Prajjal Saha
Media

Hungama's CAMP: Connecting brands with people at work and play

A normal metro family (SEC A & B+) spends 15 hours of the day outside home. Yet, 95 per cent of the media spent in India continues to be through television or newspaper. Hungama's CAMP provides an alternative

Case 1: The four canteens of Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai displays a newly launched ketchup brand on every table in the form of a table mat. Around 12,000 people work in DAKC and they make frequent visits to the canteens during the day. This initiative helped the ketchup brand to create a high level of awareness among the DAKC staff at one go.

Case 2: Club wear brand ZOD showcases its products at high-end night clubs, pubs and bars around Mumbai and Delhi. Additionally, women take laptops to the guests and invite them to play a game, which revolves around the ZOD brand. With this marketing drive, ZOD was successful in interacting with its target group directly.

Case 3: The announcement centres at different sub-urban stations of Mumbai will soon advertise about a certain cellphone brand. Almost 35 lakh people travel through local trains in Mumbai every day during office hours.

In all the above cases, the target group of customers has been/will be reached with a fraction of the cost that would have been conventionally spent through advertising in television and newspapers. In fact, in the railway stations, the 35 lakh commuters will be reached at about 10 per cent of the cost of playing a radio jingle.

Clearly, out-of-home media is gaining popularity among the brand owners these days, and companies like Hungama, UCP Integrated Marketing Solutions, Solutions Integrated Marketing, Candid Marketing Solutions are at the forefront of this revolution.

Hungama, which has been in operation for the last five years and is counted among the dotcom success stories, started its out-of-home media business about two years back. The prominent companies that it has been associated with include: FMCG majors Hindustan Lever and Colgate Palmolive, apparel brand Zodiac, ESPN STAR Sports, Mastercard, and 2-wheeler manufacturer Kinetic Engineering.

Kaushik Mukherji, vice president, Hungama, says, "A normal metro family (SEC A & B+) spends 15 hours of the day outside home. I fail to understand why do we then try to catch them at their home through television and newspapers. Clearly it's time that out-of-home promotions get a preference."

Till date, almost 95 per cent of the media spent in India is at homes through television or newspaper. And around Rs 45,00 crore is spent on the television medium by brand owners every year.

Mukherji also says, "The advertisers too are realising that they are not getting their money's worth by promotions in mainline media. The resultant growing cynicism has given birth to new forms of marketing, and this is where out-of-home media comes in use."

To measure the effectiveness of out-of-home campaigns, Hungama has developed a unique tool called CAMP (Catchment Area Management Program). Developed and tested for over one year, CAMP is a scientific way of identifying where the client's TG is and at which part of the day and for how long.

Mukherji explains, "If in case, a client wants to engage with SEC-A youngsters in Delhi, Bombay and Pune, we simply need to put in the specific data to our CAMP tool. It can identify different catchment areas within these cities in less than a minute." CAMP has identified 12,000 touch-points across 42 cities in the country.

Touch-points are never the same for each city. For instance, when Coke wanted to do a promotion in Ahmedabad, it was found that maximum students were at tuition centres between 6-8 pm. Subsequently, Hungama identified tuition centres with 200-300 students on an average, and the soft-drink brand managed to reach its TG directly. Likewise, it was found that families go out to the parks after 11 pm in Ahmedabad. And, these parks were used by the soft-drink brand to reach out to the older consumers.

The CAMP tool also provides details on the average footfalls in these catchment areas separately for weekdays and weekends.

For instance, a Big Bazaar outlet in Mumbai gets 1.80 lakh footfalls per week. Out

of this, 90 per cent of the visitors come during the weekends. CAMP has also been able to identify that during weekdays, 88 per cent of the footfalls are from non-serious buyers or casual visitors; weekends see a higher number of actual buyers than non-serious ones.

CAMP also provides some finer details on catchment areas . For instance, it can identify the number of contact points on a particular stretch of road to get maximum surround effect for the brand.

Mukherji says, "This tool is so flexible, that one can actually change the plan day by day and not get saddled with pre-booked mediaspace, which can't be altered."

Hungama is trying to develop the CAMP tool further. Mukherji says, "Very soon, we are going to be in a position to audit the numbers. So much so, that like newspapers, we can actually promise our client a focused contact (reach plus experience) of 3 million potential customers over a weekend. And, that too at a very nominal cost."

Hungama also plans innovative methods to promote a brand. For instance, to promote a huge international apparel brand which is to be launched in August, Hungama has planned a different take. Mukherji says, "Instead of just putting up a stall at a shopping mall, we have hired actors from drama schools who would perform skits involving the brand. And, this would certainly get a better attention of the TG than just putting up a regular stall."

Out-of media can be also implemented in several steps. For instance, ICICI Bank wanted to target the NRI community for its money transfer services. The bank tied up with embassies and distributed hand books on visa formalities and procedures.

The initiative didn't stop here. The bank kept a track on the consumers and sent a congratulatory note to them on obtaining the visa. It also sent another direct mailer while the person was about to leave the country, followed by a reminder when he reaches his destination. The strategy was to create a brand awareness among the NRI community, who are prompted to use ICICI Bank's services to transfer money back home.

Out-of-home media is also being used by the television channels. For instance, when Sahara Manoranjan wanted to promote their newly launched programme - Karishma - Hungama identified different touch points such as temples and areas around schools where the women from SEC B category move around. © 2004 agencyfaqs!

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