Sociowash has won the social media mandate for Big Bazaar. As part of the mandate, Sociowash will be responsible for social media and performance marketing assets.
Said Pawan Sarda, CMO, Future Group: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Sociowash for our social media marketing mandate. Their team brought in new ideas, as well as a clear distinction in strategy across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We’re quite excited, and confident that working with Sociowash will help us create stronger engagement with our audience.”
Added Pranav Agarwal, Co-founder, Sociowash: “Partnering with India’s leading retail brand is a major win for our Mumbai team. We’re thrilled to add such a household name to our roster of clients while strengthening our presence in India. Our expertise will be focused on effectively communicating the brand’s purpose to a wide range of audiences. We’re excited to contribute to Big Bazaar’s primary goals and digital objectives.”
The Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) has announced the launch of a content marketing studio, which will draw in the collective strengths of more than 125 magazine titles, their websites and digital media assets, to offer to marketers content marketing solutions that can reach over 150 million people. Called Dastaan Hub, the exercise seeks to expand content marketing opportunities for brand marketers.
The studio has been put together by AIM member publishers, recognising the increasing need at marketers end to move from vanilla display advertising towards developing engaging content solutions for narrating compelling brand stories.
Commenting on Dastaan Hub, AIM president B Srinivasan said: “Magazines by their very essence are a deeply immersive medium, and are trusted for the depth in their editorial content. Moreover, magazines cater to highly engaged communities, and each magazine publishing team has deep insights into their readers’ emotional psyches and consumer interests. This is where they have inherent strength for partnering with brands for creating compelling brand stories.”
Some of the leading participating publishers in Dastaan Hub are India Today, Ananda Vikatan, Delhi Press, Outlook, Malayala Manorama magazines, Network 18 magazines, ABP magazines, Business World, and Diamond Publications.
The studio is being led by industry veteran Shripad Kulkarni, who along with a team of experienced professionals, will offer full content marketing solution in appropriate multiple formats like video, shorts, podcast, articles, panel discussion, Facebook Live, contests and social media posts.
Explaining how it will work, Kulkarni said: “Dastaan Hub team will be following a 3-step process. A classical first, studying the category and brand challenges. Second, the creative and strategy team will customise native communication led ideas, based on client brief. And then add an O2O, online to offline media delivery plan. All this will be co-created to capture the essence of the dialogue the brands want to have with their customers”
Said Yogesh Dashrath, Country Manager, Storytel India on the launch: “Stories are a powerful means to influence and inspire. So I am sure that the Dastaan Hub plan to recreate brand stories in the regional language and cultural context will greatly help brands to connect with their customer”
Added Pawan Sarda, Group CMO, Future Group: “Each region, each State of India is unique. So, there are so many cultural and contextual nuances one needs to keep in mind. The Dastaan hub initiative, is a good single window opportunity to connect with customers across the length and breadth of India”
Speaking on the launch, AIM General Secretary Anant Nath said: “It is no secret that there has been an erosion of interest in magazines by marketers, and that we have been facing some serious problems in maintaining our distribution. Therefore, as a first step, we collaborated to tackle this fundamental problem. A joint distribution agency network has been put together by AIM, so that publishers can take advantage of collective bargaining and increase their footprint across geographies. Secondly, massive efforts have been put to improve the subscription ecosystem, which includes working with Indian Post to improve delivery, as well as joint subscription marketing efforts. As a result, the subscription numbers across publishers have increased during pandemic, to compensate for loss in newsstand”.
Here’s what some leading magazine publishers have said. Manoj Sharma of India Today: “Dastaan Hub is a logical extension of our distribution efforts as we are confident that we can deliver highly engaged audiences to our advertisers. At the same time, we will be careful to ensure that this branded content will follow global ethical guidelines of content marketing, as reader trust is of utmost importance to us”.
Indranil Roy of Outlook: “We are confident that with our collaborative working across distribution, subscription marketing, and now Dastaan Hub, our magazines will strengthen their deeply engaging relationship with readers as well as brand partners.”
I must confess it’s great to write this column after a totally unplanned/ unexpected break of three-and-a-half months. When I wrote my last piece, mulling over the choices about the world we want to co-create, little did I know that my own life would leave me with no choice but to battle with an illness that consumed me physically as well as mentally. Yes, you guessed that right. Hit by the deadly Delta variant of SARS CoV-2, my family and I had a narrow escape. But more on that in the upcoming columns.
Vineet Saraiwala
Putting the focus back on disability, I had the opportunity to speak with Vineet Saraiwala who is the founder of an innovative platform called Atypical Advantage. An IIM Bangalore graduate, with a successful run at Future Group as their Inclusion Lead, Vineet’s ambitions have been unimpeded by his vision impairment. He suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa, an eye condition that results in gradual sight loss. Unlike a majority of disabled people, Vineet grew up in a supportive environment that gave him access to equal opportunities of education and employment. In his previous avatar, he transformed how people with disabilities shop across India through pioneering concepts like ‘Sabke Liye’ which is a blend of assistive services and accessible spaces and a quiet hour, which is a sensory-friendly experience for individuals with autism. Vineet strongly believes that generation of compassion is the only way to make the world a better place and he is on a mission to transform the lives of persons with disabilities.
In this interview, he talks about his latest venture, the gaps that exist in employability, how to effectively create an inclusive society, and more.
Atypical Advantage completed six months in June 2021. Tell us a bit about this journey but before you do that, please also tell our audience what the platform is all about.
Atypical Advantage (AA) is planet’s first platform for People with Disabilities (PwDs) where you can hire talent, find jobs, and buy products or paintings or commission artwork. We would like to map skills of PwDs across the country and match it with potential employers. We aim to empower them by highlighting their ‘abilities’. At AA, you can hire models for your product shoot, sign language interpreters for making your events inclusive, singers/ dancers for your shows, masseurs to relax your body and much more from a wide array of 450+ Talent with Disabilities across 20 categories. We host some of the finest paintings made by persons with disabilities and aim to democratise jobs/ freelancing in this era of Work from Home opportunities where disabled people have lagged behind. The platform can create employment opportunities and open new avenues for the sector at scale. It can be an instrument of change for the entire spectrum of people with disabilities in the country and give them livelihood with dignity. Since its inception, we have 55,000 unique visitors on the platform, close to 600 talents have signed up, and there are 450 artworks by 85 artists with disabilities. It’s been the platform of choices for people with disabilities as well as corporates to go ahead and hire. Already, there are 50-plus jobs on our job portal. Amazon hired its first model with learning disability from our platform, few masseurs and physiotherapists got opportunities, sign language interpreters too. We are close to clocking 100 artwork sales including across the US. A lot of people in the lockdown struggled to get basic performance opportunities. A magician got a booking from a corporate, a motivational speaker was also booked, so a lot of positive stories and a lot to be grateful towards. We need to do a lot more going forward.
How did you decide to leave your corporate job and go full time on this venture? What drove you?
A very philosophical question but probably the lockdown, Covid crisis, job crisis, and inspiration from a sector stalwart. I had gone to meet Venkat Krishnan (Former CEO of GiveIndia and the man behind Daan Utsav) and he said that this idea is fantastic and it can serve PwDs at scale. He said it’s not about you or me, but I’ll be sad that India will lose an opportunity to help persons with disabilities. So how could I miss this chance? It’s true that this is a great opportunity to help PwDs. Someone really needed to do something about it. I was feeling very bad on not being able to help persons with disabilities with long-term solutions. This platform aims to give dignity to PwDs and give them a source of livelihood. I am privileged and have a safety net so if individuals like me won’t step up, how could we create an Inclusive society? I am a person with disability and understand the challenges at a deeper level. I am lucky in every sense and grateful that I got the opportunity to serve a marginalised section.
What was the gap that you identified which led to the genesis of AA?
The platform is all about gaps. There is no platform globally also where you can look at abilities of people with disabilities in a transparent manner. Let’s say you want to hire a singer or a dancer, where is the platform for this? Similarly, let’s say you want to book a massage or give livelihood to PwDs, there’s nothing globally or in India. So the gap is pretty evident but no one’s tried to capitalise on that gap.
As a person with vision impairment, you have studied in the mainstream in premier institutions and also worked with the best corporates, why do you think most persons with disabilities lose out on such opportunities of education and employment?
The problem is in the schooling system. We are not able to have inclusive schools where people with disabilities get in. We don’t have accessible soft copies for people with visual disabilities, sign language interpreters are not there, and schools are not accessible. So if the entry point for a person with disability has so many barriers, naturally as you go forward, this goes on reducing. And as you know I have Retinitis Pigmentosa. Till Class 10, I had regular schooling, after that my problem worsened. So in that sense I’m privileged in a lot of ways but the problem starts with schools.
How does Atypical Advantage aim to bridge the gap in employment?
Atypical Advantage is actually trying to revolutionise the entire concept of livelihood generation. Freelancing and gig work is coming up in a big way. By 2030, it is estimated that 45% of the global workforce would be freelancing. Are PwDs ready for freelancing assignments at this point? The answer is no. So if you look at the platform, it essentially focuses on freelancing, services like massage and physiotherapy, full time employment like mutual fund executives or insurance executives, on performing artists, and it also focuses on specialized work where PwD excel. Especially people with learning disabilities, Autism or Down Syndrome, in which case they are comfortable working from home. And this gives them empowerment. There is also another interesting category on the platform called Entrepreneurs. We also keep products and painting made by PwDs. So it’s a 360-degree view on giving employment and livelihood opportunities of any kind to PwDs across the country.
With Valuable 500, there is a lot of talk about there being decent demand for employment but a shortage of supply. We also know for a fact, a lot of persons with disabilities lack good education and the professionalism to work in a competitive environment in the private sector. What’s your view on this?
This is a huge gap. I think the problem is clearly on the supply side of things. We need to train and skill PwDs into the jobs of the future. At this point people with disabilities are not ready for those jobs. And I feel scared and sad that we are not doing enough to prepare for jobs. This pandemic has just further amplified the problem. And this problem will go on further. I don’t have any solutions for this but I think someone needs to step up and skill these people for future jobs.
In your previous avatar at Future Group, you were leading accessibility initiatives, what in your experience prevents businesses from being inclusive?
I feel a lot of brands are scared of disabled people and they don’t even want to try. For example, we are doing a campaign with an organization, and they told us that a lot of people with Cerebral Palsy are not hired just because of their voice. Imagine they might have the skills but just their voice discourages companies from hiring them. I think the lack of exposure creates the greatest divide in the society and corporates have never even tried to interact with people with disabilities. And without that exposure, inhibition and biases continue to exist. But once we have more exposure, a lot of problems within the corporate sector would go down. Secondly, of course the willingness to try is also lacking.
Coming back to AA, what is the business model for the sustenance of this platform?
Our business model is continuously evolving and we earn commissions from selling of artwork and products to make the venture opex sustainable.
Is there something you would like to say to media houses or media owners, as far as inclusion of persons with disabilities goes?
I would urge the media to get out of this syndrome of ‘…despite being a person with disability.’ I think there are two ways of looking at things. Look at any media house, it would either look at PwDs as people with sixth sense, divinity, spirituality, gifts of God. Or less human, sympathetic, handicapped, crippled. Look at any media story, they’ll portray it as ‘…despite being a person with visual or hearing disability, he/ she achieved so much…’ We need to stop doing that. We need to promote accessible technology, tell people about assistive aids. That would be useful. When you capture a story of a person with disability, talk about the aids (s)he uses to work, so that others are informed. At present the media doesn’t speak about it at all.
In your opinion, can individuals working in the media industry advocate for access and inclusion? If yes, how?
I think the media needs to talk more about inclusion. Even talk to organization while discussing strategy, highlight the organisations which are not inclusive, question them on their practices, what kind of people with disabilities have they hired etc. I think the discourse of disability in the mainstream is very limited. So the media needs to talk to India Inc. on these things.
You can learn more about Atypical Advantage, here.
Shruti Pushkarna heads operations of the New Delhi-based Score Foundation where she works as Director-Programmes & Communications. She is a former journalist (part of the founding team of MxMIndia) who has moved full-time to the social sector. Shruti writes for MxMIndia every other Thursday. Her views here are personal. You can tweet your comments and suggestions to @shrutipushkarna
Fashion brand FBB has launched a Holi campaign – #FilterWaliHoli with a filter on Instagram. It has partnered with digital marketing agency NDMPL to launch a film, ‘Holi Ka Har Rang, fbb Ke Sang’ along with custom audio.
Said Pawan Sarda, Head of Marketing and Digital – Future Group: “Festivals are an integral part of our Indian culture. Holi is yet another important festival that is celebrated throughout, across the country, by every individual. Celebrations have become so important, that people do not want to miss out on one another. Hence, we wanted to create something memorable, everlasting, and an overwhelming, fun experience for everyone to enjoy.”
Added Natasha Saraogi, Founder, NDMPL: “This has been a wonderful experience. Creating this campaign has made my team and I, both reminisce on what we have missed out on. The process has been exciting and great, and we cannot wait to share this filter with each one of you. While the response is awaited, we dearly hope everyone enjoys this festival responsibly and in true spirit!”
Retail giant Big Bazaar unveiled its ‘Sabse Saste 6 Din’ campaign with an ad series titled ‘Bachat paane ki vaccine’, conceptualised and executed by Wondrlab.
Speaking about the campaign, Pawan Sarda, Group CMO, Digital, Marketing & e-commerce – Future Group said: “#O2O Online to offline is a big initiative we have taken at #BigBazaar. It cannot get bigger than this during our most iconic Sale, Sabse Saste 6 Din #SS6D. Book your shopping online (shop.bigbazaar.com) and redeem it in-store with bigger discounts. The last year has been tougher than ever for most people especially households with people facing salary cuts, with some losing jobs and businesses facing a hit by the lockdown. Something nobody was prepared for. Big Bazaar has gone an extra mile and is offering more savings if you pre-pay for the shopping.”
Added Amit Akali, Co-Founder and CCO, Wondrlab: “We are excited at having the opportunity to work on India’s biggest retail sale. Big Bazaar is one of India’s most iconic brands and ‘Sabse Saste Din’ is also a brand by itself. Consumers look forward to the sale each year, and more so in 2021, after the year they’ve had. It was important to cut through the clutter and do justice to a big annual property. More importantly, we wanted to be honest and call out the year that the consumer’s gone through, giving the sale as a solution. For instance, one lady speaks about how being locked in at home doesn’t stop kids from growing up, while you see her shopping for kids’ clothes. These are all real conversations that consumers are having and would relate to. The challenge of course was to have the conversation and land the sale in just 15 seconds. We’re pleased with the freshness and simplicity of the campaign, that brings marries the positive sentiment of the sale with that of the vaccine, seamlessly.”
Given the slowdown concerns, VMLY&R and Big Bazaar hacked into the moment marketing phenomenon by expressing moments of frugality through frugal storytelling. It manifested in the form of a series of Thumbstopper films to remind customers of where they can fulfil their festive shopping desires. ‘Extraa Wali Diwali’ tells consumers not to hesitate or hold back during their festive shopping, because of the offers they can find at Big Bazaar.
Said Abbas Mirza, Associate Creative Director, VMLY&R: “These films are a product of mapping the customer journey in- store, including how consumers interact with their mobiles while shopping. In this world of connected consumer experiences where offline shopping can be influenced in real-time by online ads, we used Facebook’s new storytelling platform for Extraa Wali Diwali, which tells people they don’t have to hold back because of the great offers available. Through this campaign, customers realize they no longer need to juggle between indulging themselves and being mindful of their budgets during festive times, solving a conflict for the consumer as well as for our client.”
Added Pawan Sarda, Group Head – Digital, Future Group: “Festival is one of the most important consumption periods for the retail sector. We want to let our customers know that Big Bazaar understands their needs and has the right offers to make their Diwali Extra special. We took the route of ‘thumbstoppers’, which is native to Facebook and through real-life instances built short stories that move to bring out the action.”
Tasty Treat from Future Consumer Limited has indulged in celebrations to engage cricket lovers with numerous fun-filled campaigns.The brand has taken a holistic approach to cheer India’s victory through in-store activities in 200 plus Big Bazaar stores, online gamification and an influencer-led association with Inox cinemas.
Speaking about the campaign, Sadashiv Nayak, CEO – Food Business, Future Group said: “As the entire country is geared up the World Cup Finals, Tasty Treat is set to be a part of this celebration and provide an ideal experience to all the fans. Tasty Treat provides a widest assortment of munching products that is sure to add the entertainment quotient with family and friends.”
Fashion brand Fbb has launched its digital fashion channel – Fbb TV. The concept of Fbb TV is to highlight trends and views on the lates in fashion. The launch campaign has been conceptualised and executed by Social Kinnect.
Talking about the launch, Pawan Sarda: Group Head – Digital at Future Group said: “For Fbb, content will play a huge role for us to create a unique fashion voice which is relevant to Indian sensibilities. Fbb TV is an ambitious attempt to what we think can be a 24hours buzzing fashion channel on digital. We want India to not just buy fashion from us but to engage with us every day when they wake-up with wondering ‘What to wear today’.”
Added Social Kinnect COO Chandni Shah: “Fbb is a brand that has always been at the cutting-edge of digital innovation. With ‘Every Friday is a Tryday’, we continue to help fbb push the envelope to create digital content that engages customers beyond their purchase, and generates loyalty that will create growth for years to come. Also, ‘edutainment’ is huge nowadays as consumers want content that helps solve a particular problem in their lives. This property makes fbb one of the pioneers of ‘edutaining’ content in the fashion retail space.”
Tasty Treat has executed an integrated marketing campaign that connects with its customers throughout the IPL season. As the Official Partner for the Indian Premier League, Tasty Treat has roped in celebrity choreographer Melvin Louis to choreograph the dance steps for Tasty Treat Army.
Speaking about associating with IPL Sadashiv Nayak, CEO – Food Business, Future Group said: “Over the years IPL has earned nationwide appeal from all age groups, communities and cricket fans from all over. Likewise, Tasty Treat is spread across categories with products that are made not only for different age groups but also as per community preferences. Families can enjoy the IPL by munching on some classic cheese popcorn, barbeque bhujia, chocomint wafer biscuits and much more.”
Fashion brand Fbb has created a style anthem along with rap singer Naved Shaikh, aka Naezy. Fbb’s #India Ka Style anthem pictures Naezy rapping in different fashion avatars thereby celebrating fashion that is versatile from one wardrobe to the other. Created by Social Kinnect, the anthem is a musical burst with lyrics that connects straight with the consumers.
Speaking about the anthem, Pawan Sarda, Group Head – Digital, Future Group said: “Music is liberating and extremely expressive especially when it comes to rapping. Fashion and music go hand in hand which is why we are delighted to have the rap guru sing the anthem for fbb. Naezy’s music is catchy and connects instantly with the audience just like the fashion we offer.”
Added Chandni Shah, COO, Social Kinnect: “This has been one of those campaigns on our bucket list, and we believe that no brand would be a better fit for this collaboration than the extremely youth-oriented and on-trend fbb. Naezy is a youth icon, more so now than ever, and we are so excited to have the opportunity to work with him and his one-of-a-kind rapping style. As with all our other campaigns for fbb, we hope this one will help the brand scale even greater heights in the fashion retail space. Here’s to a long and fruitful collaboration!”
As part of its annual Republic Day initiative, Big Bazaar has collaborated with rapper Emiway Bantai, one of the rapper of the upcoming movie Gully Boy.
Sabse Saste 5 Din this year will be held between 23 -27 Jan across Big Bazaar stores. Said Pawan Sarda, Head of Digital, Future Group: “We always make sure that the brand is moving along with the customer and our constant endeavour is to do things to be relevant to young India. Digital is all about topicality and how best a brand can integrate the same in its storeytelling. Thus with the buzzing rap culture catching the fancy of the entire nation, we chose to do a rap to announce the launch of Sabse Saste 5 Din with Emiway.â€
Added Anil Nair, Managing Partner, Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi: “Big Bazaar is a brand that has constantly tried to be relevant and in touch with the spirit and changing needs of young India. Be it with our various Facebook 24-hour LIVEs or the Twitter Decide Your Price promotions or the Google Smart Search. Our collaboration with Emiway Bantai is part of immersing ourselves into their conversations and narrative.â€
Sharing his views on the campaign, Pawan Sarda, Group Head – Digital, Future Group said: “The campaign digs into the deeper meaning of feeling good to look good. Rather than emphasizing on fashion, through #WearYourSmile we decided to take on a different route which would connect instantly with fbb’s target audience.â€
Added Anusha Shetty, Founder & CEO of FBB’s creative agency Autumn Worldwide: “Festivities call for looking your best and if this is accompanied by a smile, it makes it for a picture perfect moment. No matter what you wear, a happy face with a big smile has immense potential to melt hearts of many. While we wear the best of fashion lets spread joy with smiles in all sizes this festive season.â€
Sociowash has won the social media mandate for Big Bazaar. As part of the mandate, Sociowash will be responsible for social media and performance marketing assets.
By Shruti Pushkarna
Tasty Treat from Future Consumer Limited has indulged in celebrations to engage cricket lovers with numerous fun-filled campaigns. The brand has taken a holistic approach to cheer India’s victory through in-store activities in 200 plus Big Bazaar stores, online gamification and an influencer-led association with Inox cinemas.