#CelebratingJio: A Hat-Trick that backfired!

Reliance Jio launched the much awaited 4G telecom service for RIL employees at a star studded event in Navi Mumbai. If things were executed as planned, #CelebratingJio would have been crowned as India’s biggest private influencer marketing campaign in 2015 with hundreds of Bollywood celebrities, thousands of micro celebs and employees.

When the odds are high, one tends to miss the glory by a whisker; this massive activation also backfired because of a tactical blunder.

While the offline event grabbed a lot of eyeballs because of the sheer grandeur and grace of the host/brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan, adding to the seamless experience offline #CelebratingJio got populated on twitter with over 70,000 tweets generating 51,348,538 impressions (Impressions Data from Keyhole).

There is an ironic twist to this tale, the campaign custodians for Reliance Jio committed the cardinal ‘sin’ of influencer marketing treating celebrities as human media platforms and mass bombing the same tweet from popular accounts on twitter. The long list of celebrities includes -

Hrithik Roshan

John Abraham

Boman Irani

Parineeti Chopra

Shraddha Kapoor

Sonakshi Sinha

Farah Khan

Kapil Sharma, Elli Avram and KKP team

In simple terms, the twitter handles of celebrities were used to communicate the same message. It’s difficult to contemplate whether the act was a goodness gesture or coercion or a typical influencer engagement, but, this definitely affects the measure of influence these celebrities exert over their followers. The development drew flak from the nooks and corners of the social media industry.

The idea of leveraging the collective reach and influence of celebrities seems perfect for the occasion but one needs to ensure that the content is tweaked as per their followers or in line with the personality of the celebrity.

In the social media era, where brands are trying hard to humanize themselves, humans are falling in the trap to automate content on their social media platforms for ulterior motives.

Celebrities – Followers ‘Misconnect’

The celebrities or even micro celebrities on Twitter commonly known as influencers have gained this amount of repute and influence from followers on a healthy premise. But, with great power comes great responsibility.

The unwritten code of responsibility seeks unbiased, un-fractured and true opinions. Even if the celebrity wishes to oblige an endorsement or a commitment the communication has to be personal and candid. The reason why the masses follow celebrities on twitter is that they wish to go beyond the REEL life and learn more about their REAL life.

Closing Thoughts

#CelebratingJio activation has drawn daggers of crisis over celebrity influencer marketing, not sure whether the agency or brand perceives it to be so but, this would definitely impact the faith and fandom of celebrities across followers.

Common Followers of Hrithik, Parineeti, and Sonakshi might be flustered to see the same tweet; we wonder how the celebrities feel about this virtual mishap

We would love to dive in deeper and extract more info on the state of influencer marketing in India post #CelebratingJio day. Your valuable inputs are welcome!