JSW Energy's high visibility OOH campaign for IPO

How does a trusted group, that is close to three decades old but not a 'recognisable brand', get the people of the nation to understand what it does, and then get them to invest in the group? The answer: a high visibility, impactful, outdoor-led national campaign.

For JSW Energy, this was the way to go and it did. The result: JSW Energy's IPO was completely subscribed within 30 minutes of opening on December 7.

JSW Energy is a subsidiary of the JSW Group, which is one of the large corporate groups in the country. Part of the OP Jindal Group, JSW has grown from a steel rolling mill in 1982 to a multi business conglomerate, with diversified interests in steel, energy, minerals and mining, aluminium, infrastructure and logistics, cement and IT. Through the outdoor campaign, the group was announcing its IPO for JSW Energy, open from December 7- 9.

While Reliance Energy and similar advertising savvy companies launched their IPOs amidst much noise, the challenge for JSW Energy was to first create a buzz around the brand and then announce the IPO.

Working with a limited budget and a time crunch, the OOH campaign's first phase consisted of corporate-led ads for 21 days, followed by the second phase, which was a two pronged one that spoke about JSW Energy and the IPO.

The brief given to OMI (part of the Laqshya Group), the company's outdoor agency, was to target the retail investors, including housewives. A retail investor is an individual who purchases small amounts of securities for him/herself, as opposed to institutional investors such as investment companies, mutual funds and investment banks. Thus, the target group was extremely wide and diverse and the campaign needed penetration as well as spread.

The first phase, consisting of brand building, was carried out in 50 cities across India for 21 days, with a media mix comprising of mobile vans, billboards, façades, bus backs, Metro trains, Mumbai's local trains, bus branding in Kolkata and bus Q shelters. The high focus markets for the campaign were Mumbai, Gujarat and Delhi, while all major metros, state capitals, industrial and financial hubs were also targeted. Delhi and Mumbai saw most of the outdoor innovations.

One of the innovations borrowed from the campaign's creative and had large cut outs of a boy and a girl on a mobile van, sitting under street lights and studying, with the copy reading 'A 60 watt bulb can brighten a nation's future'. Neon backlit outdoors on mobile vans were also created using the JSW Energy logo.

Aggarwal says, "While for the first phase, the outdoor ads were exactly the same as the print ads, in the second phase, we made the ads more outdoor friendly, working with innovations and neons."

The total media spend only on outdoor for the JSW Energy campaign was in the range of Rs 7-8 crore.

While the campaign was mainly outdoor driven, print and TV played a big role as well. Grey Mumbai, which was awarded the creative duties of the JSW Group in September this year, worked on the creatives across media. The agency created a corporate film, Naya Savera, to build on the credentials of the group. The TV commercial was scripted by Mangesh Someshwar of Grey.

Sharing the strategy for the film, Rohit Malkani, executive creative director, Grey Mumbai, says, "For JSW, we started off with a corporate film since as a group, they have worked behind the scenes - not publicising their work much. Therefore, the first corporate film depicted what the company does and what it is moving towards, its vision and philosophies. The film shows night shots, with lights coming on and ends with the shot of a rising sun, that is, naya savera."

The fact that the Rs 2,700 crore public offer got over-subscribed 1.48 times on Day 2 proved that the entire campaign did the job for JSW Energy and managed to build a respectable brand image for the group as well. As Aggarwal puts it, "This is one of the examples of how an outdoor led campaign, when done effectively and intelligently, can do wonders for a brand."