Pepsi India Reveals New Brand Ambassador Through Social Media

Creating a buzz about new brand ambassadors on social media is another trend that is catching up from 2012. The latest to follow the trend is Pepsi India for its ongoing campaign “Oh Yes Abhi”. According to Best Media Info, Pepsi has brought on board the U-19 cricket captain, Unmukt Chand, as its new brand ambassador to its “Oh Yes Abhi” campaign. The latest TVC which has been created by JWT India introduces Unmukt along with the captain of the Indian cricket team, MS Dhoni, Virat and Suresh Raina. The entertaining TVC that focuses on the impertinence of the young star to join the Indian team went on air from 1st of March.

The video in a weeks time, has already got more than 175K views. One of the reasons for the growing views could be attributed to the pre-launch buzz created on social media. The Facebook page that caters to more than 3.6M fans, created some thrill for them before revealing the video. The page moderators shared some interesting visual content that not only revealed that there is someone coming pretty soon but it also got the people talking. For example the below screen grab gives the kind of the content shared to create the initial excitement. The numbers depict the excitement too – 178 Shares and more than 1K comments.

Along with Facebook, the brand that has an amazing presence on Twitter with more than 6K followers, was not left out. The tweets focused on the new member joining and sharing the video. In addition to this, the brand created a hashtag #SeniorVsJunior and tried creating a conversation around it.

Pepsi India has launched the commercial a month before the IPL which is not surprising. Unmukt Chand, who truly reflects Pepsi’s ‘Oh Yes Abhi!’ attitude in the TVC, has been used smartly on social media too. Not that it is the first time since last year we saw FashionAndYou and Myntra launch full fledged campaigns on social media for the launch of their brand ambassadors. A trend which is going to be explored in the near future by more brands.

Prasant Naidu

About Author 
Founder and Blogger at Lighthouse Insights. Loves to experiment in social media and believes social media is a game changer for SME's. A diehard Royal Enfield fan,a voracious reader. I believe that knowledge should be shared so I often do it via training and speaking assignments on social media...

Social Media makes the Brands Tick! Find out how...

Why should brands embrace Social Media?

Internationally, more and more brands today find social media marketing a great way to establish a personal connect with their customers. And though the trend is beginning to pick up here in India only recently, the past year has already proven its power to change marketing tactics.

Check this out- based on the number of fans, followers, likes etc., the Social Media Brand Equite Ranking (SMBER) index by NM Incite revealed

• Samsung generated enough online buzz to topple India’s favourite cellular giant
• Nokia, from its popularity pedestal in 2011. 
• In the automobile industry, Ford tipped Maruti.
• Flipkart seemed to have cemented its presence as the desi ebay.

Not only do these brands have a strong presence on social media sites, they are as active in engaging visitors as any other international brand. Of course there are a few more things they can do to match the competition. For instance,

The Viral video

The success of Kolaveri has introduced the average Indian to the concept and grasp of the viral video. Sure, there were those few that crop up every now and then, like the True Roots video that managed to plug in 277,287 views, but nothing quite like Kolaveri. The song created a brand for the movie much before its release.

Dove’s ‘real beauty’ campaign too was very popular on social media sites. And I think it’s time more Indian brands used this medium to match the might of its international counterparts. 

A Challenge

Dare your Facebook and Twitter users with a challenge and see where it leads. It’s not about the grand reward here. For the users, the invitation is belonging to a clique; for the brand, it is the free word of mouth publicity.

Incentives

Okay, no rewards is no good either! Fastrack- a leading fashion retail chain store for the youth- decided to celebrate its fan base of 1 million on Facebook. They held a one day only flat 50% discount sale at all their exclusives stores across the country.  The news was promoted only through word of mouth on their Facebook fan page.  And the result:  stores at many places ran out of stock in just a few hours and the traffic police had to be called in for crowd control in Mumbai.

In what other ways do you think Indian brands can use social media to their advantage to compete in the global services market?

Fashion2.0: How Social Media to revolutionize Fashion Industry.

I happened to come across this article on the Forbes which particularly picked my interest for 2 main reasons:

1.     It had the magical words "social media"

2.     The Content had something that I and my colleague Vikram had been discussing lately – Taking Fashion Industry on the Social Media.

Whether you are interested in fashion or not, it is difficult to escape the constant onslaught of information on the latest fashions and trends that we receive through social media and the internet. This is a fact that none of us would deny. Considering the quantum of information one gets to see on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube the fashion Industry is definitely becoming accessible to the general public or should I say reaching a larger group of people.

 The beauty of this initiative of taking fashion industry on the Social Media is that one gets to see all sorts of opinions and dialog on a fashion trend or outfit rather than the traditional one way opinion of the designer. Just like in any other industry Social Media once again proves that would help bridge the buyer-seller relationship with its multi dimensional communication channel.  It also makes it evident that, in this era of the social media, fashion designers and retailers are no longer operating in an ivory tower or for solely the red carpet. Because of the close relationships they now have with customers on social networking sites, many have adopted an "ask and ye shall receive" policy.

As quoted in the Forbes article it’s undoubting that Social Media would the next big muse of the Fashion Industry and its here to stay for quite some time.

Just recently there has been a rush of retailers advertising & setting up programs to help gather customer feedback on the fashions and trends for the season ahead including Debenhams, ASOS, Calvin Klein and likes. This show much customer sentiments matter to the fashion designers and fashion brands. Now just imagine the same in case of private fashion boutique owners who have selected and limited customers. One bad design might just cost them a loyal customer... forever!

Yet another interesting website that I came across is www.jooraccess.com. Started by a Mona Bijoor who is a seasoned brand consultant for the fashion industry. Joor basically is a network that makes it easier for brands and boutique owners to connect and conduct business with their customers in an interactive and collaborative manner. It can be called as the Facebook of Fashion world in lay definition. This again shows how Social Media can play a vital role in the Fashion Industry.

Now considering all this above gyaan and cases on how Social Media can benefit the Fashion Industry, I don’t really know if this liberalization or the democratization of the fashion world by the social media good or bad as I’m not really a fashion expert. This is something that time shall tell us. But from a lay man’s perspective any creation created in an collaborative environment has always been a masterpiece. Hopefully such would also be the case in Social Media Fashion.

Can Social Media find a place in the Classroom? (Research)

Growing number of Educators say a “Yes” – says a research!

The post, “Can Social Media ever have an Academic Purpose”, is one of the most consistently viewed article on this blog. Similarly, “Why the Education sector is keen to adopt Social Media?”, resulted in the 2nd most trafficked day here this month. While Facebook and Twitter are both hugely popular Internet tools, I still find myself a little surprised by the popularity of these posts, considering the academic perspective of we - TheSocialPeople. Upon a general research online amongst the Academic community, I learnt that many teachers, even those at online universities, are hesitant to use such popular tools, given their inherent risk of exposing students to inappropriate content.

Of course these are two very different types of tools, but they both have their place in the social networking sphere. Facebook’s place is at the top of the heap (as of this writing it is the second most popular site on the Internet, right behind Google), while Twitter defined the genre of “micro blogging” (but much of its use is also in a social networking context).

It appears that Twitter is more widely used in the classroom, based on the volume of articles on this topic that I have come across during my online research. One obvious reason for this difference is that Facebook is limited to ages 13 and over, while Twitter has no age restrictions. Facebook is also more likely to be restricted on school networks. Perhaps if teachers were more aware of how a Facebook page and profiles can be configured to provide an appropriate level of privacy for course work, they (and school administrators) might be more open to considering its use (more on that below). Of course, there are also other educational scenarios that lend themselves more readily to a tool like Facebook, such as online universities and online courses.

Here are a few of the examples of Facebook playing a productive role in the classroom that I have come across. I will be doing a detailed case study about the use of popular social networking applications in the classroom and will discuss examples like these, and others that I learn about on this blog in the coming months:

·         Professor Gideon Burton’s work with Facebook: I first learned about Professor Burton during a random search on Facebook on “Social Media Education” where I ended up on a profile of a student where she commented, 

“In my British Literary History course last winter semester, my professor created a class Facebook group which we all joined.  We’d finish our reading for class and then get online and write a paragraph about what we’d read, focusing our comments on the specific course aims that my professor had created for the class.  We would then go to class where my professor would note the ways in which we’d covered the material well and he’d teach anything we missed as well as anything else he wanted us to know.” 

This was definitely a lovely insight on how a simple initiative and lead to an effective collaborative learning environment. It really justifies my statement I always habitually quote in context to this – “A tool is after all just a tool, the real person to blame is the person who chooses to use it or abuse it.

Click here to visit a Facebook discussion group for one of Professor Burton’s Early British Lit classes.

·         University of South Florida teacher uses Facebook in class: I recently came across this article about USF graduate student Alessandro Cesarano, who teaches a Beginning Spanish class, and uses Facebook for homework assignments and class discussions in lieu of Blackboard. Cesarano is seen quoting that he likes the Facebook page better than Blackboard because students have more access to authentic cultural material, and so it saves him a lot of time that otherwise he had to invest to train people on how to use the Learning tool.

·         Facebook has recently launched a “Groups at [University Name]” feature as an initiative to promote a highly collaborative learning environment amongst the Educational Institutions. This article explains on how this feature works and also disproves a lot of accusations on Facebook that it is a major distraction in the pursuit of a Learning tool. Honestly I am really excited to look at this feature to be rolled out to more schools and other communities.

Below is the snap shot of my comment that I couldn’t help put up on the trail and it’s corresponding comment:

On the whole the prospect of Social Media and Education eventually going hand-in-hand is no longer a matter of choice. From the data that I see, IT IS THE FUTURE. It’s just the matter of time that people start accepting it. So the real question here is not whether Social Media can/cannot be an ideal learning platform; I guess a choice on this is already made globally and the real question is on “HOW to make Social Media an ideal learning platform. I would be writing on this in my blog in the near future. 


To conclude - like any great idea even this one (Social Media collaborating with Education) has to go through all the 3 laws of Newton – Inertia, Momentum & Friction!

I’m really excited to see the day when Learning becomes Social in every way, global networking will be the essence of learning rather than limiting it to 4 walls, projects & assignment would be done & rated globally and over all to the day when there'll no illiteracy on the face of this planet.

[InfoGraphic] Social Media in Education Sector as of Today!!