kuhipaat-brand-character for Protech - Protech Guru

Protech Guru: Use of a Brand Character to create consumer engagement.

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Introduction

Loyalty to a brand depends primarily on the consumer experience with the brand. Brand identity, which provides direction, purpose and meaning for a brand, is also linked to consumer experience and engagement.

Protech Group is a well known real estate brand in Assam and the Northeast of India. Kuhipaat was assigned the responsibilities for digital branding and marketing for the brand. The team of Kuhipaat has designed the website and the social media strategy for the brand.

Brand Problem

The team of Kuhipaat wanted to increase brand engagement for Protech Group in the digital space. Also, we wanted to increase page views for our website and our social media pages. In order to do the same, we thought of building a ‘Brand Character’ that interacts with the prospect customers on a regular basis, in a meaningful way.

Example

A great example is set by the Amul Brand. Likewise, Amul has created the character of a pleasantly plump girl in a polka dot dress with a big smile to promote Amul butter. As a result, the ‘utterly butterly girl’ has become a part of our lives as very real as any other person in our families.

Brand Character Strategy

The brand character to be designed had to fulfill the following objectives for the brand:

  1. The brand character has to be credible and trust worthy.
  2. It has to have reasons to interact with the customers consistently.
  3. Consumers need to see value in what the character has to say or offer.

The Kuhipaat team observed that consumers in general have a lot of questions regarding real estate and buying of properties. It is primarily because of the fact that home purchase is a once in a lifetime decision. Also, there were no credible websites that concentrated on the real estate problems and questions in Guwahati and the northeast of India. We arrived at a decision to fill that marketing and information gap by creating a brand character who answers questions about various aspects of real estate.

kuhipaat-brand-character for Protech - Protech Guru
OUR BRAND CHARACTER – PROTECH GURU

Hence, Protech Guru was designed as a 2D character who would help customers in taking decisions related to buying their homes. We designed the character to gain a brand image in the minds of customer when they remember about the Protech brand. It has to bring the brand to life representing the personality of the Protech brand in terms of visual identity.

The name of the brand character, ‘Protech Guru’ was meant to imply an expert, leader or a teacher. Protech Guru is the expert, who answers all the queries put forward by customers on real estate. Consequently, we have strategically defined the brand character by including the following elements into the character:

  1. A visiting card – to imply a professional of Protech Group
  2. A suitcase – to imply a experienced professional with a bag full of knowledge
  3. Formal dress with tie – to bring in maturity and formality to the character
  4. Eyeglasses – to make the character look intelligent.

Protech Guru also needed to have a defined space in the website and in the social media pages. It increases familiarity, popularity and credibility of the character. So we decided the following strategy:

  1. In the website, the FAQ page belongs to Protech Guru. He writes the FAQs. All the answers present in the FAQ page are written by him. On the FAQ page, there is a online form for visitors to ask questions to Protech Guru.
  2. On the social media pages, Protech Guru has the Thursday booked for him. Every Thursday, Protech Guru answers a question related to real estate on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages of Protech Group.

Website banner of FAQ page of ProtechGroup website
FAQ page Website Banner – Kuhipaat.

Conclusion

The main focus of the Kuhipaat team was to successfully create a brand character, promote it well and create brand and website engagement for our client, Protech Group. It gave us opportunity to create interesting content for the brand as well. As a result, the page views, and social media engagement of Protech increased, leading to successful conversion of website and Google ad leads.

What’s more, to our knowledge, Protech Guru is the first ever brand character built in Assam by a communication agency in Assam.

Kuhipaat is a digital marketing service provider with a focus on website design and development. We believe we can add significant value to our clients’ businesses through our website and online marketing strategies.

Contact us for a free consultancy by clicking here, or by writing to us at info@kuhipaat.in

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Brand Communications, Telecom & Cricket

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In 1993, when Shimona Rashi danced her way to the cricket pitch with the Cadbury Dairy Milk in her hand, the brand, Dairy Milk instantly became a household name. Ogilvy and Mather connected the product with the right sentiment of the Indian audience, Cricket. Over the years the brands have taken cricket as language to establish communication through Indian homes. Consequently from FMCG products to luxury goods all have played on the same Indian pitch, successfully hitting the gallery.

The economy is highly competitive with multiple brands producing similar goods. The companies are now using hammering technique to register the product in consumer minds. Cricket is one of their safest bet. Brands tie up with cricketing events as exclusive partners, title partners, network partners, beverage partner and the list is endless and innovative as well. It is all about demanding more airtime during television broadcast, and more ad spaces in the stadiums.

Communication Services connect through Cricket

The telecom sector is super active with cricket as their main advertising strategy to create instant reach. Thus connect and dig niche in India market through its cricket lovers. The telecom sponsored cricket tournaments had a huge kick-off with Vodafone deciding to get into IPL. Vodafone and IPL this year celebrate their marriage of a decade.

In the first IPL season, Vodafone brand campaign was titled ‘Hutch, Happy to help Pug’. In the second season of IPL, Ogilvy and Mather scripted the ‘ZooZoos’ for Vodafone. They were an immediate hit with the cricket following Indians. ‘ZooZoos’ soon ruled the internet with over 200 fan pages in social media and each developing a fan base of over two lakh fifty thousand fans. Today, Vodafone allocates 25-30% of its annual marketing budgeting specifically for cricketing tournaments.

communication

Airtel chose ICC T20 World Cup to talk about their spread of network into every corner of India. They featured the popular Airtel girl, Sasha Chetri in a series advertisement. Idea Cellular went to grab the title sponsorship of the India-Sri Lanka ODI series in 2008 and tri-series between India-Bangladesh-Sri Lanka in 2010. Both the cups were christened ‘Idea Cup’. In 2008 Abhishek Bachchan was enrolled as the brand ambassador to feature in the famed ‘Sirji’ ads with the tagline, ‘An Idea can change your life’.

A slightly smaller brand name, Aircel did not stay behind in nurturing the Indian cricket sentiment as well. It sponsored the Chennai Super Kings and got them flashed in their jerseys. It went ahead to get the Captain Cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni on board to promote the service.

Mobile Communication Language is Cricket

If the service providers are in a competitive race why would the mobile companies stay behind? Today battle is on between the latest entrants in the market – OPPO and VIVO.  In 2016, OPPO signed a deal with ICC to become the Offical Global Partner for mobile phone category. It was instantly rewarded during the T20 World Cup, and it grabbed a lucrative market share of 22.59% during that year. It was only last month that BCCI have signed a five year contract with OPPO as Official Sponsor of team India. Here is the detailed news report- 

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/sports/cricket/040517/bcci-oppo-launch-virat-kohli-led-team-indias-new-jersey-for-champions-trophy.html

On the other hand, VIVO has tied up to become the title sponsors of IPL for two seasons, ninth and tenth. VIVO bagged the title sponsorship rights after Pepsi decided to prematurely end their 5 year agreement. As a title sponsor  it gets exposure in all mediums of marketing be it print, television, radio, poster or digital.

Another big mobile phone player, Gionee has went on to replace the old Indian favourite Nokia on the IPL jerseys of Kolkata Knight Riders.

Every brand that has a marketing objective to reach the maximum number of Indian consumers at the minimum possible time, now follows the strategy of sponsoring cricket. Cricket is also a great medium to localise a brand to Indian sentiments. VIVO today is no longer a overtly Chinese brand in its appeal.

communication

Future of Cricket Communication

Although cricket sponsorships and its exorbitant costs in India have become unrealistic, yet the brands and the media agencies continue to consider it as the prime strategy to reach the maximum number of people. It has become a ‘Me Too’ campaign strategy for all the brands with big budgets.

As communications guys, we are keen to see how far this cricket fever would stretch. May be there are other advertising and media opportunities that everybody is overlooking because of the cricket fever.

Jio ‘Dhan Dhana Dhaned’ its way through IPL this season. Now let us wait and watch what new is in store for the telecom brands to establish communication connect in the coming Champions Trophy.

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Digital Marketing and Bollywood

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Digital Marketing in Films

With 1000 films produced annually, Bollywood is the world’s most prolific cinema industry. It is prolific even in its use of digital marketing. According to DI International Business Development, a consulting unit of Confederation of Danish Industry, Bollywood generated revenues of $3 billion in 2011. It has been growing 10% a year. If one closely observes the promotional and marketing strategies of the Bollywood films, dynamism is the only thing one will notice. Bollywood has adapted to the frequent changes in marketing strategies. It comes out as the premier species of the marketing evolution.

From the advent of transistors / radio, Bollywood has innovated to leverage media to the maximum. Even during those days, the promotional activities included on-air contests, interviews with film stars and music composers, selling out complementary movie tickets, options to meet the stars in person, etc. With the emergence of Television, Bollywood started using programs such as ‘Chitrahar’ to promote its films. The promotional activities remained the same, but the media tilted in favour of television. Especially with the advent and popularity of cable and satellite television.

In the same vigour, Bollywood has now adopted to the new media – Internet for its promotional activities.

The report card of Digital Marketing in films

According to the report of Internet and Mobile Association of India, there were 243 million internet users in the country. Today, we have 462 million Internet users, a 90% jump in 2 years. Around 81 per cent of the online Indian population, according to a report by Hungama Digital Media, engages in some kind of social interactivity on the web.

Inevitably, Bollywood had to take all possible steps and risks to utilise the media better than any other industry. The total marketing budgets of a Bollywood movie comprise almost 30-40 percent of the entire production cost. 20-30 percent of that is now being spent on digital marketing.

Bollywood understands that films have a low shelf life. Marketing therefore needs to be swift and wide. It understands that creating awareness alone is not enough. The masses need to engage and connect with the film, its plot and its stars. With Digital Marketing, Bollywood now promotes its movies right from the very inception of the movie. Promotion starts even before the shooting starts.

 

Content Marketing and Bollywood

Content Marketing in Movie Marketing

Content Marketing is a type of online marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs and social media posts). It may not explicitly promote a brand or a product. Content marketing is about digital stories to stimulate interest in the product. It is subtle. Content is placed in various websites by relevance and interests, and can penetrate deep into the minds of the target consumers.

Internet is a network of computers and mobiles that not only allow consumption of content, but also the independence to create and share content anywhere, anytime. Content strategy therefore intends to make content viral, share-able. It must initiate user generated content.

In 2008, when content marketing as a concept didn’t exist, Ghajini, had made one official website, and two additional websites. It was created to start a content spiral. It wanted to increase its reach and raise curiosity about its content. Along with the websites, it released a lot of viral content on its FB and YouTube page. All these created a previously unseen hype for the movie. Ghajini holds the notable distinction of being the first movie to break the 1 billion (US$17 million) barrier in Bollywood.

Dabang broke the records of Ghajini and 3 Idiots. The movie created a twitter profile and a YouTube channel by the name, Chulbul Robinhood Pandey, apart from the ones in the name of the film.

A recent example is of the film Bajirao Mastani, which invested in a content strategy by launching an animated web series titled ‘Blazing Bajirao’. It was released three months prior to the release of the film.

Social Media in Movie Marketing

Content marketing targets Internet Users by their interests and Internet browsing behaviours. Social media targets Internet Users in their closed groups. It’s like referral marketing within millions of closed groups. From an average budget movie to a mega budget movie, all mandatorily design a Facebook page, a Twitter and an Instagram handle.

The team gets the actors to engage with fans in their pages. They even go live on Social Media and chat with their fans. From sharing anecdotes to conducting polls among followers, the pages try to create as much social connections as possible.

Bollywood has successfully integrated on-ground events to boost Social Media engagement. A real event has a better chance of getting viral. To promote Kahaani, Vidya Balan had came out in public with a prosthetic belly. She mingled with the public carrying an onscreen picture of her missing husband. Even the release of the  film was planned a day after International Women’s Day.

The trailer of the film, Rowdy Rathore, was launched in an open stadium in Worli, Mumbai on 2 April 2012. It received over 2,295,756 views in less than one month on YouTube.

Gaming, Mobile Apps and Bollywood

Digital Marketing and Films

Bollywood has been a pioneer in using technology such as Online Gaming and Mobile Applications. It has brought in the know-how required for such marketing tools from abroad. Kahaani had engaged the social networking website ibibo.com to develop an online game. The game called ‘The Great Indian Parking Wars’, required players to park Vidya’s taxi on a street. The game was well accepted reaching 50,000 hits in 10 days.

Unlike Hollywood, Bollywood learnt not to wait for their movies to do well before releasing a game. Bollywood started releasing video games prior to the release of the movie. It has proved to be another effective publicity stunt to grab the attention of the audiences.

The 5 most successful video games released by the marketing teams of Bollywood are as follows:

  1. The team of the Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra starrer, Brothers release a video game by the movie name. Brothers: Clash of Fighters, had 3D animated life-like characters that looked similar to the heroes of the film.
  2. Shahrukh Khan starrer Ra.One released the game titled RA.ONE as the prequel to his actual movie
  3. Krrish gave India its first superhero and had a mobile video game supposedly made by a fan.
  4. Ghajini was the first Bollywood movie that was made into a 3D game for PCs. It has the voice of Aamir Khan as well.
  5. Dhoom-3 released its video game on Android, Windows and iPhone even before releasing the movie trailer and the songs.

Conclusion

Thus Technology has been playing a huge role in movie marketing. Digital Marketing has been used in all its forms and possible technologies by Bollywood. Consequently, it has been very successful in all its initiatives. There is a lot to learn for all digital marketers from the various case studies available on the use of Digital Marketing by the Bollywood film industry.

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