Case study: How 1000 stories in 1000 minutes used global platforms to celebrate Indian entrepreneurs

GAME, in their 1000 stories in 1000 minutes campaign, leveraged a few guiding principles, partners, and entrepreneurs who shared their stories and voiced a number of entrepreneurs and garnered a social media reach of 4.8 Mn

This case study takes a look at GAME's 1000 stories in 1000 minutes campaign, which gave a platform for entrepreneurs from all walks of life which say an engagement of 44K+.

Category Introduction

Making entrepreneurship aspirational across the country

Brand Introduction

Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) is a non-profit organization that works to build powerful coalitions to improve enabling conditions for broad-based entrepreneurship and rapid and sustainable growth of enterprises in the country.

Marketing objective

Make entrepreneurship aspirational in India by showcasing entrepreneurs from all walks of life. By using storytelling as a cultural influencer, an alliance of 41 partners was built to showcase entrepreneurial stories from across the nation. To build a movement, Twitter was used, which is the best mode for rapid mass dissemination of information, and this is what was needed to build a movement.

Summary

In an unprecedented effort to showcase entrepreneurs from all walks of life and make entrepreneurship aspirational across India, 41 partners joined hands with Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) to share 1000 entrepreneurship stories from across India. This culminated in a Twitter Marathon on the 31st of May from 7:30 am to 11:30 pm. Creating a mass entrepreneurship narrative through storytelling, the alliance shared stories of these unsung heroes, their successes and trials, hopes and dreams, and, moreover, their relentless drive to achieve their entrepreneurial ambitions. Conversations around entrepreneurship are usually connected to cities and tech enterprises. In an initiative to break this perception and broad base entrepreneurship to a much wider horizon, 1000 stories in 1000 minutes went beyond and showcased entrepreneurs across all categories, demographics, classes, and gender. The campaign aimed to foster a greater entrepreneurial spirit by bringing their stories of grit, determination, and relentless passion to the fore. The partner organizations that participated included global platforms, Entrepreneurship Development Organisations (EDOs), incubators, vibrant entrepreneurial communities, and grassroot organizations.

Problem Statement/Objective

In India, entrepreneurship is not considered as a viable career option, much like startups or government jobs, and there are not enough jobs to absorb the 53 million unemployed people in India. So how do we encourage people to gravitate toward entrepreneurship? By making it aspirational by telling inspirational entrepreneurial stories from across the nation. This also intends to shift the focus from job seekers to job creators.

Brief

In the glitz and glam of international entrepreneurs literally shooting themselves into space, people tend to forget that any major international MNC or business that they see or aspire to work at one day was built from the ground up. In an attempt to mainstream the small entrepreneur, we took on an ambitious project of showcasing 1000 local entrepreneur stories from across the nation. The brief was to break all barriers to what entrepreneurship represents. Hence, the stories extend beyond tech startups and cities and move towards the other underrepresented geographies, including more women entrepreneurs representing all ages of entrepreneurship (since starting a business has no age). As an alliance, this project was only going to be possible by engaging partners from across the nation. To generate excitement for participating in this campaign, 1000 stories in 1000 minutes was also positioned as a first-of-its-kind attempt to create a record-breaking entrepreneurial movement. Twitter, known for its ability to reach a wide audience rapidly, was selected for this campaign. We wanted to provide the excitement of watching an exciting event together, almost on the same level as seeing IPL. So, by showcasing 1000 stories in 1000 minutes as a marathon on Twitter, we aimed to encourage India to come together on the 31st of May and view this exciting event together.

Creative Idea:

• To broaden base entrepreneurship, the 41 partners also needed to be diverse. This included global platforms, Entrepreneurship Development Organisations (EDOs), incubators, vibrant entrepreneurial communities, and grassroot organizations
• To create a sense of realness, we encouraged entrepreneurs to share stories in their voice and language.
• To increase engagement and enhance reach, each creative of the story that went out was personalized with the entrepreneur and partner’s image. This kind of spotlight made each organization and entrepreneur feel special and encouraged them to share the stories in their network.
• Twitter was used as the main platform because of its ability to disseminate information at a mass and rapid pace.
• The campaign was positioned to set a record as this would create the emotion of being part of something that was unique and not attempted before

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Challenges

• Getting stories from each of the 28 states
• Receiving stories from partners as per a strict timeline suggested, we had to extend the time to allow them to provide the right stories.

Execution

• Leveraged on the strength of an alliance, 41 partners joined GAME. This included global platforms, Entrepreneurship Development Organizations (EDOs), incubators, vibrant entrepreneurial communities, and grassroot organizations
• With a few guiding principles, partners and entrepreneurs were encouraged to share stories in their voices irrespective of tonality and language
• All stories were hosted on a microsite which was a one-stop shop of all the 1000 journeys
• Going beyond tech startups, this provided a platform for all sorts of entrepreneurs to tell their stories
• This kind of ambition takes a village, so GAME built a committed army of interns and volunteers to ensure the presentation of the 1000 stories on 31st May was delivered on time
• The continuous engagement with partners ensured consistent amplification and enhancing reach of communication collateral

Results

Gender: 45% women 55% men

The number of stories per region:

Channels for Outreach:

Social media ( Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)

• Reach: 4,801,363
• Engagement: 44,912
• Video Views: 137,037

Influencers: ( Jaymin Shah, Zinal Shah, Rishabh Surana, Anuj Prajapati, IPO Mantra, Rahul Prajapati)

• Impressions : 30,341
• Engagement: 1,033

Hotstar video:

• Unique Reach: 119,014
• Video Impressions: 238,024
• Video clicks: 1,373

On the Day (31st May):

Tweet Stats:

• Impression: 180,000
• Engagement: 4,272
• Engagement Rate: 4.56%
• Profile Visits: 93,000
• Increase in Followers: 200

Qualitative Comments:

“In India, entrepreneurship is still considered a risky profession and hence the attractiveness towards stable government jobs and established startups for employment. Through this campaign and by showcasing 1000 entrepreneurial stories from across categories and geographies, we want to make entrepreneurship aspirational where it becomes a top career choice and where job seekers are inspired to become job creators. A thriving ecosystem with millions of flourishing small businesses will lead to true economic transformation. We also believe these stories must be told and celebrated as much as we celebrate the success of the startup ecosystem” - Sandhya Thukaram, COO GAME.