‘Kingfisher Strong Backstage’ Season 3: Back With Regional Flavours

After the grand success of ‘Kingfisher Strong Backstage’ season 1 and season 2, Kingfisher is back yet again with its web series to keep its audiences grooving to its tunes. Since the very first season in June 2013 which was a musical experiment that received huge audience applause, followed by the second season in December 2013 that marked the launch of regional songs and established the activity as a web property of Kingfisher, this time, Kingfisher promises to offer, something more than just regional music to enthral the audience!

The objective of Kingfisher Strong Backstage has always been to engage the youth & music lovers on social media with some great music and to develop a sustainable marketing strategy for the brand.

Execution:

Kingfisher strong backstage, Season 3 has something more to offer to its audience. With this series being a digital-only content, Kingfisher strong backstage will be uncovering talent of fresh & popular singers. Raising the visual appeal of the web series is an exciting way to keep the audience hooked.

KF strong backstage Season 3 introduced popular singers who represented their states and sang exclusive songs. Each edition starts with a popular singer’s exclusive song in a regional language, helping build significant buzz & audience connect for that edition. It sets up subsequent weeks for upcoming regional talents really well.

The current season is phased out into 3 parts. Kingfisher is calling it the &list=PLoyfMgP_C4CtMismmlven_H1JYSI9mEFg" target="_blank">Kerala Edition, &list=PLoyfMgP_C4CtVWf268c0pjc42zlJOFqKr" target="_blank">Bengal Edition & &list=PLoyfMgP_C4CunobwuIpwfA4j3itS9mK64" target="_blank">Andhra Pradesh - Telangana edition respectively. The differentiating factor this season is the inclusion of iconic singers for each edition. The three month long campaign that started off in August 2014 and ends in October, featuring a state every month. The month of August saw the Kerala edition come alive with Benny Dayal, the iconic singer of the state. This was then followed by Bengal in September, where Shaan represented the title of iconic singer. October saw the third state of Andhra Pradesh participating with the iconic singer Sreeram Chandra.

Building on the state-wise editions, Kingfisher Strong Backstage Season 3’ manages to break through the monotony of a studio setting by taking its audience on a musical journey, making each music video distinct with not only its regional music appeal but also with the locations in which they are shot. So far, Kerala edition has seen songs shot across Munnar, Kumarakom etc. with West Bengal edition being shot across Kolkata, Kalimpong, Darjeeling etc., keeping it fresh & relevant to it respective editions.

Positives –

• Influence of Music on the Youth

Music is a core culture of the youth that has forever witnessed higher attention span. And with the social space crowding up with more & more youth each year, it does astonish how brands haven’t tapped into reaching out to them through music & video content. With not many brands tapping into the opportunity of engaging with their target audience through video content marketing, it is captivating to see video content and the theme chosen at its best by Kingfisher.

• A well-sustained social media activity has the potential to go a long way.

With n number of brands & businesses trying to compete with one another on the social space, reaching out to target customers has become a highly competitive affair. In trying to break through the clutter of monotonous social media campaigns that are short-lived, few brands carry out prolonged social media activities, giving enough time & space for customers to engage with the brand over time.

Kingfisher has successfully carried out a well-maintained property #KFStrongBackstage that caters to the youth along with several music enthusiasts, by bringing out 3 seasons of the show. A sustained social media activity garners way more engagement for the brand than a short-lived campaign, which only aims at fulfilling the need of the hour.

This is what Kingfisher’s Strong Backstage is doing for the brand.

• Higher brand recall than competitive brands- Consumers will begin to recall Kingfisher’s name & brand attributes over other brands in the sector who keep shifting focus of their target audience to various messages at quick intervals of time.
• Strong brand personality:Kingfisher has strong associations with each of its marketing message and has built a strong personality among music lovers through this campaign.
• A sustained social media campaign will help you receivebetter engagement from customers, thus better results. For instance, the first season of KF strong Backstage had 6 lakh video views, the second had more and the third will have even higher.
• The reliability factorof a sustained social media campaign is much higher than a temporary gratification based campaign from the users' perspective.

Kingfisher Strong Backstage is one such sustained social media campaign that looks at keeping its audiences hooked in the long run. Not only has it looked at building a sustained web series, but also effectively marketed its video content on Facebook to cater to the youth online.

Though video content is a pains taking affair, due to its production & large-scale budget, Kingfisher has gone out of their way in reaching to their audience online by creating a special web series which is an effort that won’t go missed by fans online. Videos, usually have the potential to create a deeper impact as opposed to text content that is dry with no visual appeal. Businesses now are hence flocking to explore video content marketing. Take a look at why Kingfisher looked at exploring the video content marketing approach.

Marketing Video Content on Social Media Platforms

By now, most of you are aware of how Facebook works as one great platform to market brands online. With millions of daily active users across the globe, this social networking platform is one of the easiest places to get your word across to people. It’s easy to connect with your fans, show off your product or service offerings, influence purchase decisions with discounts & successfully leave a mark on consumers with an outstanding social media campaign!

Essentially, Facebook Videos are bits of content that are either uploaded to Facebook directly or posted through a third-party platform like YouTube.

Have a closer look at why Kingfisher made use of ‘Facebook Videos’ in its social media strategy -

• Facebook's Autoplay Video: When you see a video while scrolling through your news feed, the video initially begins to play silently. And if users want, they can tap to play with sound in full screen. Users can scroll by it if they do not wish to watch it. This is a great add on for Kingfisher to advertise its web series and successfully tap this opportunity to engage with their fans.

• Facebook's Video View Count: Kingfisher and its fans can quiet easily gauge the success or failure of videos on Facebook. This feature enables people to quickly decide the popularity of the video & whether they would want to go ahead & watch it or rather ignore it. Hence when a user notices that a music video by Kingfisher has received good views, another user is automatically eager to watch, what it that he / she is missing on. The fact that almost every song being released this season is crossing 1 lakh views, with regional songs sung by iconic singers notching much higher, the nature of content and its targeting seems to be working perfectly well.

• Facebook's Mobile App Will Remain The Focus For Video Marketing: Due to an increasing number of users consuming video content more often through their phones on the go, than their desktops, Facebook proves its importance by introducing an opportunity for brands to reach out to their mobile customers. With the youth majorly being Kingfisher’s target audience, understanding their habits & preferences is of prime importance.

When it comes to maintaining a digital property with great content that has high possibility of garnering more traction, Kingfisher with their #KFStrongBackstage campaign stands at the forefront of their competitors.

While their Facebook page is doing a pretty good job, providing sharp targeting options for fresh faces as well as iconic singers, their Youtube channel isn't far behind with regards to the number of views it has received so far. Also, the introduction of popular singers this season gives a strong high point, unlike last year where all the weekly releases were unknown faces and hence it was difficult to build interest for the same. Watching Shaan & Benny Dayal singing exclusive regional songs, works as a great hook for users to sample the property and share the same with their circle. With iconic singers and upcoming talents sharing the same platform, it makes 'Kingfisher Strong Backstage' an aspirational property as well as a great stage for regional talents to showcase their potentials.