Finolex Industries has launched a digital campaign on water conservation. Aimed at impacting a change in the way people use water, the film shows the grim reality we are headed towards if we do not take necessary steps to conserve water.
Commenting on the films, Nitin Kulkarni, President, Sales & Marketing, Finolex Industries said: “We’re privileged to be the company that helps transport water into the homes and farms of majority Indians. As we enjoy this privilege this is our small attempt to remind our countrymen that water is a resource we must use wisely. Having said that for us, actions speak louder than words and I’d request all those who have seen this film to also see the work done by Mukul Madhav Foundation – CSR partner of Finolex Industries in the area of water conservation and support that work where possible.”
Added Harshil Karia, Managing Director, Schbang: “We’re happy to use the occasion of World Earth Day to co create something special with Finolex. For us, Finolex and Mukul Madhav Foundation and their work has always been inspirational and we’re very glad to be able to create a message to add to all the fantastic work they do. Our entire team across Mumbai and Bengaluru supports this message and shall be doing all it can to ensure that water is used mindfully in our homes and offices and that this message travels far and wide.”
Over the last decade-and-a-half, BBLUNT has played an integral part on the increasingly stylised look of stars in Bollywood films. This year BBLUNT took its vision even further with Kareena Kapoor-Khan revealing its salon in a box through the mega launch of its High Shine Crème At-Home Hair Color – Salon Secret.
Now Adhuna Bhabani, Founder and Creative Director, BBLUNT, along with seven of India’s top beauty bloggers star in BBLUNT’s first-ever Bollywood-inspired video. The video, a journey back in time that strings together four of Bollywood’s blockbuster, fan-favourite films, showcases what inspired BBLUNT to create these seven stunning shades.
The film chronicles Adhuna’s Bollywood journey and depicts how each character in the films that she has styled, drove her inspiration and enthusiasm to create the perfect shade accompanied by the perfect shine for the new hair color range. Adhuna recreates some iconic looks designed by BBLUNT on seven of the country’s most leading lifestyle and beauty bloggers like Miss Malini as Kareena Kapoor from Don, Shifa Merchant and Jas Sagu as Preity Zinta and Sonali Kulkarni respectively in Dil Chahta Hai, Juhi Godambe and Aayushi Bhangur as Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin respectively in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Stephanie Timmins and Madhura Bhogale as Priyanka Chopra and Anushka Sharma respectively in Dil Dhadakne Do. The CAG are seamlessly paced and imaginative, offering viewers a peek into the founder’s mind.
Said Harshil Karia, Founder and Creative Director, Schbang and the brain behind this fun short film: “It was such a fantastic experience working on this advert. It isn’t every day that you get to recreate the sets of iconic films and pay homage to them while using their original soundtracks! We tied up with Shaun Kolah once more to direct this for us and got Famous Animation on board for the special effects. From a campaign standpoint, the message doesn’t get any truer than this. Salon Secret High Shine Crème Hair Colour is truly a revolutionary product and it encapsulates the brand’s years of experience on sets and the salon floor to create India’s foremost hair colour with Shine Tonic in a box at an unbelievable price. This campaign is designed to compress that journey, giving consumers a glimpse into the work that’s gone into creating this hair colour.â€
Thomas Dawes, Creative Director, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. said, “After the phenomenal success of our recent Dry Shampoo #DirtyLittleSecret we knew we had to do something huge to celebrate the launch of our at home hair colour, Salon Secret. So we decided to create a film that celebrates the thing that most people know BBLUNT for – Bollywood!!! We identified the top bloggers in the country whose personalities were an ideal match to the iconic star they were playing, with Adhuna recreating these iconic looks once more… then we sprinkled a little bit of magic. This is going to blow your socks off!â€
With a keen understanding of the needs of Indian women when it comes to hair, Garnier Fructis recently engaged in another initiative by reaching out to college students, women from housing societies and bloggers in a unique manner by getting them to experience the new Garnier Fructis Long & Strong shampoo and conditioner through a ‘blind use test’ campaign.
The on-ground and online activation of the campaign was conducted in various cities across the country including Pune, Patna, Guwahati, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Jaipur, Coimbatore and Vijayawada.
Conceptualized and executed by digital marketing agency FoxyMoron, the online campaign kicked off with over 50 top beauty and lifestyle bloggers across India experiencing and reviewing the new Garnier Fructis Long & Strong shampoo and conditioner. Bloggers received a package of the ‘Love Long Hair’ shampoo and conditioner and used it for a period of two weeks. Upon revealing the name of the brand within two weeks across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, their reactions were captured on video.
Commenting on this activity, Rupika Raman, General Manager, Garnier said, “We were very excited to undertake this consumer outreach activity as our aim is to educate consumers about the Garnier Fructis’ new and improved formula and also to capture real experiences and feedback of consumers. Our formula has changed and it is important for us to reach out to consumers and get them to try the product and see and feel the difference themselves. After the activation, it is wonderful to see such an overwhelming response from our consumers, which also means that new generation Garnier Fructis has met its consumer expectations.”
Harshil Karia, Co-founder & Digital Strategist, FoxyMoron commented, “Quality perception is highly related to a consumer’s purchasing behavior. Hence, the ‘Love Long Hair’ campaign aimed to generate trials for the new, improved Garnier Fructis shampoo and conditioner and simultaneously, also develop loyalists through advocates of the brand who influence consumer preferences. The biggest learning for us has been the importance of developing a deeper and strategic connection with influencers on the digital platform.”
A recent Gartner study in the US predicted that by 2015, 25 per cent of organisations will have a CDO and that the chief digital officer may be the most exciting strategic role in the decade ahead. While such statistics are often swept aside by Indian head honchos as a US reality, the wave may reach Indian shores faster than expected.
Though a relative late starter, digital has made swift inroads into the Indian marketplace. Brands are upping the ante on digital allocations. No Indian marketing head can have a conversation without talking about how serious they are about digital. They’ve even moved to saying “It’s not the wave of the future but what’s happening right now!” which is an improvement.
But where are all the CDOs then? Globally, organisations as diverse as Starbucks, Metropolitan Museum of Art, BBC Worldwide, Amnesty International are known to be already deploying the services of a CDO. While the title is yet to gain vogue, some companies are making a few non-cosmetic changes.
PepisCo tweaked its structure to make digital a strategic vertical reporting in directly to the head of marketing. Earlier, it resided with individual brands. Deepika Warrier, vice president – Po1 (Power of 1) marketing, PepsiCo India, is clear that digital needs to be incubated by the CMO as it requires focused mentoring to build interactions with other business functions. Their team is led by Rishi Dogra, who along with the digital mandate is involved with a unique concept called Pepsi Labs. He works with co-creators incubating, experimenting and testing new content ideas. PepsiCo claims to have doubled its digital budget from last year.
SBI Life has a business vertical to tap the potential of online sales of life insurance policies. Shares Chandramohan Mehra – country head – digital business, SBI Life Insurance, “Through the channel, it distributes products exclusively developed for online business, and has gained leadership position in direct-to-consumer sales.” He was formerly the VP and head of brand at SBI Life Insurance.
Jasmin Sohrabji
Jasmin Sohrabji, CEO India and South East Asia, OmnicomMediaGroup is convinced about the case for a CDO. The reason it hasn’t happened thus far is due to scale and scope. Even among the more digital aware, spends hover at about 10 per cent, offering little or less than threshold scale. As focus (and spends) move to digital platforms, the relevance for a CDO will come into play, she feels.
Adds Rishad Tobaccowala, Chairman, DigitasLbi and Razorfish, “CDOs should be the evangelist for ensuring the company remains relevant to changing behaviour. His role is important in the early years of digital to ensure a voice for tomorrow.” The case for a CDO becomes even stronger in a backdrop where digital budgets are increasing but cutting edge case studies are few and far between.
Most conversations hover around aggregating fans and likes on Facebook as also prerolls of campaigns on YouTube. But has the market reached a stage where the advent of a CDO is imminent? Or is this yet another instance of India leapfrogging a few stages of development, to create its own delivery-mechanisms?
At L’Oreal India, where the digital spends have been ramped by nearly 125 per cent over the last year, the function is embedded within respective brands. Satyaki Ghosh, director, consumer products division, L’Oreal India avers that they could eventually have a CDO, but he would service the entire company as against just the Consumer Product division.
The CDO role needs to have a larger platform to build the digital capability of the entire organisation and the digital business, according to Arjun Srivastava, consumer practice leader – India, Egon Zehnder.
Marico too is currently embracing a decentralised structure. Sameer Satpathy, EVP and business head, Marico India says, “The medium gives enormous flexibility in terms of engagement, creativity and speed.” All their brand managers are being trained and certified on using digital, in order to have an enabling ecosystem.
CVL Srinivas
Which is as it should be says CVL Srinivas, CEO (South Asia), GroupM: “CMOs need to drive digital as part of their core job. Most advertisers still look at digital as a silo and struggle to integrate it into their mainstream plans.” However digital specialist Harshil Karia, cofounder, Foxy-Moron makes a case for digital having grown too big for a CMO’s mandate.
He says, “CMOs haven’t naturally taken to ‘digital thinking’ and ‘digital as an ecosystem’. It is difficult in a world where maintaining Share of Voice, pleasing brand ambassadors, coordinating to get the best out of various agencies and reporting to management and sales teams is a priority.”
A private sector bank claims that only 5 per cent of its business is coming from branches. The rest is from other channels that include digital: mobile and internet as well as telebanking. In such a scenario the medium is no more just for marketing or brand building but has a huge business implication as well. The biggest need for CMOs today is to adapt or otherwise provide for the digital landscape since it will emerge as a key component of marketing strategies.
Kent Wertime, COO, Ogilvy Asia Pacific, and co-author of DigiMarketing, believes “The CMO has to determine today how to integrate traditional means of marketing/channels with digital channels, the capture and use of data, and build new relationships with big digital media players/platforms.”
Digital gives insight in real time through social media and its endless streams of conversations and insights. Increasingly, it will be about harnessing this information. For instance, Dell has a chief listening officer, who “listens” to what consumers are saying and feeds these insights to the CMO. So whether as an adjunct to the CMO or his equal, a company serious about the future would do well to consider the CDO.
Digital solutions agency FoxyMoron has bagged the duties to handle the Digital portfolio of L’Oreal Paris in India. According to an industry source, prior to FoxyMoron, Jack In The Box was the incumbent agency handling the digital duties for L’Oreal Paris – India.
Harshil Karia, Online Strategist at FoxyMoron said “It’s a huge opportunity for us to do something innovative with a legendary brand. We’ve also got a great canvas to work with. A brand that works in hair care, hair color, skincare and makeup is almost a dream and we’re sure it will always have something meaningful to say online.â€
Manashi Guha, Marketing Manager, L’Oreal Paris said, “For a beauty brand like L’Oreal Paris, the digital medium is a great storytelling platform.  We are excited to be working with FoxyMoron to evolve and execute our digital strategies for 2012 and beyond.â€
With its key focus on the current campaign, a large number of unique activities are said to have been planned out, to optimize the digital presence of L’Oreal Paris’.
L’Oreal Paris has businesses in hair, skincare and makeup. While makeup and skincare will be led digitally, the hair business is said to see a lot of integration as far as campaigns are concerned. L’Oreal Paris has products like Total Repair 5 and Fall Repair which are said to be mass market products and here digital is said to play a role where it engages and educates the younger audience.
It is also learnt from sources that McCann erickson is handling the mainline creatives for L’Oreal while Maxus is said to be handling its media duties.
