Sharpening their social media skills, several brands are jumping in feet-first onto social media platforms. Eager to make a connect with their consumer base, brands are using social networks in innovative ways, combining words and images in a savvy way.
“Though a corporate online presence has for sometime been a cornerstone of the image and brand equities a company wants to communicate, the past few years has seen enormous growth in social media platforms. Corporates are now using them to build a larger presence," said Peyush Agarwal, Global Strategic Design Director, DesignIt, a design firm.
Birla’s tree planting
On World Environment Day, the Aditya Birla Group introducted ‘Plantable Filters’ on social media platform Facebook. With every filter used on social media, the corporate promises to plant a tree.
Explaining the filters, Chetan Asher, CEO, Tonic Worldwide, a digital agency, said: “These filters are features that can recognise human faces in photos in order to suggest graphics, like borders or stickers, to accompany the posts."
Under the unique concept, designed by Tonic Worldwide, every Plantable Filter that’s used on Facebook will ‘Filter The Future’, says Asher, since the bigger vision is to create a small forest by planting maximum number of trees.
“Aditya Birla Group companies, both UltraTech Cement and Idea Cellular in association with an NGO, have already achieved creating a mini-forest in Miyawaki, Bangalore, by planting 9,000 saplings over the last two years," said Asher.
Jockey campaign
Similarly, Jockey, the American innerwear and leisurewear brand, has launched a new Jockey campaign, exclusively for women. The campaign, conceptualised by L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe, aims to strengthen Jockey’s play in the women’s innerwear category with a new range of lingerie.
Debarjyo Nandi, Senior Vice-President, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, said: “the campaign celebrates women and their femininity without being stereotypical even in its portrayal of women in innerwear”.
MC Cariappa, President-Sales and Marketing, Jockey India, adds that the campaign only reiterates what the brand "brings to women in terms of knowledge, understanding and expertise with products that truly #KnowsMe."
Jockey's #KnowsMe campaign has already attracted attention on social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.
Tourism promotion
Even the Delhi government appears to have realised the importance of social media and is looking to hire a social media agency to strengthen its efforts to present the capital as a tourist-friendly destination.
Social media executives said the government is taking a leaf from the governments of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat who have all played out their messages to promote tourism in their states on Several social media platforms.
Water conservation
"Droves of influencers, brands and advertisers are piling onto the service of social media in the hopes of getting in on the next big thing in social. Be it Facebook, or Twitter, Instagram, Vine or Snapchat, many corporates are tempted by the fact that they could be a trend-setter," said an official at Dentsu Webchutney.
Godrej Appliances, too, has taken a stance towards water conservation by launching a campaign, #MyACSavesWater initiative, that could potentially save 50 million litres of water daily.
The campaign is being leveraged through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to reach out to all AC users, irrespective of the brand.
The thought behind the campaign is simple: If an AC runs for eight hours, it generates almost 10 litres of water due to condensation. With approximately 5 million AC units sold in India each year, the company realised there existed a potential saving of 50 million litres of water daily, even without considering the existing installed base of ACs.
A series of posts have gone up on the company's social media handles "educating the people about the water shortage crisis, current consumption of tap water and how this simple act of collecting and re-using the water generated from the usage of ACs can save millions of litres of water and approximately 8 per cent of tap water."