Maybelline Helps Fans #HangOutWithAlia with a Mediocre Online-Offline Activation

Alia Bhatt is to today’s generation what Kareena Kapoor was to our (people who are in their late twenties) generation. A rage amongst fans, Alia Bhatt is everywhere, having starred in some of the best Bollywood movies in the recent past and campaigning for some of the biggest brands. Being the brand ambassador of brands like Garnier Fructis, Maybelline and Hero Motor Corp, she’s made it a habit to be in news.

Objective

• Host a multi city Google Hangout with Alia Bhatt and have her interact live with the audience.
• Spread awareness about the new Color Show nail colors and the Lip Polish range by having Alia quiz her fans on the names of the shades and have an overall fun session with them, sharing make-up and beauty tips.

The objective of the entire campaign was to spread word about Maybelline’s new collections and to increase audience engagement by interacting with them before, during and after the activation by the effective use of Google Hangout.

Execution

The campaign started early on with a contest for fans to send in questions which they would like Alia to answer. The lucky winners would have their questions answered by Alia herself. The response was quite overwhelming with hundreds of fans replying back with their questions:

At this point, the audience were not yet informed about how Alia would answer their questions.

Audiences were first informed about this event with the following posts across various Maybelline networks:

Asking followers to RSVP for the event using a Google+ Events page:

The next activity for the campaign was a contest which would allow one lucky winner to win a follow from Alia Bhatt’s Twitter account:

With a plethora of responses coming in:

And then yet another contest.

Finally, reaching the crunch time of the actual hangout, the campaign was all about reminding the followers to attend the hangout:

Positives

First of Its Kind Activity in India

We’ve known Maybelline to be an innovative brand that uses digital activities to its best. Once again they were able to execute an exceptionally new concept in India. Even though we have seen multi-city hangouts being conducted by Google in the USA, this is among the first few of its kind of activities in India.

Google is always on the lookout for activities on Google+ so as to help them boost their adoption as well; this activity has been a win-win for both the brands.

High Audience Interaction

#HangOutWithAlia received close to 200 mentions in the 5 day time frame and #IWantToAskAlia received over 300 mentions. Over 90k fans tuned-in to the Hangout which received an overwhelming 92 Million impressions and a reach of over 14 Million across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram.

The campaign has been successful in attracting its target audiences and in keeping them engaged. The brand constantly came up with fresh topics to keep the conversations going and kept building on the momentum it had captured.

Scope for Improvement

Too Much of the Same

Contests on Twitter have proved to attract a lot of audiences and helped brands keep things interesting. However, expecting the same tool to yield the same result every time it is used, is over burdening and at the same time monotonous for audiences. The brand could have definitely improved in the activities it planned in the run up to the Hangout.

A mix of a couple of activities would keep things interesting and could have yielded better results.

Overtly “Selly”

Across all activities, during the Hangout, the focus was severely on selling. The element of promoting the brand and the collections was kept constant. The brand would have benefited if the focus was on Alia Bhatt and her stardom and the brand promotion aspect was incidental.

Social audiences are becoming increasingly smarter and can see through all such activities which could lead to a negative brand impact.

Conclusion

The campaign has been a first for India and has been well received by the audience. It also lives up to the expectations the brand's followers have: to continuously surprise them with newer and better activities and executions. The target audience being young, fashion savvy women, they expect their brands to reach out to them with the perfect blend of online and offline mediums. However, the brand should refrain from repetitive Twitter contests or being product oriented in the future.