when sports figures are

required to wear gear from certain companies when they’re in public. Some companies hire people to join message boards and make posts about their products. These people may make other posts on the board about varying subjects and seem to be regular members. A common version of stealth marketing used online is fake news articles or reviews.

STEALTH MARKETING IN MOVIES Stealth Marketing is used all throughout main stream media. In the past, one of the first uses of stealth marketing in media was cigarette companies. Ciga-rettes were used by many A-list, high profile actors and celebrities to gain the mass appeal of the product. In most movies you would see an actor puffing on a cigarette as if it were the classy chic thing to do. This got so out of hand that the government eventually banned cigarette ads on billboards and other media.

5 INGENIOUS

DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS

OF 2012

2012 saw a flurry of innovative and exciting digital marketing campaigns which

reached out not only to the FACEBOOK & TWITTER generation, but also saw crea-

tivity in utilizing other tools such as blogs, Youtube and dedicated websites/microsites.

There were integrated campaigns focussing on current topics and even social causes.

From Shampoos to Savings and Potato chips to Book launches, everybody jumped on

the internet/social media campaign bandwagon and reaped generous rewards.

ONCE UPON A VESPA - PIAGGIO The campaign was conceptualized and designed by

OgilvyOne Worldwide in partnership with Meridian

communications. The iconic Italian moped is a

largely unknown brand in India and the campaign

was launched to educate Indians about the rich

history & legacy of the Vespa. The campaign made

the most of Facebook’s timeline feature with a year-

wise unfolding of the ‘Vespa story’. The ‘Once

Upon A Vespa’ contest was a test of the brand’s

origins, impact & features wherein the answers were

hidden in the FB timeline. The microsite too was

highly interactive with 8 sections, displayed on the

Vespa artwork, related to the various aspects of the

brand (e.g. handle area= Vespa origins).

MAKE HELL COOL – FASTRACK A short-lived campaign, the theme revolved around the Mayan

Doomsday Prophecy and involved intensive internet marketing

along with TV ads. Beginning a week prior to 21/12, it had a dedi-

cated website, complete with a background score of ‘Stairway to

Hell’ and a timer with the countdown. The campaign was created

for the limited edition of Fastrack ’End of The World’ gear, specifi-

cally created & carrying 21.12.12 date on them.

‗SAVE WITH SUBBU‘ –

KOTAK MAHINDRA

BANK:

Users co-authored a ‘Smart

Savings Book’ along with the

brand mascot, Subbu, by

sharing their saving tips

through Facebook or Twitter.

OTHER INNOVATIVE

CAMPAIGNS

‘FOOD HOUSIE‘ –

FAASO‘s: Online Housie game with Coupons

as prizes

‘

‘DOVE HAIRFALL RESCUE DIARY‘ - HUL: Sharing experiences through videos

& blogposts and also included online

quizzes

THE STRAIGHT HAIR EXPERIMENT – SUNSILK, UNILEVER Launched during the season of winter chills and dry frizzy hair,

Sunsilk is involving bloggers and its Facebook community with the

idea of sourcing crazy hair straightening ideas with a blogging con-

test. It has invited bloggers to share their craziest, wackiest, wildest

experimental idea to get the perfect straight hair. In return, there are

exciting prizes to be won. Besides, there is a cool incentive for

every blogger in the form of a gift hamper which has the solution to

perfect straight hair. The experiment was a great launch platform

for its recently revealed hair straightening product.

‘DRIVE WITH MTV‘ – TATA NANO: India’s first 21 day social road

trip where 4 teams had to under-

take a road trip of 2500 kms in 21

days, armed with a Tata Nano

and Rs. 50K each. Each team had

a social media engagement score

based on the likes, comments,

video views, etc. accumulated by

posting content on social media

sites.

‗BRAND NEW DAY‘ –

SOCIETY TEA: The campaign

invited four people to do new

things each day in the course of 10

days and blog about their activities.

OTHER CAMPAIGNS

SHOBHA DEY‘s ‗SETHJI‘ – PENGUIN INDIA The ‘Who is Sethji’ was an innovative storytelling campaign

designed by the publishers. During the pre-launch phase, Seth Ji

created social media profiles on popular social networks like

Facebook and Twitter sharing sneak-peaks about the book’s

characters. Pseudo-sting operations’ videos posted on Youtube

and later on a blog was launched that revealed shocking secrets

about the characters.

TWEET-A-TAB – RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS Everybody loves a treasure hunt, especially when the prize

at the heart of the maze is a brand new 3G Tab. The tweet-a-

tab campaign started by Reliance Comm to launch its V9A

tablet was a beautiful integration of Facebook, Twitter and

Google Maps to create a one-of-a-kind engagement through

social media. The 5days-5cities campaign prompted fans to

to locate the tab in a Google Map that zooms in with the

growing number of tweets. The location was in a zoomed-

out Google map of the city, which kept zooming in, along

with the rise in tweets. The tablet location was finally re-

vealed when the zoom on the Google Map was at 100%.

‗TIME TO CHANGE‘ – STAYFREE: ‘Be the voice of

change’ blogging contest asked

bloggers to share what they would

want to change around them. An

app was created on FB called

‘Bring down the wall of irritation’

made up of issues that are irritat-

ing – from child labour, eve teas-

ing to corruption .

‗ULTRABOOK RACE‘ – INTEL: Intel offered four

challengers from across the world

a chance to go on an adventurous

journey all by themselves and com-

pete with each other in real time,

in a range of tasks with the help of

their Ultrabook and social net-

works.

2012 Effie Awards

The 2012 Effie Award ceremony

was held at The Turf Club, Mumbai on

4th December. The Effie Awards (India) are organised by

The Advertising Club (erstwhile Ad Club Bombay). The entries

were judged by 124 experts, of whom 68 were from the client side

of the table.

Ogilvy and Mather emerged as the Agency of the year winning

24 awards across various categories, including the prestigious

Grand EFFIE award of the year (280 points). It was Ogilvy's Kuch

Meetha Ho Jaye campaign (Milk growth story from 2005-12) for

Cadbury Dairy Milk that pulled in the Grand Effie for the agency

this time. Also, the agency's 'The Photographs Case' campaign for

Fox Crime helped it win the Lenovo Tech-Doers Award, while

'Managing a Billion Expectations' campaign for Satyameva Jayate

did the trick when it came to the Marico Uncommon Sense Award

(both part of the Effies). The Client of the year award went to Cad-

bury India, same as last year.

McCann Worldgroup followed with 65 points and Lowe Lintas

and Partners followed with 60 points. Taproot India bagged three

Gold EFFIEs for its ‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai’ campaign and

achieved a grand total of 45 points. Following Taproot was Leo

Burnett .

The campaigns that achieved Gold medals were Madhya Pradesh

Tourism - Incredible India, Asian Paints Apex – Yeh Badhiya Hai,

Fevicol - The ultimate bond-20 years and still growing strong, Sat-

yamev Jayate - Managing a billion expectations, Fox Crime – The

photograph’s case, Vodafone - Drive into the big league, and The

Hindu – Undumb India.

2012 GLOBAL WINNERS

The 2012 Global Effie

Awards were presented at

the 44th annual Effie gala on

May 23, 2012.

The Gold Global Effie went

to Nike's "Write The Future"

campaign, created by

Wieden + Kennedy. The Sil-

ver Effie was presented to

Grey Worldwide for P&G's

Febreze/Ambi Pur "Breathe

Happy Global Campaign",

while the "Superfast Hand-

wash" campaign by Lowe

Lintas and Partners India for

Unilever's Lifebuoy hand-

wash, took home a Bronze

trophy from the 2012 Global

Effie Awards Gala.

CONUN-

1. Guess the business transaction.

2. One of the most bizarre brand extensions of a toothpaste brand which flopped. Name the

brand and product.

3. Connect the four pictures.

ANSWERS TO

PREV. ISSUE QUESTIONS:

A) ZANDU BALM

B) DHARAVI

4. Which is the longest-running Ad campaign in the world, stretching almost 39

years?