BPL Mobile gets gangs on billboards

BPL Mobile is on a re-branding drive with its new ‘Get in the Loop’ campaign. The mobile operator, with 1.1 million subscribers in Mumbai, is keen to talk to a young audience by appealing to its best-known characteristic – vanity. The campaign gives a ‘gang’ of youngsters an opportunity to appear on a billboard in the city. People can participate by uploading their group pictures on the website, www.getintheloop.in.

BPL Mobile’s campaign, developed by McCann-Erickson, Mumbai, is perhaps the first of its kind in India where real consumers end up being a part of the outdoor communication. In the US, this concept was used famously by ‘Time’ magazine to promote its Person of the Year issue in 2006, by letting ordinary people appear on a digital billboard in Times Square.

The website goes with BPL Mobile’s new colourful identity and has all the trimmings of a youth-oriented site. The pull factor is, of course, the graffiti wall from where a gang is chosen for the billboard. There’s even a game where the player has to connect the maximum number of cellphones to a signal. Subramaniam says, “This interactive website has many more exciting activities lined up in the coming months. BPL Mobile will make available some really exciting contests, games, cool downloads and whacky trivia to its key target customers.”

BPL Mobile (which has been acquired by Essar in 2005) decided to re-brand itself in July. Essar has been permitted to use the BPL Mobile brand name for a year as the acquisition is still under arbitration, in the light of the sale of a majority stake in Hutchison Essar to Vodafone early this year.