Dettol India - Mind Champions Facebook Campaign Review

Brand: Dettol

What is it: Antiseptic liquid for protection from germs

Campaign Name: Mind Champions

Campaign Platfrom: Facebook -Dettol India (77914 likes)

Campaign Duration: 22^nd July 2012 to 7^th September 2012

Dettol in India is synonymous with antiseptic, as Maggi is with noodles. The product has been around for ages and finds its place in every household. For Dettol, kids have always been the target group - be it in their TVCs or prints.

Dettol is a super successful product offline. Online, Dettol has its presence on Facebook with a boasting 77k fans. Currently, the active campaign on the page is Mind Champions, obviously targeting children.

What is the contest about?

The contest tagline makes the intentions quite clear “Is your child the smartest?” The participants are asked to submit a photo or a video of their kids along with an incident to depict their smartness.

The contest workflow is pretty straightforward too:

1. Like the page
2. Upload a photo or a video
3. Provide a caption
4. Enter the story
5. Provide the kid’s details (Name, class, age etc)
6. Submit

Positives

The contest focuses on children (end consumers) while targeting parents (product buyers) as the participants. The target audience is perfect and there is no debate here. The creatives are praiseworthy and fitting, with smiling photos of cute kids and elements of childhood in the background.

The major and only highlight, however, is the Rs 1 lakh scholarship for the winner/s.

Negatives

Enough with the photo contests already!

In my last campaign review for Aviva India, I stated that the campaign idea was clichéd even though it works for the brand. Sadly, I repeat my statement on this article too. The contest on Dettol India page is only a slight manipulation of the one on Aviva India page.

However, as compared to Aviva India contest, the Mind Champions has more negatives than its predecessor. The contest is purely driven by its gratification. The gratification is not very clear. A line in TnC states "The selected entries would get scholarships for their kids amounting up to Rs. 1 lac each." For a gratification that big, I would prefer to know the exact number of winners.

The app takes a while to load. I assume it may be because of numerous entries in the gallery. The photos and videos are not separated. After browsing through number of them, I was not lucky enough to click on a video entry.

The gratification may be the reason why the campaign stretches for 45 days. The charm of a campaign is lost with its time. Mind Champions could have been a little shorter. The participant’s engagement is merely for 10 minutes and then a long wait till the winners are announced on 15^th October. Enough time for the participant to forget he participated in a contest?

There is not a chance this application could have viral. The only SM widget you see is F-share. The contest is not promoted on the page as frequently as it should be. The last update about the contest was on 1^st August.

Overall

The world has moved on to better things but these photo contests have somehow stuck around. I don’t blame the brands for using it again and again. It seems to have become safe bait for them. All they need to do is put a mouth watering gratification at the end.

With the number of brands that cater to children, you can expect a number of photo contests in future.

Dettol India’s Mind Champions could have been better if there were supporting promotional activities. I think the brand has relied heavily on Media Buy for this one.

Mind Champions is a forgettable campaign for me.