Nat Geo, Lufthansa launch cross-media campaign, micro site for Genius

The channel is promoting its new series on mass media and a micro site which features games and videos

Lufthansa and the National Geographic Channel (NGC) have launched a cross-media campaign to promote the Indian version of the channel’s international show, Nat Geo Genius. Lufthansa Nat Geo Genius, which was launched on January 19, is a weekly quiz series hosted by actor and filmmaker Rajat Kapoor.

The quiz show will test 54 participants’ knowledge about the planet and take three contestants each week through various rounds on a virtual expedition across the globe. The contestants will be asked queries based on the countries they travel to in the virtual expedition. Eighteen weekly winners will then compete in the subsequent rounds followed by two semi-finals and the grand final, which will announce the first Indian Lufthansa Nat Geo Genius. The champion will win a trip to the “destination of their dreams”.

Nat Geo, Lufthansa launch cross-media campaign, micro site for Genius

Nat Geo Genius - The microsite

The theme of the campaign is “Travel the world through your mind” and it has been rolled out on print, television, Internet, radio and OOH media. The campaign is being crafted by McCann MRM, the official creative agency for Lufthansa and also the creative consultant for the campaign. It has been executed by NGC’s creative agency, TBWA. The official interactive agency for NGC, GroupM’s Broadmind, has worked on the planning and execution of the online campaign.

The online campaign includes an interactive micro site, www.nationalgeographic.co.in/geogenius, which features games and videos, apart from information about the quiz. Display ads are currently running on sites such as IBNLive.com, Cricinfo.com and Rediff.com. Promotional mailers are being sent out on email.

Mobile users can test their planet knowledge quotient and participate in the gaming contest by SMSing LUFT to 57827; there are gifts to be won every week.

Rajesh Sheshadri

Rajesh Sheshadri, senior vice-president, content and communication, National Geographic Channel, India, says, “The micro site and the TVC have been created in-house by NGC... We want to add as many eyeballs as we can.”

Kunal Majumdar, assistant vice-president and creative director, McCann MRM, says, “To the viewers, the campaign means that their mind will travel with the participants. The objective behind the campaign is to drive more and more viewer participation.” According to Majumdar, the creatives are McCann MRM’s first campaign for a sponsored TV show.

Apart from NGC, promotions for the show are being broadcast also on other channels such as the STAR Network, CNBC-TV18, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV Profit. Hoardings have been put up all over Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Print ads are being published in magazines such as Outlook, India Today, Business World and Business India. Radio spots will run for two weeks on Fever 104 FM in Delhi and Mumbai.

In December 2007, NGC launched a multimedia campaign for its series, My Brilliant Brain. A gaming site was launched in a tieup with gaming portal Zapak.com. An SMS contest was conducted to test the participants’ genius quotient and winners were rewarded. According to Seshadri, “We got 3,00,000 SMS responses from the promotions done for My Brilliant Brain.”

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