Mobile: Café TC – Liquor ticker
BY Malay Desai By: Dentsu Webchutney, New Delhi Delhi NCR’s bar and restaurant Café TC recently undertook a campaign on Whatsapp to increase footfalls. Its agency modified the chat application’s API (application program interface) to create a ticker-like status message which blinks and informs of the latest offers and updates. Besides, the restaurant’s profile picture on Whatsapp turned into another blinking GIF (graphics interchange format). It is one of the only campaigns in recent times that has tapped the uber-popular chat app as a means of advertising, cleverly surpassing its no-ad policy. Why we Like? If you look around in your circles, the one medium that’s getting maximum attention through the day is Whatsapp, and incidentally, despite enjoying many times more eyeballs than YouTube pre-rolls and even TV commercials, the medium remains uncluttered with ads. But that’s where the game begins. In August 2013, Café Café, Israel’s largest chain of coffee shops hit headlines after using Whatsapp groups to initiate a playful challenge and creating a ‘waitress’ bot to kickstart conversations about itself. It was a clever idea, but the world has changed since – for starters, Whatsapp is now owned by Mr Zuckerberg, and the no-ad policy remains. Drinking meet-ups in Delhi NCR are an every night ritual, so if Café TC, after rebranding itself from Turquoise Cottage, needed to stand out from the dozens of other drinking holes, it needed to reach out in a disruptive way. Whatsapp promotions, the ‘forward’ kinds, no matter how creative, amount to spam, and no youngster would value a place that advertises itself, more than one’s that recommended by a drinking buddy. The whole credit for this goes to the geeks at Webchutney, who played around with the API for long enough to crack the idea. A ‘friend’ on your Whatsapp list who doesn't really ping you with offers, but keeps ‘blinking’ on its status about happy hours et al, is truly cool, because its unobtrusive. And given the number of times Delhi boys may be checking their Whatsapp lists to check out a cute co-worker’s new status or display picture… you get the idea. The other bit to get right, of course, was to give cool enough updates and offers to make the gimmick worth the efforts. I’m yet to hear from my Gurgaon source on whether this made the cut or he preferred ‘Striker’ or Beer Café, but as per the video, the activity gave rise to 117 per cent more enquiries and 28 per cent more sales. A bigger takeaway to my mind, was that a small-ish drinking place in Delhi’s outskirts may have opened the floodgates to Whatsapp advertising by getting an agency to tinker with the tech. (To watch the two films, go to ‘bit.ly/Jan11_ad’) Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe The Net Neutrality debate – what now? The much touted December 31st deadline of sending our recommendations to TRAI was eventually extended to January 7th, and as I’ve been mentioning here since the past two columns, Facebook was relentless in asking users to bat for it and push its Free Basics programme. Now, there is a counter comment round, which ends on Makar Sankranti day. Many aware users are still rallying with their local MPs to rake this issue in parliament while some start-ups are lobbying to TRAI about the ill-effects of FB’s planned motives. And because I should pause writing about it here unless something untoward occurs, here are some facts to chew on: a) there are other fair models to provide India free internet b) Free Basics is all about keeping FB and its partners free c) It might spell the end of many small start-ups. SaveTheInternet.in likes this @RailMinIndia doing an impressive job If I could praise the current BJP government for one thing, I would mention how top-level ministers and ministries, in this case, have worked with Twitter India to make small and big changes to real Indians with complaints and queries. Last week, the @railminIndia handle made good news after being the catalyst to get two perpetrators of crime arrested. It’s heartening to know, this happened after a co-passenger tweeted to the handle and witnessed prompt, decisive action. Credit due to the Railways Ministry and Suresh Prabhu for having many concerned GMs, DRMs and heads of railways on Twitter and listening. Suresh Prabhu likes this India’s first Instagram exhibition in Kolkata In 2014, a gallery in New York hosted the world’s first exhibition of Instagram photography. Last weekend in the City of Joy, the ‘Bengal’s Diversity in Pictures’ put Instagrammers’ works from their phone screen to gallery walls. Curated with the help of local community ‘Calcutta Instagrammers’, the photographs were of landscapes, Sundarban mangroves, festivals and traditions. Interestingly, this was organised by Instagram itself, and its spokesperson claimed to ‘support people who share a diversity of stories’ and mentioned this as a ‘natural amplification’ of how people use Instagram. Here’s to more exhibitions, and more importantly, ‘artists’ with little means getting a platform and fame. Bappi Lahiri likes this
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