Emvies 2009: It was Dhobi instead of Dhoni

Mudra Max was posed with a brief to sell more Park Avenue shirts. The quick insight was that men did not really care about what condition their shirts were in, barring a few metro-sexual ones. What it did was to communicate to the target audience at Rs 0.20.

Mudra Max roped in the local 'dhobi' to be the messenger to the target audience of Park Avenue. The agency plotted all Park Avenue showrooms, mapped the dhobis in the areas and the dhobis were made to identify the shirts that were worn off, package them as new with collar cut outs, back boards and tags inside plastic cases, along with a redemption coupon and a note that said 'Your shirt has faded. It's time to change. Park Avenue has a new collection'.

About 5,000 people redeemed the coupons. Around 50,000 shirts were sold. This innovation features in the shortlist for both Best Media Innovation - Direct Marketing as well as Ambient Media at the Emvies this year.

Another of Mudra Max's innovations for Hindustan Times made it to the shortlist in the Ambient category. This one was Hindustan Times' opinion poll, wherein the agency created poll gates via walk-in gates found at railway stations and malls. Questions such as 'Should India play cricket with Pakistan?' were printed atop the gate, with two entries below titled 'yes' and 'no', allowing the customer to make a choice.

The objective was for the newspaper to connect with the reader and reflect the voice of the people. About 9.85 lakh people participated in this activity at the eight Delhi Metro stations where it was carried out. The campaign was designed such that people chose to be a part of it and it respected their wisdom.

Mudra Max plans to replicate the campaign in other cities, posing varied questions ranging from swine flu, the movie Kaminey and the show, Rakhi Ka Swayamvar.