Tuesday, March 5, 2013

"WHAT AN IDEA SIR JI!"

Innovation at Kumbh Mela

 Friends I'm eager to share this interesting idea with you:

Ogilvy Action tied up with 100 dhaba owners in the vicinity of Kumbh Mela and handed out more than 2.5 million chapattis stamped with Lifebuoy Message.


 
   
Rotis With a Message 

Did you wash your hands with Lifebuoy?' That was the message, in Hindi, stamped on over 2.5 million chapattis at the Maha Kumbh Mela , the largest congregation of human beings on the planet.

The unusual advertising medium certainly had pilgrims taking notice.

The campaign enabled Unilever, the company that makes the soap, to reach a large audience in a low-cost but effective manner.

Unilever has the advertising agency Ogilvy Action to thank for the brilliant advertising idea.

Vipul Salvi, the 34-year-old National Creative Director of Ogilvy Action, is the one of the people behind the campaign. He says the idea needed to be big and innovative. "The obvious options were to put up stalls and play games around health and hygiene, but that would have been too gimmicky," remarks Salvi.

Those ideas were rejected since the Maha Kumbh is a spiritual affair. The mandate, therefore, was to look at other ways of getting the consumer in touch with the brand.

The ad agency deliberated over the campaign for close to eight months and came up with over 200 ideas before zeroing in on the roti campaign.



                                                                                   Vipul Salvi
Rotis being stamped with the message

A heat stamp was specially made to make an impression on the chapattis.
The agency tied up with over 100 dhaba owners in the vicinity and handed out more than
2.5 million chapattis stamped with the Lifebuoy message.




The heat stamps used to make an impression on the chapattis
 
Lifebuoy achieved its aim of increasing awareness and getting people in touch with the brand.
And many of the millions at the Maha Kumbh Mela ate with cleaner hands.

 Thanks for reading it through. What do you think of this?

10 comments:

  1. what a lovely idea sirji ! BTW your link on indiblogger has some prob ...

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  2. Even the Kumbh has not been spared from being commercialised. but then if they are eating with germ free hands then no complaints :-)

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  3. HiTTT,
    You're right about the missing link.I'd to re post it because of some glitches in the first which i noticed after posting it on indivine.
    Thanks and welcome to the blog.

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  4. Hi Nandini,

    Thanks a lot.I consider it a fabulous 'do good' campaign for promoting and creating awareness about washing hands before eating. Imagine they could reach out to millions in one go. And it speaks volumes about our talented young people like you.

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  5. what is a heat stamp? i am sure they wouldn't have compromised on the quality while making an impression with it.

    but that actually is a very innovative way of creating brand awareness.

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  6. Yes Deb, I too felt concerned about the heat stamp making the rotis dry.Then I thought such a prestigious brand must have taken into account all these facts before devising the machine.
    This novel idea is undoubtedly, one of its kind.
    Thanks!

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  7. That's an awesome idea! Low cost and effective!!
    Thanks for sharing Uppal :)

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  8. Thanks for the comment Valli!

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