Creative Experimentation to Define Social Media Campaigns In 2014

I was recently a part of two very interesting events. One was an ‘All you can eat’ competition by Pizza Hut and the other a Tweasure Hunt organized by So Delhi. Both the events were very different in concept, yet they resembled each other in - (1) creativity of the stunt/ activity (2) social media integration in the concept (3) social media amplification (4) refreshing and different engagement.

The ‘All you can eat’ competition by Pizza Hut was an on-ground activation between two food enthusiast groups – FOODATHON and Chef At Large – where each of the team had to eat maximum pizzas possible within 30mins. This was done to create more buzz around their ‘Unlimited pizzas at Rs199/’ offer. There was sufficient pre-event and event day buzz created around this activity on Twitter. To give you an idea, the 2 team captain names @yourchefatlarge and @karanbhujbal were mentioned on Twitter more than 150 and 70 times respectively! Live-tweeting and videos were also made during the event.

All geared up to walk into Pizza Hut and defeat our competition. Eventually though we lost by 3 slices. The score Chef At Large 41 slices & FOODATHON 38 slices.

The other activity, the Tweasure Hunt, was organized by So Delhi, a Delhi City tour guide restaurant. The concept was that people had to find (with the help of clues) and visit 18 of restaurants/ shops in Khan Market, do a task within each of them, secure points and then assemble at one point (Toro lounge). The team with the maximum points would win some grand prize. With the complexity of the task and the mediocre (my perception) popularity of So Delhi, I expected a modest crowd; but I was surprised to see over a 100 people, across age groups and nationalities participating! There was lots of tweeting done and Khan market got itself PR like never before. Imagine a 100 people visiting 18 shops of Khan! It was tremendous exposure for khan market! And overall the hashtag #tweasurehunt received over 700 tweets in 2 hours.

Samyukta, our tweasure hunt team captain, praying that we win! :p

And Nikunj gorges on the snacks before the hunt began.

Both these activities were really very interesting and engaging. The results were visible both qualitatively and quantitatively. But the lesson was that:

*2 concepts, not new ones, were spun around with an interesting social twist

*The events could have bombed, but experimentation in both these cases paid off well!

The last 2 years have seen a lot of social media leverage by brands, but the next couple of years are going to be defined by creative experimentation. Brands like P&G and Dove are sure way ahead with social experiments that consistently touch human emotional chords, but more brands going to be following suit.

karanbhujbal

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