Social Media Campaign Review: Bombay High's Tweet-Bid Campaign

For their fans this Diwali, Bombay High has come up with India's first Twitter auction.

Objective

Launched as a fun Diwali activity, the 'Tweet-Bid' campaign is aimed towards engaging people with their product offerings and generating a buzz on Twitter.

Execution

The Tweet-Bid campaign is a Twitter auction where every Tweet generated by a user acts as a currency towards a bid. For the next 3 days, Bombay High will put up some of its finest formal and casual wear up for auction for which people have to bid on Twitter.

Everyday there will be 2 auctions for 2 different products.

To take part in the auction, you will have to connect your Twitter account with the Tweet-Bid page on Bombay High's website. Once you have authorised their Twitter app, it you will be shown the product that is up for sale.

In order to bid for that product, you just have to tweet the answer to one simple question. The more you tweet, the more you bid and the person with most number of tweets stands a chance to win the product.

All you have to do is to write your answer in the space provided in the offer page itself and it will be tweeted out along with the hashtag and a mention to the brand's handle, @BombayHigh. Only the tweets generated from the microsite will be counted as bids.

While the tweeter with the most tweets wins the auction, two runner-ups will be awarded gift vouchers. So even if you aren't able to tweet the most, you won't go away empty handed!

Gaurav Verma, Senior Marketing Exec from Bombay High said:

Bombay High has always been open to new ideas which collaborate well with the online space and tweetbid is one ambitious campaign that we wanted to give a shot. It has a unique blend that understands user behaviour on twitter and makes it a platform where you exchange in return for Bombay High clothing. We are looking forward to some high quality engagement.

Shruti Nair, Director, Social Seety – The agency behind the campaign quoted:

Twitter has emerged as a platform that we can vouch for effective engagement and driving visible ROI for brands. Hence we chose Twitter as a central platform for the Diwali promotion to sync that with the brand objective of driving footfalls. A twist was given by making tweets as currencies and coupled that with a bidding experience to engage users and to promote the winter collection.

Positives

Unlike other Twitter hashtag campaigns where the brand offers surprise 'gifts', Bombay High shows you the product right at the beginning. So you know what you are trying to win and are not kept in the dark.

Also, the brand has  done a great job of linking their product website with Twitter. Allowing the participants to tweet from within the offer page ensures that they stay on their website.

All the tweet bids automatically contain the brand handle and the hashtag at the end. So you need not add them manually. And the 'Top Bidders' scroll at the bottom gives you an idea about how much you need to tweet. (Brownie points for transparency!)

Another big plus is how the brand encourages people to use their imagination while tweeting. There have been examples in the past of hashtag campaigns where people simply tweeted automated tweets. This campaign goes against that practice and makes sure that people add value to the ecosystem and don't spam with automated tweets.

Since the campaign involves active tweeting (with the brand handle in them) from the participants, it works as a great marketing vehicle for Bombay High.

Scope for improvement

If I am a follower of a participant, it becomes a little tough for me to find out at the first instance of what his/her tweet is actually about. They could have provided a context in the tweets apart from the hashtag itself.

A yfrog/twitpic link to the image of the product will help a clueless person know what the tweet is talking of. Or better, a link to the Tweet-Bid page itself.

Yes this will mean 20 less characters in the tweets, but this will also result in more tweets from the participants.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the campaign is a great way for the brand to engage with their fans and reach out to their followers as well in a creative way. Nice effort!