Brands are not built in one day. Sustained work backed by synergized approach and efforts make brands what they are.
The Indian Business Council (IBC)'s much-awaited NaME (National Marketing Excellence) Awards winners were announced on 11 March 2022. Endorsed and hailed by one and all from the Indian marketing industry, this prestigious accolade is not just a pat-on-the-back for the winners, it is also a push for many others to think out of the box and challenge their creativity.
So here are five campaigns that won accolades at NaME Awards and what we can learn from them.
Bharti AXA bagged the Best Influencer Marketing B2C for #PlanSmartWithAnkur
The #PlanSmartWithAnkur campaign fulfilled Bharati AXA's purpose, 'In a complicated world, we make insurance SIMPLE.' And their secondary hashtag, #DoTheSmartThing was an extended CTA (call to action) encouraging the audience to act wisely.
Through this campaign, the brand was explicitly targeting the Gen Z and millennial crowd with the help of this new-age influencer campaign. The company chose Ankur Warikoo, the co-founder of nearbuy.com as its partner. Warikoo, as you all will already be knowing, is an Internet Entrepreneur known for his entrepreneurship and career courses. His book "DO EPIC SHIT" was a 2021 best-seller on Neilson's list.
Highlights
What makes this campaign award-worthy?
The eloquent and novel way of establishing brand authority in the insurance segment with an honest attempt to demystify insurance by getting into the basics - answering the why, what, and how.
Choosing Warikoo as a partner was a smart move adding value and credibility to the campaign. Insurance is not rocket science, and even a layman can understand it - the drive was conceptualized with this goal. As a responsible brand, the customer was at the core of the campaign highlighting not just the off-the-shelf products but custom-made solutions too.
With Warikoo, the campaign was deployed across various social media channels, including YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook, through a series of six videos ranging from explainers to myth-busters, educating and guiding to motivating people to act. The reach achieved was 1.93 million users with 2.45 million views, 4.2 million impressions, and more than 40,000 clicks. It generated about 4654 responses from the exclusive survey.
Kudos to the marketing team on streamlining the campaign and following a very enrapt strategy of choosing the target audience, defining the objectives, and finally selecting the influencer.
These endeavors helped create a campaign that stood out from the rest and delivered on the set objectives.
Geetanjali Kothari, the Head of Marketing at Bharti AXA Life, says, "We wanted to ditch the jargon and answer key questions around life insurance in the most simplistic manner possible. Ankur Warikoo did that beautifully through the six videos."
Columbia Pacific Communities won Best Content in Print B2C for 'Loneliness is not on the menu'
Columbia Pacific Communities is an international operator in the senior living community, a business segment that is just about evolving in India. The brand has been working in India for the past nine years, facilitating independent lifestyles for seniors with exclusively designed communities. The award has been presented for the brand's newly-published second print ad in The Economic Times - a jacket ad promoting its signature project, The Virtuoso Club and Serviced Residence.
The ad focused on the loneliness aspect of seniors without having like-minded, same age-group people around them. The situation, we understand, has only aggravated with Covid-19. The Virtuoso Club and Serviced Residence is where seniors can stay connected and get support from people of the same age group.
Highlights
The top page communicated to the target audience what they could expect at the Virtuoso Community, Bangalore. The back cover extensively spoke about the brand's expertise in this sector. The ad focused on two target readership - people above 50 years who are planning retirement or are retired, and offspring of seniors, especially the millennial crowd. The ad powerfully articulated how living in the seniors' community is a different experience than living elsewhere. From games rooms to fully-serviced homes, the ad content was up-to-the-point, concise, and impressive. The overall essence was to create nostalgia; the old-world charm weaved to drive home the concept of senior well-being. The advertisers kept it people-centric rather than product-oriented, helping the target market envision the brand promise perfectly.
The numbers support the freshness of the ad content. The ad appeared thrice between January and March 2021 in the Times of India, the Hindu, and Mint. It achieved an incredible value of 34 ROAS (return on ad spending).
KreditBee took home the award for Best Affiliate Marketing (Online) B2C
KreditBee's Affiliate marketing campaign tie-up with MobAvenue, a Data-driven Performance Agency, seemed to be a winning combination in FY 2021-22. Of all the marketing and ad networks the brand is currently associated with, MobAvenue garners the higher acquisition figures.
Highlights
In the Indian e-personal loan gamut, Kreditbee has created a respectable space for itself. But, in a fiercely competitive industry, the brand realized that it needed AI-driven data to assess what works for them. Consequently, the brand took about six months to get the required data, evaluate it, and prepare for a performance-oriented Affiliate Marketing strategy.
While most of its competitors were focused on App-first product marketing with their Top-of-the-Funnel installs, KreditBee took a different route. The brand always prioritized the bottom-funnel, focusing on In-app actions, First Loan Disbursal, or Card Transaction.
The new Affiliate Marketing program with MobAvenue was divided into two phases. At the initial phase, the approach was to optimize CPR. Once the results were encouraging, the company scaled up to the CPS model, optimizing on Loan Disbursal & Card Transaction.
From a monthly spend of x in Mar '21, the spend increased to 50x in Aug '21 & 100x in Jan '22. The average CAC (customer acquisition cost) has remained the same from Mar '21 to Dec '21, while the cost to GMV (gross merchandise value) ratio has fallen by 12%. As a result, the ROAS has impressively improved.
National Geographic won Best Video Content for Your Lens
National Geographic is an unparalleled brand - inspiring visuals captured by state-of-the-art equipment, authentic storytelling, and presented by world-class photographers and filmmakers. Your Lens is a program where the common man gets an opportunity to share their stories via their captures.
The program offers a creative outlet to enthusiasts keen to explore and unravel the world through their lens, get featured on the world's top channel, and inspire others.
Highlights
Presented by ace filmmaker Karan Johar, the program kicked off with an invitation for entries from all interested. Since the brand is associated with immersive content, excellent productions, empowering production values, and creativity, it was essential that Your Lens did not have such high-tech demands. After all, it was the common man presenting their side of the story through a camera.
Karan Johar launched the campaign through an on-air TVC offering well-shot teasers. In the virtual world, there was Karan on a roll, a rapid-fire with Karan Johar. Top influencers like Varun Aditya and Aisha Ahmad held Q&A sessions with Karan. There were press conferences, ads in the printed medium, emailers, etc.
The numbers - the campaign reached 97.9 million people generating 204.6 million impressions and 51.8 million views. The website had 145,000+ visitors, and there were 111,000 entries from more than 69,000 participants. The brand connected with 500,000+ trade professionals and generated millions worth of PR value across leading mainline media. Lastly, the campaign was so successful with the brand's audience that almost two out of three viewers could recall the campaign beautifully.
Voot Viacom 18 Digital Ventures bagged the Best Integrated Digital Marketing B2C for Bigg Boss OTT Integrated Marketing Campaign
Taking OTT entertainment to the next level, Big Boss OTT had its inception in 2021. 13 contestants fighting it out for the winner position were watched by 90 cameras, 24x7, and streamed live. No re-runs, no televised shows. The digital marketing campaign for this revolutionary program had to be equally far-reaching.
Highlights
An integrated and synergized campaign involving TV promos, radio ads, out-of-Home ads, social media, and video campaigns was strategized. The content was as exclusive and novel as the program. The right amount of noise and digital disruption was created through a combination of all the mediums, attracting genuine or 'asli' interest from fans and the masses. There were multiple brand collaborations, too, with many brands coming on board to support this revolutionary idea, and they were given the spotlight too. These included the Coin DCX competition where the winner could win one Bitcoin, Swiggy Weekly eviction voting, Netflix Bella ciao dancing competition, Vimal Video Vichaar, etc. The JOSH #BiggBossOTTChallenge was the ultimate killer strategy with a range of shoulder content like Unmasked with Karan, Unseen Undekha, Extra Masala, Video Vichaar, Nominations, and Report Card.
The rest is history, and the figures prove it! 120 million and more people reached, 35 million-plus people reached via print, 22 billion-plus impressions on social media, 20.2K user-generated videos, 542 million+ views, 10 billion minutes of watch time, and 34 million+ user interactions with a share of voice of almost 64%. Incredible!
Well articulated writeup.