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From catching the pulse of the audiences right by timely engagement in moment marketing to aptly leveraging the content marketing tactics to crafting impressive stories as the need of the hour, the Reliance Jio social media strategy has been all things ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan’.
In the year 2016 when RIL Chairman and MD, Mukesh Ambani hosted a slew of announcements with a vision to revolutionize the digital ecosystem in India- the resultant was JIO. Touted as the company’s biggest ever digital bet - ‘Jio’ has since then catalyzed India’s internet consumption backed with data and technological innovations. While the helmers continue to reshape ‘Jio’ for Digital India, the brand fortifies its presence on social media and walks the talk adapting to the trends. We take a look at the Jio social media marketing game play one campaign a time.
The brand has created an intriguing ripple in the digital space whilst becoming a new-age Internet brand. Expressing his views on Jio’s digital-led strategy, Sameer Makani, Co-Founder, and Managing Director, Makani Creatives states that the majority of companies today operate online as a result of easy internet access, and most influencers today exist as a result of it. According to him, given Jio's dominance on the internet as a sector, it is imperative for it to be among the top five, if not the top, in terms of social media presence.
Of the people, by the people, for the people
The past year has thought us to be more empathetic towards each other where the onus was on advertisers to convey the significance of ‘being human’ especially during the times of crisis.
The Lockdown Heroes Campaign by Jio celebrated the incredible stories of some of the company’s network engineers who pushed themselves to keep the network running in the midst of the lockdown. Had the pandemic occurred in any other generation, users probably would not have been able to move ahead with their lives so seamlessly while working from home, learning from home and being entertained at home. The way Jio celebrated the Lockdown Heroes Campaign with many detailed stories of frontline workers traversing through snow, travelling for several kilometers for work with limited means of transport, all of this, brings together the true essence of ‘connecting lives’.
Along with the lockdown heroes, Jio also shed light on its ‘Jio Associates’ program that provides its users an opportunity to earn money through the platform by earning commission through making recharges.
One of them, Jasvant, is a Jio associate from Muradwala who helped more than 100 villagers recharge their numbers in the midst of a strict curfew. The heartening stories showcase the depth of Jio in this country.
Tapping on topical content and moment marketing
Makani informs that the combined viewership/ followership of Jio’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook is estimated to be between 2.5 and 4 million users. “The brand has also managed to stay relevant with current times by leveraging the internet trends via memes or challenges. While Twitter has got them less traction; it is their Instagram handle that has good engagement with an average of 30k to 50k viewership,” he shares.
So far, the brand’s digital presence is vast and with new innovations such as Studio, Fiber Internet etc. company is bound to enhance the overall traction across platforms in the years to come.
The communication put forth by Jio for their campaign on the World Earth Day, where ‘mother earth’ makes a phone call to the earthlings, stands exemplary from the standpoint of the usage of content.
The brand has put to play different UI approaches as well. Be it the WhatsApp UI talking about connecting with friends during the lockdown or whether it's the phone unlock UI that showcases the need to maintain social distancing.
Also Read: Inside: Making of Jio Dhan Dhana Dhan – Fundamentals of creating a long-distance campaign
Whether it was to portray the legendary Sachin Tendulkar's birthday or showcasing the need for social distancing for their #CoronaHaaregaIndiaJeetega campaign, by the effortless use of dots, Jio’s minimal content marketing has been a successful play.
The communication put forth by the brand shows particular emphasis on the Indianness of Jio. The post about emojis made for India and the stories of digital Indians who are creating interesting things on the Internet, particularly through their On Jio platform.
The celebration of these stories about people exploring the Internet on Jio is fun and brings alive the celebration of Jio. The brand hit it home with their Independence Day campaign with an a-capella version of the National Song sung by different people at their own homes.
Apart from these the brand excites its young customer base with entertaining meme content and Gen Z language. With its use of fresh colours or the witty and different take on different concepts which bring alive the feelings of the Young Indian consumer of today.
Saurabh Mathur- Head, Experience & Technology, VMLY&R India observes that with a large following across all platforms, Jio’s products are, in many cases, communicated in a culturally relevant context through topical interventions or trends. They’re quick to leverage moment marketing and utilize various formats such as reels, LIVE, IGTV, and stories.
He asserts, “Moving forward, Jio would benefit from creating a channel-specific strategy, prioritizing content based on the relevance of the platform. In addition, leveraging communities by creating sub-brand pages could help them streamline content for dedicated interests. This is a common way for brands to diversity their portfolio and choose specific audiences to interact with depending on the topic of communication. For example, Jio could create pages for Jio Cinema, Jio Cricket, Jio Music, etc., where the content can be interest-specific and allow the brand to own these brand worlds beyond just service offerings.”
Jio- the Digital Way
Last year, Reliance Jio organized a Digital Navratri that provided Indians with a virtual Darshan from homes through Jio meet and Jio TV . Jio can be seen creating occasions for Indians to go about living and celebrating the important moments of their lives without facing any hassles.
Talking about celebrations, one big celebration in the calendar and press of Jio, has been the AGM. The way the videos have been put together denotes that it is no longer the ‘Reliance of Yesterday’ but a futuristically forward brand that is competing with the best technology players in the world.
What Panisa Shah, Head - Creative, Social Beat really likes is Jio’s content mix - harping on their IPL partnerships, using celebrities to push engagement, going big with a lot of short videos and topical content.
From a celebration of Reliance to the celebration of India which is the IPL, the Jio digital ads are built-in quite a clever fashion with crisp and sharp writing making it a potential television ad.
As the IPL was in UAE, Jio created a very interesting look and feel of bringing the players in the local settings of the city and the same look was carried forward into the videos with some impressive design. The brand added another feather to their hat of digital content supremacy by turning their TVC into memeable content.
Marketing 101
Jio has become a more visible brand in the marketing press as well. One can see the brand being increasingly featured in the top end of the marketing press, whether it is the Raavan post - featuring a mask, or the India-USA trend where the brand took a strong take on the trend while comparing the population of the USA being as big as the subscriber base of Jio.
All of the brand's content and communication is well-woven into the ethos of this 4-year video created by their team. The video received about 2M views organically.
Shradha Agarwal, COO and Strategy Head- Grapes Digital is of the opinion that Jio has changed the consumption habits of hundreds of millions of consumers, and this has been many times depicted in their ads. In the initial stage, Jio signed big celebrities as their brand ambassadors like Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan that helped the brand in building connectivity with the customers.
She adds, “Jio also focused on cashback in their messaging that has been promoted across social media platforms. Their tie-ups with wallets like Freecharge, Mobikwik, and Paytm offer cashback to JioPrime users on recharge. In the last two years, Jio is effectively promoting about the brand on social media platforms be about its network, and how it connects and unites people has been showcased widely in its messaging. The brand has smartly adopted the digital approach, and works on digital content strategy- and has focused on customer-centricity. Over the period it has enchased all the opportunities well, be it the festive season or IPL fever. Its DhanDhanaDhan campaign became a massive hit among the audience, and people actually await its prepaid plan for the IPL season- which has helped Jio in reaching the mass.”
One can only look forward to more such activations from the brand and the ways in which it keeps its followers well-informed about the developments apart from entertaining them in its typical ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan’ way.