Summary
Project COV-ER-ALL The COVID-19 pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill affecting all industries, including travel and tourism which was the hardest hit. Amidst this, travel app ixigo, rolled out Project COV-ER-ALL , a public awareness campaign to encourage safe and guarded travel, as society found a way to deal with the new normal. The campaign included social media announcements on flight, train & public health safety in a fun and quirky format!
Challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill affecting all industries, including travel and tourism which was the hardest hit. When travel resumed operations in July 2020, there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding travel. As travel gradually resumed, travel app ixigo, rolled out Project COV-ER-ALL, a public awareness campaign to encourage the importance of safe and guarded travel. Addressing the need of the hour, the campaign focused on public health safety guidelines, and travel appropriate behaviour for trains and flights. As a response to the pandemic, ixigo decided to go remote-first till the situation normalises. During the lockdown, ixigo had also paused all non-essential marketing spends. The biggest challenge thus, was executing the campaign in-house with the video and brand team spread across 5 cities. Every video experiment took weeks of research, cross teams collaboration and detailed execution all done 100% In-House.
Objective
There were two main objectives of the campaign:- 1) Maintain the relevance of the brand in an uncertain environment when people were reluctant to travel -As India slowly unlocked and travel resumed operations there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding travel. Our initial objective was to keep hope afloat in travellers giving them something to look forward to when the pandemic is over. Our social media messaging encouraged people to dream now and travel later. 2) Educating our audience on the importance of safe travel- Travel etiquette during the pandemic had also changed. There was a need to educate the public on the efforts they needed to take to reduce the risk of infection while travelling including vaccination. Our endeavour was to reassure the public that travelling can be an enjoyable yet safe experience for all. We did this through a series of relatable ,educational and entertaining social media content
Strategy
With the onset of the pandemic, ixigo had implemented work-from-home for all its employees and paused all non-essential marketing spend. In order to keep the production value to a minimum and build a sustainable year-round campaign, all videos were conceptualized and produced in-house. The team brainstormed daily on how to create videos that require little to no shooting. Voiceovers for all videos were done with either influencers or ixigo employees themselves. Talent hunts were conducted over phones to maintain safety. Every video experiment took weeks of research, cross teams collaboration, and detailed execution, all of which were done 100% In-House. We also made use of the power of organic distribution, which was a major reason for the campaign's virality. ixigo accelerated the reach of the videos with the use of employee advocacy, encouraging ixigo employees to re-share the video with their friends and family. We also made the promotion of our videos more efficient through the effective use of influencer outreach and active engagement on social media groups and forums.
Data
We conducted a travel experience survey in November 2020 which was conducted with over 5000 recent travellers on their first travel experience in the pandemic-era. The survey revealed interesting highlights on our users' sentiment towards travel at that time which helped us shape the creative messaging of our campaigns. For example the survey revealed that when travel just remind operations:- 42% of recent travellers had a comfortable in-flight experience and are ready to travel again. ● Workcation emerged as the second biggest travel intent of the season apart from visiting family and friends ● Queuing during check-in/security (64%) and in-flight social distancing (51%) were the top apprehensions of air passengers who have travelled recently. Travellers were also concerned about eating on the plane (9%), cleanliness of common areas and washrooms (24%) and arranging travel from the arrival airport (22%). This data insight led us to create our viral M.A.R.I.O video that educated our audience on all the necessary precautionary measures they were required to take right from online check-in, following social distancing, boarding to arrival. All these important user-generated data insights helped us to strategize and build a campaign with relatable, educational and entertaining content that reassured the public that travelling can be an enjoyable yet safe experience for all.
Solution
Our campaign was a mix of relatable and topical video content aimed at boosting engagement ‘ixigo 2020 slangs' - a music video where we created new slangs for the year. The video includes words that resonate with millennials, like ‘QT' for quarantine and ‘SANI' for sanitisers. ‘Phir hogi naye safar ki shuruaat' - a 100% in-house production, recorded over WhatsApp with actor Sanjay Mishra. The video showcases Sanjay Mishra reminiscing about fun-filled train journeys in the pre-COVID world. It underlined themes of positivity and encouraged safe travel. Our ‘COVIDIOTS' video showcased scenarios where people were seen flaunting social distancing guidelines post resumption of normal activitis. It was created to remind the audience that the world is still reeling from the pandemic's effect .The voice-over (VO) is a Hindi poem, which is inspired by the one recited by Farhan Akhtar in the movie 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara'. The ad's copy was written by our in-house team and the VO mimicry was done by a member of our brand marketing team. M.A.R.I.O video- Conceptualised and produced-in house, the video shows a Mario-inspired character making his way through the airport themed level, taking all the necessary precautionary measures right from online check-in, following social distancing, boarding to the arrival at his final destination. To build awareness on safe-travel and use of masks, ixigo also innovated by creating themed display pictures for all of their employees to spread awareness through their display pictures on social media while launching the video. ‘Vaccination Kyun' video was created during the second wave of the pandemic to encourage travelers to vaccinate before making any vacation plans. ixigo had also rolled out vaccine slot finder on its apps and the video promoted users to book their vaccine slots on ixigo before booking their travel plans.
Results
Our ‘M.A.R.I.O' video under the campaign got more than 230K views across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The video also set a trend in the industry with other big brands like Amul following suit and mimicking the M.A.R.I.O game format to convey brand messaging. The video content which is relatable yet educational was also shared countless times by people on Whatsapp groups. ‘Phir Hogi Naye Safar Ki Shuruaat' video got over 1.3 Mn views across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The video also generated a lot of engagement with our target audience as it struck a chord with their sentiment of looking forward to traveling again. ‘ixigo slangs 2020' video got more than 140K views across our social media platforms. All the videos were a big hit with our millennial audience. ‘COVIDIOTS' got around 27K views across our social media platforms. Articles on our videos and campaign were featured in leading national dailies in India. Marketing experts also appreciated the brand's digital marketing efforts online calling it an excellent example of #MomentMarketing.
