About Asian Paints:
Asian Paints was established on 2 February 1942 by Champaklal H. Choksey, Chimanlal N. Choksi, Suryakant C. Dani and Arvind R. Vakil. They named their company ‘The Asian Oil & Paint Company’, a name that was randomly picked from a telephone directory. It is an Indian chemicals company headquartered inMumbai, India. It manufactures paints for decorative and industrial use. Asian Paints is India’s largest paint company and Asia’s third largest paint company, with a turnover of Rs 140 billion. Besides Asian Paints, the group operates around the world through its subsidiaries Berger International Limited, Apco Coatings Limited, SCIB Paints and Taubmans.
Background:
Asian Paints ,India’s largest paints company, ranked among the top ten decorative coatings companies in the world, with an annual turnover of INR 66.80 billion wanted to strengthen their online presence and wanted to conduct a social marketing campaign that would convey the core message of Asian Paints as a brand, i.e. of safe vibrant colors, and have the tendency to go viral. Their objective was to create a campaign that was self-sustainable, viral and true to the brand persona of Asian Paints. As a result, Tag-A-Friend-Holi application was conceptualized. The idea of the application was to allow users to play Holi with other users in different parts of the world and they would get a chance to win an iPod Nano. The application was successfully linked with safe colourful fun and encouraged engagement with the brand, by conveying an eco-friendly message pertaining to water conservation at every level. This kind of creative strategy created a sense of curiosity and engaged users in social interaction with each other, maintaining excitement during the festive of Holi.
Objectives:
- Asian paints wanted to create brand awareness via Social Media Marketing
- To create awareness of saving water, by engaging users in a game of virtual Holi through a social media application. The idea was to enjoy Holi with friends and family all around the world but at the same time save gallons of water.
- Create a campaign that was self-sustaining, having the capability to go viral and moreover be consistent and true to the brand promise of ‘Safe, Vibrant Colours for your spaces.
Strategy and Planning:
To leverage on the festival of Holi, that associated with fun and colours, it would be an ideal occasion for Asian Paints brand to engage with its customers through wholesome fun and promoting its safe colours ethic.
Also, since there was a water crisis at the times, Asian Pains wanted to spread awareness and encourage people to save water thus trying to market itself as a company that cares for the people and moreover position itself an environment-friendly brand.
In order to achieve this, an application was developed on Facebook known as “Tag a friend Holi”. The app was to create awareness of the water crises. This was done by creating an element of fun for users during the colorful festival of Holi without wasting gallons of water. Facebook was chosen as the platform to run this viral campaign. The reason being is Facebook enables you to penetrate to a large no of users of worth 1.23 billion who were not only suited to be your prospective customers but most likely to engage in the “Tag a friend Holi” application on the social media forum. Moreover, Facebook has more than 945 million mobile users and 757 million daily users. Thus, Facebook was made as the logical platform to engage people with the application which will help Asian Paints to catch more eyeballs and send across their message.
There were many strategies used by Asian Paints to promote their “Tag a friend Holi” app. It was promoted on the Asian Paints website, mailers were sent out and moreover, on Facebook, a PPC campaign was organized
In the “Tag a friend Holi” application, users had to tag their friends by selecting pictures of theirs and decorate and splash it with their favorite Holi colors that were mapped to selective Asian Paints colour palette and then they had to publish the coloured picture on their friend’s wall in Facebook.
The person who would tag the most number of friends would stand a chance to win a free IPod Nano
Implementation of Tag a friend Holi” application:
Tag-A-Friend Holi application on Facebook enabled users to play Holi in virtual mode. Participants were allowed to splash the profile pictures of their friends with a customizable tool of choice like pichkari, balloon or the hand with the palette of colors provided by Asian Paints. Once done splashing a friend’s picture, the user could save and publish the image to their as well as their friend’s wall and album. Since this was done on Facebook, the participants could celebrate Holi to those they would never meet face-to-face. As an added incentive, the participant who tagged the most number of friends would win an iPod Nano.
Results Achieved:
The results of the campaign generated were fantastic. The campaign enabled Asian Paints to achieve the following
- The campaign generated 16,755 monthly active Facebook users·
- It gained 924 Facebook fans·
- The highest number of victims by the winner was 334
- The app was successfully played·23,819 times
- It garnered 1,59,914 page views·
- There were 67,434 unique page views·
- 10,000 monthly active users within the first week·
- Users who played the app were hailing mostly from India, USA and UK. In India, the most active users were from Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi.
- The application enables users to connect with their family and friends across the world during the season of Holi via Facebook. It promoted the brand message of Asian Paints of safe and vibrant colours. Moreover, it shed light on the awareness of water conservation
- Another good strategy adopted was giving the incentive to win an iPod Nano which inspired a larger user participation.
Learnings:
- Asian Paints had played the emotion card by enabling users to connect with each other all around the globe and play and enjoy Holi on Facebook.
- They leveraged the campaign to promote what the brand stands for i.e. safe and vibrant colours
- They also used this campaign to showcase themselves as an eco-friendly brand by generating awareness to save water.
- Always use an incentive in the form of a prize or voucher in your campaigns as this can act as a catalyst to generate a high number of user participation
Image Credits: Wikipedia, www.indigo.co.in
Running campaigns for your business on social media while increasing awareness about a social cause is the best way to promote your business there. It doesn’t only increase your brand’s popularity but your business also takes the responsibility of a social cause which proves good for your business’ ‘Goodwill’.