Summary
Alive Is Awesome – Especially In A Pandemic Cinthol, as a flagbearer Explorer brand, had to find relevance in a world where exploration was impossible. It leveraged its consumers' FOMO and cabin fever to help them feel fully alive again. With Alive Adventurers and its influencer community, Cinthol established the brand philosophy of Alive is Awesome in a never-before-seen manner especially in a pandemic context, while driving brand engagement.
Challenge
In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic of Covid-19, the world saw a paradigm shift in their personal consumption of brands. Market focus saw an abrupt shift towards items deemed as essentials due to the worry of unavailability. And within the essentials, preference lay towards brands that were trusted. At over ₹20,000 crore, bar soaps remain the most dominant hygiene category in India. In the personal care category of soaps, brands with strong germ protection credentials saw an exponential rise, Reckitt Benckiser's (RB) Dettol soap bar became the country's number one selling soap brand by value share for the first time, claimed the company, riding on the increased demand for personal hygiene products in the country. There was an urgent need to make Cinthol's most popular variants- Lime and Cool - relevant even during Covid on a digital platform.
Objective
In the new reality, Cinthol conducted consumer research which revealed that our Target Audience hated being locked in the most. Amidst the pandemic, these young and young-at-heart explorers were yearning to feel Alive like never before. As a product, the most enduring aspect of Cinthol is its bathing experience. The sensorials, the fragrance, and the refreshing feeling. Moving beyond the product attributes, they create the idea of an escape that our audience yearns for. Just like a fresh bathing experience fills the day with a sense of excitement, Cinthol decided to become the brand that banishes lethargy, slowness and boredom, even in a pandemic lockdown.
Strategy
Cinthol recognised a potent opportunity to elevate its brand relevance to an aspirational way-of-life and leverage its Explorer philosophy- a space that no other soap brand can own. In Phase 1, we started refreshing conversations around what people were talking about, and we engaged with them by asking them to share their travel throwbacks. What began as an organic conversation soon got tremendous push when India's top influencers became a part of the conversation. Furthermore, we gratified the best entries with VR Headsets to help them re-live those experiences. While Phase 1 warmed people up for the next big adventure, we laid the foundations of our community and introduced Cinthol's Awesome Explorers, who were now ready for their next big escapade, as we ventured into the 2nd phase of our campaign. Phase 2 was launching CINTHOL ALIVE ADVENTURES- A virtual travel show in a lockdown where influencer adventurers from across the country exchanged amazing stories uniquely paired to complement each other's experiences. Furthermore, we kept the momentum going by leveraging conversations as the lockdown continued.
Data
After the first wave of Covid, we saw a strong surge on Google about travel and travel-related search items. We realised our audience was longing to go out and explore the world after the severe lockdown. This was further supported by our secondary research which we did with our consumers on a one-on-one basis.
Solution
Alive Adventures campaign was completely conducted on mobile, especially since due to the pandemic, people were in lockdowns with access to limited media. In the campaign, Cinthol revealed a set of destinations on the respective social media handles, explaining the process to the audience and asking them to vote for the destination for our travel ambassador. Additionally, people were also requested to share their photos & videos to support their vote. The best ones would receive a souvenir from our selected key influencer ShehnazTreasurywala. Since our campaign was mobile-centric, we aimed for higher growth and engagement getting right at the medium where our niche audience was prevalent- Instagram. We extended the campaign further to even create an event that will offer a chance for our audience members to go on a journey (with our travellers, if possible). Conducted on social media platforms such as Instagram (Stories, Reels, Videos, Static), Delhi, Hyderabad, and Pune were the top 3 major budget focus. Pune was the better performer in terms of VTR. Apart from that, the creative and the TG targeted played a major role to drive such good VTR's. The creative content talked about travel and featured travel explorers and Cinthol's targeting was purely travel which help the audiences to engage more with the content, helping boost engagement rates.
Results
Across both phases, the campaign received a total of 11 M views resulting in over 2.6M complete views of the entire episodes. Branded influencer content in Phase 1 saw over 7.29 million engagements across Facebook and Instagram, delivering an outstanding engagement rate of 3.3%. Which is 230% more than the industry benchmark. The follow-up long-form webisodes promoted in Phase 2 continued to extend the high engagement of the campaign message; delivering well over 13 million completed views reaching an average of 7.6 million consumers. Over the two phases of the campaign, we reached over 20 million and 16 million people respectively – exceeding the planned reach by 172% Our video message alone reached a total of 11 Mn audiences across Facebook and Instagram. Influencer stories helped draw in a wider set of untapped audiences across Instagram reaching an average of approximate 3 million users Cinthol Fresh delivered 20 % growth - much higher than planned growth. In core markets, Brand Imagery Score of "Makes You Feel Fresh" rose by 13% and Cinthol's consideration score rose by +10 points.
