How to Add a Topical Twist to Your Social Media Campaign- The Indian Brand Experience

Being “In the news” is something all brands want.  Finally, all of them seek retention of their messages, products, services and promotional endeavors.  What better way of staying in the news than being it?  That is what topical advertising and promotion is all about…being the news.

Topical advertising has always elicited interest and drawn attention whenever used and a stellar example of topical advertising in India is the Amul butter campaign.  One that has had its finger on the pulse of the nation for several decades now, the Amul butter campaign makes people sit up and take notice simply because it links current events with its advertising messages.  Weaving the two together seamlessly, lacing it with humor and engaging audiences all at once.

There is no reason why you cannot add a topical twist to your social media campaign. That’s what Indian brands big and small, did with their Facebook and Twitter campaigns in the last month or so.  Here is a look at how they did it and what you can learn from it….

Blending Festivals and Family

Indian festivals are a time for family, color, sweets and celebrations and in recent times Cadbury has made these celebrations the central theme of all their advertising and promotional campaigns.  That is precisely where the Cadbury Raksha Bandhan campaign on Facebook took off from.  The India celebrates Raksha Bandhan Facebook app made distances melt away by letting brothers and sisters tell each other how special they are by using the app to send a special wish anywhere in India.

The Cadbury Celebrations Facebook wall was a celebration in itself. Aside from the app, siblings could also send wishes through SMS.  Fans were also able to change their profile picture or cover photo to one of theirs with their siblings and share it on the Cadbury Celebrations Wall, the duo could then have a shot at being featured on the cover photo on the brand’s page on Raksha Bandhan.  The brand built ‘Sister Streets’ in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Lucknow and fans living in any of these cities could upload a picture of the Sister street and win a surprise gift.

The campaign extended to Twitter where the brand invited brothers and sisters to share what makes their brother or sister special and the sweetest messages won a Cadbury Celebrations pack every hour. The specially created hashtag #MySpecialBro trended on the day of the contest.

Crowd Power and Spreading the Love

Friendship Day which is celebrated on the first Sunday of August has become a big celebration across India.  With colleges reopening early June and July, most youngsters are basking in new found friendships and reinforcing old ones, prominent brands that chose to capitalize on this event were Airtel and Cadbury Dairy Milk.

The Airtel Friendship band campaign which encouraged fans to add as many friends as they could before 5^th August to create the world’s largest Friendship Band.  In a bid to be the chocolate which youngsters across India spend their friendship moments with, Cadbury Dairy Milk the brand came up with the Dosti Blockbuster app which enabled fans to create humorous, sweet and memorable videos of their friends.

The Cadbury Dairy Milk Dosti Diaries also encouraged fans to become a part of the largest online scrapbook specially created for this occasion.

Games and Green Facts

As the world watched the biggest sporting event unfold in London, an Indian startup based in Jaipur worked towards creating awareness about the “green” edge to the London Olympics.  Workshop Q, the brainchild of Radhika and Madhvi Khaitan is engaged in recycling and reusing to create home décor products that are well designed and functional.

Adding a topical twist to their social media campaign, Workshop Q launched an interesting endeavor that lists valuable facts and trivia about the “Green” aspects of the Olympics.  The difference in approach was highlighting facts about the Olympics in line with Workshop Q’s “Green” approach to business. 

Irrespective of the product or service you choose to promote using the social media platform, adding a topical twist helps you make people sit up and take notice of your endeavors.  With Facebook apps that are simple and unique to a product or campaign, this becomes much more easier, not to forget interesting for users.

Linking current events to promotional campaigns helps you create ripples while developing tools and the means to engage with customers like never before.

Featured image: webtreats