How Indian Brands Are Leveraging Olympics On Social Media

The whole world is down with the London 2012 Olympics fever. And with a better performance this time by the Indian contingent, Indian brands are hoping to reap rich awards by piggybacking on their success.

Now, piggybacking on the success of an event is something that most brands do, but the real deal lies in the execution. Let us have a look at some of the Indian brands that have tried to integrate Olympics into their social media approach and see how well they have executed it:

Naukri.com

Hari Sadu, the fictional boss whom everyone hates has been gamified by Naukri.com. The game, titled "The Big Clash - Hari Sadu vs You" allows a user to take part in three Olympics events: Archery, Boxing and Shoooting. Needless to stay, your target will be Hari Sadu. It's a simple game where you will get points whenever you manage to shoot/punch him.

But what is interesting is the way Hari Sadu responds to your actions. Every time you hit or miss him, he will come up with a witty one-liner that is bound to make you laugh. Also, the application is made in HTML5 which makes the gameplay a great experience.

Amul India

When you are brand famous for coming up with quirky outdoor ads, we expect you to be the same on social media. Sadly though, Amul's Energize Your Olympians Facebook app is neither interesting nor does it stand any chance to go viral. The app requires you to pick a sport and 'Energize' the Indian team in the selected sport with Milk. The only interaction you have is to click the 'Energize' button. No rewards, no quirkiness and no fun at all.

I know they want to position Milk, their flagship product, as the drink of the champions. But for a brand which is so funny with its ads, I wonder how they came up with such a boring app.

IDBI Bank

IDBI bank has decided to take the Quiz route where it asks trivia questions (10 points each) based on the Olympics. Prizes like iPads are on offer and in order to win them you have to:

• Answer all the questions correctly
• Be the fastest

To be honest, I fail to see the brand connect here. Also, the images based questions take a lot of time to load while the timer ticks away. So if you happen to be using a slower internet connection, you will never be the winner. And I see no point in the app asking for my name, number and location when it can easily fetch that from my Facebook profile. Disappointing.

Samsung India

Samsung India's Olympic campaign is centred around 8 atheletes. Titled 'Cheer Your Star' the Facebook app asks you to choose your favorite athletes and write personalized wishes for them. While being very simple and basic, the app is really smooth to work with.

You can also win Samsung Galaxy Y mobiles and tees but nowhere has Samsung explained the procedure of selecting a winner. Though the app leaves a lot to be desired, it is worth a mention.

Acer India

Acer India's Olympic social media campaign is all about National Anthem. The Facebook app requires you to sing and record the National Anthem and upload it on youtube. You can also cheer the athletes by sending your messages. Nothing unique to talk about and considering the fact that India doesn't have a good broadband infrastructure, video based campaigns will not be received that easily.

The Stand for India campaign has Hritik Roshan as the brand ambassador and the objective behind this campaign seems to be to connect with the Nationalistic pride of a person.

Panasonic India

Another simple 'message' based Facebook app, the 'Sharing the Passion' campaign from Panasonic India has received a sizeable number of responses, 627 at the time of writing this post. The looks of the page are simple and the objective is same: cheer the Indian contingent. Panasonic is giving away daily prizes and two grand prizes to those with the best messages.

I like the fact that they are cross promoting their Twitter handle on the same page. Might get them some followers.

So, these were some of the most prominent brands tapping into the Olympics fever and trying their best to make a mark. From what I see, they can do so much more with it. May be 2016 will have some gems?

Featured image: Ben Sutherland