By Biprorshee Das
Media

Emvies 2009: Mind reading and dripping chocolates on the Internet

Mindshare presented case studies on Season 2 of Heroes and Axe's Dark Temptation at the Emvies 2009

Mindshare, a GroupM agency with the maximum shortlists in 18 categories at this year's Emvies, presented two case studies in the Best Media Innovation – Digital category. One showcased the promotion of the second season of STAR World's TV series, Heroes, and the other of Axe deodorant's Dark Temptation variant following the censure of the television commercial.

The Heroes' return

Emvies 2009: Mind reading and dripping chocolates on the Internet
Targeting a young audience, the media agency's objective was to generate revival of content of Heroes' second season.

Identifying that English shows have a small but loyal base and depend on word of mouth publicity, the agency developed a viral chain strategy. Devising a prank – 'Psyche your friend', a video was splashed across social forums on the Internet.

Emvies 2009: Mind reading and dripping chocolates on the Internet
The prankster forwards the personalised video to a friend, feeding in the friend's name and phone number. In the video, Matthew 'Matt' Parkman, a character in the series who is a telepath, 'reads' the friend's mind, asking the friend to think about the same details when he is face-to-face with the friend.

With the one-on-one interaction with Greg Grunberg, the actor playing Matt, the word spread and the results were apparent. More than 37,000 personalised videos were forwarded, with one video forwarded every minute during the campaign period. The campaign also boasts of 2,333 hours of user engagement and being responsible for a 100 per cent rise in TRPs over Season 1 of the show.

The Axe Effect

Emvies 2009: Mind reading and dripping chocolates on the Internet
Mindshare's second case study in the category, titled Axe-11/11, focused on the promotion of Dark Temptation, the chocolate fragrance range of Axe deodorants.

With the TVC coming under heavy criticism by the Information and Broadcast Ministry and eventually being cut to suit the approved standards, the agency turned to aggressive promotion on the Internet to further push the brand's 'irresistible chocolate man'.

Incidentally, the Axe ad has won a gold Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, 2008. It shows a man, who has used Axe Dark Temptation, turning into a 'chocolate man'. The transformed man is thus shown to be irresistible to women, who kiss, lick, bite and touch him everywhere he goes.

Under the campaign, 'chocolate man' shaped chocolates were made available to order through Axe's webpage and leading portals of the country such as Yahoo!, MSN, Rediff and Indiatimes were roped in to showcase the chocolate man. Even the logos of these portals were altered on the day.

The 'chocolate man' was seen all across the portals' home pages as chocolate dripped for 24 hours on November 11 on the logos via banner ads. Girls were shown walking up to him, too. The campaign saw 6,60,000 minutes of user engagement with 70 per cent of the Internet audience on day one.

The webpage, www.theaxeeffect.com, recorded 5,43,753 hits during the three week campaign, while more than 15,000 chocolate man-shaped chocolates were ordered. Dark Temptation is the most successful variant of Axe, the agency tells afaqs!.

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