Roti Reminder a hit for Lifebuoy during Kumbh

At the Kumbh, where all big marketers are vying to sell their products and boost their brands, Hindustan Unilever Limitedpromotes Lifebuoy soap through rotis in an innovative way. The countrys largest consumer products firm, along with creative agency Ogilvy, has partnered more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the mela site to serve rotis that are stamped with Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya? (Have you washed your hand with Lifebuoy?) The Roti Reminder gets consumers attention at the exact time when hand washing is critical, Sudhir Sitapati, general manager, skin cleansing, at HUL said. The company has made special heat stamps to make an impression of its message on rotis and hired 100 promoters to stand in 100 kitchens across the mela. The campaign started on February 1 and will run for 30 days. The company hopes to put the hand wash reminder on 2.5 million rotis. The Mahakumbh provides a unique opportunity to communicate this message to a large, predominantly small-town and rural population, Sitapati says. In effect, this simple, clutter-breaking idea will help us reach out to a massive audience, at a fraction of the cost.

Maha Kumbh! Maha Opportunity!

From the lens of an advertiser MahaKumbh Mela is one of its kind opportunity. This year we witnessed innovative interjection coupled with the regular outdoor campaigns as the new flavor of advertising at Kumbh.
The Kumbh Mela this year expected a congregation of more than 100 million people. From a branding angle, this provided the best visibility opportunity for any brand.It is for this reason we decided to associate ourselves with the Kumbh Mela. After all, this was indeed a huge opportunity and everyone wanted to jump in, highlights Anuradha Aggarwal, Sr.VP Brand Communication, Vodafone. This perspective of Anuradha is an apt opener to decoding opportunity at Kumbh.It is the sheer number that makes it a must exploit opportunity.A total of 100 brands participated this year including local and national.Every brand this year, took the holy dip using OOH to its fullest and paring it with intriguing experiential and activation events.

So what is it that makes melas such as this a major marketing venue apa rt from the number? For rural marketing, places like melas, mandies, haats and etc are the conversation points where you can intercept with the audience. These are same like mall branding, exhibitions happening in urban areas. Each congregation point has a different set of audience like in mandies you will get farmers, in haats you will get mix of audience like weekly buyers and if you look at melas, it has got mix of audience for different purpose like Maha Kumbh was a religious mela, says Sanjay Kaul, CEO, Impact Communication. While every brand wanted to take the jump, what was the kind of briefs and expectations did specialist agencies receive for making a mark at the Kumbh? Sharing his views on the same, Samir Gupte, President, Ogilvy Action says, The brief was different across brands. But we took a stance. We knew that many brands would want to get the attention of the people at Mahakumbh. There is already a clutter in terms of direction signages, local shop advertising, religious messages, banners posters, hoardings etc, multiple messages from multiple brand will add to these clutter. How do we get out of this clutter and stand out. How do we do s omething with the brands that is far more memorable than the 1000s of banners, posters stalls and hoardings that everyone else was putting up. Battle of the brands Most of the brands struggle for the mind space and eye balls. While the mela authorities only provided 30% of space for branding purpose, the challenge was to strategize campaigns to make the brand visible and relevant.

Sharing a one of their strategies Sanjay says, We had tied up with the traffic department; where we did co branding on the police booth and we put all those brands that had co-relevance with them. Also through this, brands were seemed like facilitators. We tied up with jal board for our brand TATA Swatch, that is how they made service to the community and brand also got the visibility.. Adding to this, Samir says, In my mind, the only strategy was to look at other touch points beyond the place where people were taking a dip. People visiting Kumbh have a single-minded focus of taking a dip. Once they have taken a dip, they go for shopping, looking around, eating, looking for entertainment and doing other things. They are in a relaxed mood here and that is when brands should target these people. More importantly, while static messaging helps, due to high clutter one has to look at interactive activities where one can engage with the people. Campaigns at Kumbh Drawing inspiration from the insight that the rural population of India love cinema and entertainment; Vodafone decided to turn a regular stall into a cinema hall. They also handed out free passes to show. The brand decided to entertain them, with a film about the Kumbh and also included some easy to understand information about two Vodafone service numbers - 121 (Made for you offers) and 123 (Information on VAS content like devotional songs, national news, sports, Bollywood updates). The response to this activity has been phenomenal with long lines of customers waiting to engage with our brand at the VF enclosure. We engaged with at least a 1000 Vodafone customers on a daily basis through this activation, says Anuradha.

Sharing what Emami as a brand made of Kumbh Mela, N. Krishna Mohan, CEO Sales, Supply Chain & Human Capital, Emami Ltd. say, Kumbh Mela is a high density event. Hence it has also proved quite cost effective to reach out to our TG at a go. Since it is Kumbh Mela, the consumers also expect a lot of hype from all quarters especially in the mode of attractive discount offers and free gifts from various brands. Its basically a win -win situation for both the companies and the customers. Emami conducted intensive marketing activation for two of their power brands Boroplus Antiseptic Cream and Navratna Range (Oil & Talc) to scale up their visibility at this years Kumbh Mela. Both the brands provided exciting offers to the pilgrims and tourists congregating during the Kumbh Mela. Coupled with other forms of marketing activations like Navratnas massage parlours and BPACs talent hunt zones, all our OOH communication proved to be very effective. Navratna scaled up its visibility in and around Kumbh Mela via wall painting, cut outs, boat painting, etc. We also introduced lambumen (stilt -walkers) in and around the Mela area. Brand Navratna also did a Big Poster Campaign, under which we had put up about 10,000 huge posters measuring 2/3 at various locations in Allahabad and the Kumbh Mela area, Krishna Mohan explains. HULs Lifebuoy along with its key activation partner Ogilvy came up with a rather intriguing and innovative idea to promote washing hands before meals, and establish Lifebuoy as the ideal brand to do so. With Roti being a

staple food served with every Indian meal, the brand decided to use a special heat stamp with the message, Lifbuoy se haath dhoya kya? which was served to millions of MahaKumbh audience. Role of OOH The brand campaigns were surely huge in scale and innovative in their ways, where OOH as a medium played a vital role in the Kumbh endeavors. Advertisements were put up at all strategic locations like Railway stations, bus stands, outside eating joints etc. This helped us to emanate a sense that Vodafone as a brand is out to engage with its customers at the festival. The OOH along with the on-ground activation eventually created a meaningful engagement with the customer, shares Anuradha. Adding on the same lines, Krishna Mohan says, Since this Kumbh Mela continued for 55 days, OOH advertising got a tremendous scope of catching the consumers eyeballs and drumming the brand into their mind over a long period of time to a large section of captured audience.

For this event, brands were ready to impart a minimum budget of Rs 10 lakhs and onwards, where they typically used OOH vehicles including, hoardings, banners, posters, kiosks, stalls. But all of this wasnt bereft of challenges. The main focus is to evaluate how people would react to such a thing. Are we causing them inconvenience or adding value to their life? People come from far off places, will they remember seeing something new? We looked at all the aspects and planned our execution. It took more than two months of preplanning before the Kumbh started, shares Samir. Adding to this, Sanjay says, Primarily mela administration was a challenge because their priority is to give services to pilgrims, not the advertising. So the challenge is to manure plans according to the rules and regulations. Getting an in depth perspective from brands and specialist agencies we also quizzed a media owner to know how Maha Kumbh benefited them. We own BQS, Traffic Police Booth and Billboards and during Kumbh there wa s 100% occupancy. Most of the brands took the property for 2 months i.e. during whole mela. There were not much formats available as mela authorities allotted only 30% space for branding. Otherwise places such as entry gates and police booths were available. Also LED lights were present but they were not allotted for advertising but they were used for authority purpose. Due to this, media available in rest of Allahabad got preference. The city is not big so all arterial routes, flyovers and chowks were occupied, Amit Aggarwal, Director, RD Outdoor Media Advertising says. With over 100 million people and 100 brands, Maha Kumbh was surely a Maha opportunity for Indian brands!

Service providers cashing in at Kumbh with special offers

With the ongoing Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad attracting millions of pilgrims and tourists, the mobile phone companies have also been quick to cash in on the mega event. The mobile operators have launched special plans around the Maha Kumbh to offer value added services to their subscribers. Aircel has launched a special plan in Uttar Pradesh (East) circle to offer low tariffs and constant connectivity. Valid for 30 days, the special tariff voucher of Rs 161 provides free 30,000 seconds of local or national talk time. Another voucher of Rs 26 offers STD calls at 30 paise per minute. Besides, the company had installed 30 exclusive cell sites in the Kumbh Mela area for better connectivity and voice quality, Aircel regional head (central) Arvind Singh Shekhawat told.

Meanwhile, Vodafone has launched a new value added service Vodafone Astrology Subscription Pack, which provides details on the significance of the Kumbh with key dates, reports a business daily. Vodafone customers could subscribe to the service by dialing toll free number. The service comes for Rs 30 valid for 30 days. The pack gives updates on astrology, significance of the holy dips, important dates during this years event and the ritualistic meaning of each date and day, Vodafone UP (E) business head Ravi Santhanam said. However, Shekhawat has said that there had not been any significant upsurge in revenues owing to the Kumbh so far.

HUL's Lifebuoy on Roti at Kumbh Mela - Yuck!

Hindustan Unilevel, India's largest consumer products firm, along with Ogilvy, has partnered with more than 100 dhabas and hotels at the Kumbh mela site to serve rotis that are stamped with "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?"

Economic Times reports that the company has made special heat stamps to make an impression of its message on rotis and hired 100 promoters to stand in 100 kitchens across the mela.

The campaign started on February 1 and will run for 30 days. The company hopes to put the hand wash reminder on 2.5 million rotis.

The campaign surely has grabbed a lot of eyeballs and a lot of positive word of mouth on the internet. The highly positive online sentiment depicts that netizens have appreciated and embraced this creative idea. But is it great? I don't think so! Imagine a soap's name appearing on the food you eat. It is if not ridiculous completely abhorrent. From a pure marketing perspective why would you like to remind a person who is about to eat something which is kept

in the toilet and completely unrelated to eating. A toothpaste advising you to rinse your mouth after eating is ok since it is somehow related to internal use and not external use. Imagine the feelings aroused by Lifebuoy, considered a stinky soap (earlier) reaching onto our rotis. It's like the Harpic ad (cleaning toilets) being shown when you are at the dinner table watching TV.
Lifebuoy sends out 'branded' chapatis
The soap brand from Hindustan Unilever has come up with an innovative campaign at the Kumbh Mela, where it is distributing stamped chapattis to people with the message, 'Did you wash your hands before beginning your meal'.
The Purna Kumbh gets lakhs of visitors and is a tempting opportunity for brand promotion. Lifebuoy, the soap brand from Hindustan Unilever, has tied up with local eateries to give out chapatis that are marked with the message, 'Did you wash hands with Lifebuoy?'

The campaign, designed by OgilvyAction India, delivers the message through the medium of chapatis, using a heating stamp to mark the words onto the chapati and serve it with the orders placed for food. The brand has tied up with more than 100 local dhabas and restaurants.. For every order, the first chapati served carries the branded message and makes an instant connection. It has also placed the soap in the wash rooms of all these eateries. After several months of research, Ogilvy developed its own heating stamp that puts the impression on the chapati after it is completely baked. To ensure that the chapati is completely edible, there is no ink involved; the message is marked with a slight heating of the stamp. About 100 promoters have been placed in the kitchens of these eateries and stamp the message on to the chapatis. The brand plans to send out 2.5 million fresh chapatis with the message. The cost of stamping a roti works out to much less than a rupee.

Vipul Salvi, national creative director, OgilvyAction, says, "Chapati forms the staple food so it was an ideal medium for us to reach people through it. Also, the brief was to make people aware of the importance of washing their hands before beginning to eat." Sudhir Sitapati, general manager, skin cleansing, Hindustan Unilever, says, "The brief to OgilvyAction was to leverage the scale of Kumbh Mela and drive awareness regarding the cause of hand washing in a clutterbreaking and relevant manner." He adds that the key objective of the campaign was to spread awareness about the importance of hand washing with soap, especially before having food since this is a simple but effective action to help prevent transmission of germs and diseases.

The campaign began on January 31 and will be on for a month.

Samir Gupte, president, OgilvyAction, says, "We are catering to all kinds of audiences in the Kumbh, be it the ones who come and go or those who stay there for the entire period of the Kumbh." To complete the loop after the message is served, the brand has placed several posters and hoardings across Allahabad to spread awareness on washing hands. FMCG brand Hindustan Unilever has a heritage of over 75 years in India. It has more than 35 brands spanning 20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and water purifiers. OgilvyAction is the global brand activation network of Ogilvy & Mather. It delivers a broad range of services including experiential marketing, shopper marketing, trade marketing and promotional services. It works with several big clients and has 82 offices across 55 countries.