Every year, BuzzInContent releases a list of its favourite content-driven campaigns and strategies by brands. This year, it’s been a tough game to figure out the top campaigns from the amazing lot of content-led work produced last year. 2020 was challenging for people and businesses alike. Content consumption and time spent online increased as people stayed back home, and marketers saw a huge opportunity there and put their best foot forward through innovative content pieces to engage with them. One theme that was constant last year in content pieces was Covid. Cookery, work from home life, hope and making a comeback were significant topics around the content mostly revolved.
Here are some of BuzzInContent’s favourites:
Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk’s ‘Sang Rahiyo’ song
It seems like Cadbury aced the content game in 2020. After the success of two seasons of Instagram series ‘Firsts’ with Pocket Aces and another web series ‘Butterflies’ with Terribly Tiny Tales, Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk launched the song ‘Sang Rahiyo’ in collaboration with Jasleen Royal for the brand’s Heart Pop ‘I Missed You’ campaign. Sang Rahiyo took no time to become an instant hit among the youngsters. The music video captures the longing and frustration felt by couples in a long-distance relationship; a theme that sits just right for lovers pulled apart by the pandemic. Wavemaker is the agency behind these amazing content pieces for the brand.
In one of the interactions with BuzzInContent, Sameer Yadav, Associate Director, Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India, had said, “The brand aims to be at the forefront of content marketing in our category.”
The video:
Wakefit’s content strategy
There is no single video that BuzzInContent has selected to be the part of the list. One thing that has to be appreciated about the brand is their consistency in producing viral content. Being an online sleep solution brand, Wakefit understood the power of good content and how it not just can help build engagement and brand love, but sales too. Along with its agency Spring Marketing Capital, the brand fulfilled the appetite of consumers for all sorts of emotions, be it sadness, happiness, quirkiness or mindfulness, through content.
The brand’s strategy of creating video ‘Open Letters’ has been much appreciated by the consumers, given their virality.
Two of the open letters are ‘Dear Married Men’ and ‘Dear Office’.
Like this, the brand has created several open letters, which are posted on the microsite Postbox. Till now, the brand has produced around seven content pieces in the form of open letters as part of the microsite Postbox. It also launched a Lockdown Manual, which has over 60 articles, everything from work from home productivity to fitness to yoga to meditation.
As the year-end approached, Wakefit launched the qawwali ‘Bhaad mein jaa 2020’, which amassed more than 1.6 million views across the internet in three days. It came at an opportune time to wrap up the highs, the lows, the untoward surprises and the eventful twists of 2020 and resonated with what people went through during the year.
Facebook’s Diwali film Pooja Didi
Facebook’s Diwali film ‘Pooja Didi’ stood out among the many films that brands launch every year because it felt authentic. The film's plot centred around the spirit of resilience of 28-year-old Pooja and how she helps sustain as many households as possible through the hardships of the pandemic through her dairy venture. Even in the world of short content, this emotional film by Taproot Dentsu definitely overwhelmed the audience and held the audience’s attention throughout.
The video:
Also read: What makes Facebook's film ‘Pooja Didi' stand out despite being another Diwali-do-good film?
OnePlus’ content strategy around community engagement
While OnePlus’ competitors rely heavily on advertising, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that OnePlus brand is built on the power of community engagement. On this basis, OnePlus released a new documentary titled ‘United by Hope’. The documentary was shot on OnePlus, including the use of flagship OnePlus 8 Series 5G, and is produced by the Vice Media.
In the wake of the pandemic that pushed the world towards a new normal, OnePlus witnessed its global community come to terms with the lockdown and its universal effects. This led the brand to explore a new project documenting the authentic stories of 12 individuals from different walks of life. Aligned with OnePlus’ community focus, the documentary is an ode to the OnePlus community that brings to life, relatable feelings, and emotions that one experienced by capturing the lives of these individuals during the new normal.
The documentary:
Tinder’s content strategy to help youth navigate through the pandemic
Ever since the pandemic loomed over the world, Tinder launched a slew of content-driven initiatives to help lovers navigate through the pandemic. In June, the dating app collaborated with electronic music producer Ritviz and production house Jugaad Motion Pictures (best known for their work on Prateek Kuhad’s Cold/Mess music video and Ritviz’s Liggi) to create ‘Raahi’, a Pride anthem and music video to celebrate LGBTQIA+ identities and Pride at Home.
Raahi video:
During the pandemic, a lot of content platforms brought easily shot and quick content formats because shooting was restricted and content consumption was on a high as people were restricted to their homes. Pocket Aces’ short-form video channel FilterCopy launched a new Instagram-first format called ‘FilterCopy Mini’, which focuses on telling short, relatable stories in just under a minute. In July, Tinder came on board with FilterCopy to launch its first mini-series ‘Dating in 2020’. The series revealed the experiences of five young couples that matched on Tinder during the lockdown. The five one-minute videos showed how the audience is now adapting to the ‘new normal’.
Dating in 2020 Instagram video:
Around October, the brand collaborated with several influencers to create quirky content around dating in 2020. Click the link below to see some of the videos from Tinder’s influencer marketing initiative:
In October, Terribly Tiny Tales launched a short film ‘Haba Goba' based on a Tinder #SwipeStory, showing how the pandemic accelerated virtual dating, with a surge in swipe volume and messages sent on Tinder. The partnership captured newer dating encounters and unpredictable plots via text-based, video and visual content.
In November, Tinder launched another campaign that celebrated how its members did not let the pandemic define what dating, flirting and social discovery means to them. They set their own pace and make their own rules about love, dating, life and everything in between.
#InOurOwnWay video:
Stayfree’s #ItsJustAPeriod campaign
On the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, Stayfree unveiled a new digital video that invited families to change the way they approach the period conversation. According to reports, nearly two million girls in India would have experienced their first period during the lockdown. Built on this premise, Stayfree’s #ItsJustAPeriod encouraged families to adopt a positive and open approach towards menstruation in a bid to keep her informed and make her feel confident and supported in this journey. To ensure that families can comfortably have this conversation with the girls in the family, Stayfree also tied up with Menstrupedia. The platform is a friendly period guide for girls and talks about what periods are and how to manage them better. It also helps as a resource to have that first conversation with the family.
The digital campaign’s video:
Amul creates world’s biggest live recipe show
On April 17, 2020, Amul started its experiment of live recipes with two chefs on Amul’s Facebook page. It has been more than nine months since then and by January 19, 2021 the brand completed 2,000 live shows. It is the longest and biggest live recipe event in the world. Instead of recipe videos that are shot, edited and presented, Amul wanted to do live recipes to give a feeling that the content is created freshly, in front of their own eyes and seen by multiple people simultaneously to create a group feeling, which is more soothing in such times when people feel lonely and isolated.
For more than nine months, chefs from all leading hotel chains across India participated in the live recipe shows. Chefs from more than 50 countries of the world participated in exclusive live shows through Facebook Live. Ever since the activity started, Amul’s Facebook page followers increased from 1.4 million to 2 million. The followers on the ice cream FB page increased by 54,000 accounts. The brand cumulatively increased over seven lakh followers across its Facebook pages. At an average duration of 45-50 minutes per recipe, Amul created more than 90,000 minutes (1500+ hours) of original content. According to stats available till January 19, 2021, Amul reached 1,278 million accounts on FB over 277 days with an average daily reach of almost six million FB users, continuously for nine months.