Agency scores with real-time animatronic reply activity, a novel way to engage people on social media, and ‘vanishing e-mail’ - an email that vanishes from the inbox as well as the server - using software developed in-house
BY NEETA NAIR
In the digital world, the best way for brands to engage with their consumers is undoubtedly through social networking sites, but the speed of these interactions and the time the brands take to answer queries often vexes people. In such a scenario, if there is a brand which not just writes back to you, but literally talks to you in a record time of 10 minutes, would you be hooked?
Around 1,13,074 amused users on Facebook and Twitter, who kept coming back to the website of amusement hub Imagica lured by an animated character from the theme park, can best answer that question. Each time they posted a query on the Imagica page, it was answered by a character called Detective Bow Wow, a stand-up comedian who gave the reply in his twisted sarcastic style. This campaign run by adman Abhijit Avasthi’s Sideways Consulting addressed the basic problem the brand faced – a perception battle of being viewed as just a destination for great rides, when in fact it had more to offer like the snow park and its hotel, etc. Encouraged by people’s response to the show, Imagica made Detective Bow Wow its social brand ambassador.
Talking about the campaign, Roy Menezes, CCO, Sideways Consulting says, “If you have ever been to Imagica, you wouldn’t have missed the popular show by Detective Bow Wow where an animated dog speaks to the audience. To highlight that, Imagica is more than just rides, we took one of the most famous mascots at the theme park to social media and got him to reply to all the queries people had about offers, entry, etc., at Imagica. In a month, during the course of which we ran the campaign from the theme park itself, we made more than 1500 personalized videos of Detective Bow Wow, which tripled the engagement levels on the Imagica page.”
Abhijit Avasthi, Co-founder of Sideways Consulting, which set out to solve problems in any sphere for its clients, says, “As Imagica has been positioned as ‘Badi interesting jagah hai’, it only follows that the work we do brings alive the interesting experiences the place offers. The Bow Wow real-time animatronic reply activity was a novel and endearing way to engage people on social media. It was a complex process which involved integrating with the backend of the animatronics show at the park.”
As a result, the Imagica page got 55,000 new likes in the month during which Detective Bow Wow came alive on screen and interacted with his social media followers. This activity was followed by the ‘vanishing e-mail’, an innovation on what is typically considered an uninteresting part of digital marketing - the e-mail. Using software developed in-house, the Sideways Consulting team created an email that vanishes from the inbox as well as the server. It brought alive the flavour of Chhoo Mantar, the magic festival happening at Imagica, which had to be communicated, says Menezes. “The minute the focus changed to Choo Mantar, the entire Facebook and Twitter page changed to that theme. It had animated gifs of people doing magic on the page and characters popping out when you least expect them to, in addition to vanishing emails. About 7% of the people to whom we sent these vanishing mails opened them as against the industry average of about 1.5%.”
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