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2019 was a fantastic year for content marketers. Some aced in it, while the others at least began their content marketing journey.
User-generated, influencer-led and voice-based content dominated the 2019 trends. Instagram and TikTok became more loved by brands in comparison to Facebook and YouTube, unlike earlier.
Not just this, we saw marketers giving prominence to content roles at CXO levels, long-term content deals budding between agencies, platforms and brands, and 2019 paved the way for more collaborations among all. In total, the content marketing game only got better with brands spending more on the stream and partnering with the relevant skilled people to produce and distribute content for them.
BuzzInContent.com has handpicked the best of content initiatives in 2019 with inputs from its readers. The ones who dared to experiment with content formats and genres made it to the list here!
BuzzInContent’s pick of the year, in no particular order:
Zomato launched ‘Zomato Originals’
Banking on the consumer behaviour of food accompanying binge-watching, starting September 2019, the food delivery and restaurant aggregation app announced the launch of original shows over the next three months. The brand created a video tab on the app for its consumers to view content. The videos are categorised by genre, letting users watch 3-15 minute videos across shows, recipes and sneak peek restaurant stories. All Zomato Original shows are around food, but with a twist. Comedy, reality, fiction, advice, celebrity interviews explore food in unique, engaging and entertaining videos.
Content producer for OTT platforms and brands, OML curated 18 new shows and collated over 1500 minutes of content for the platform which include recipe features and food tips from India’s best chefs and restaurants. ScoopWhoop also produced the show ‘Eat Like a Girl’ for the platform, where the 21-year-old Tenzing Wang Bhutia travels across the country to eat some of the most unusual food India has to offer.
The ‘Eat Like a Girl’ Zomato show snippet on ScoopWhoop’s Ok Tested channel:
Myntra Fashion Superstars
Myntra launched ‘Myntra Fashion Superstar’, the world’s first digital fashion influencer talent hunt, on its app in September 2019. The reality show aimed at increased audience engagement was produced in collaboration with Wavemaker, Zoom Studios and Banijay Asia.
Conceived by Myntra, the concept provided an opportunity for fashion enthusiasts with a knack of creating style-related content and bringing forward their unique personalities, through digital and social-first content.
The contestants were mentored and judged by a star-studded jury from the world of Bollywood, TV and fashion, including Bollywood diva Sonakshi Sinha and leading celebrity stylist Shaleena Nathani. The content was telecast in a series, spanning eight weeks on the Myntra app, and Zoom TV.
The episodes on YouTube:
Durex campaign for the launch of product variant Mutual Climax
The whole campaign was divided into four phases for the launch of new variant Mutual Climax. The campaign overall was about orgasm equality. For men and women to be able to orgasm together. Durex roped in influential women and men like Swara Bhaskar, KushaKapila, KaneezSurka, Aditi Mittal, Saloni Chopra, Kunal Kundra, Kenny Sebastian, Aparshakti Khurana to share their point of view on orgasm inequality and to maximise the reach of the message conveyed.
Phase 1: #OrgasmInequality — Durex India shared a statistic around Orgasm Inequality to ignite debate around the same.
You’ve heard the numbers, you’ve heard the women and you’ve heard the men. Now it’s time we hear you! It’s time to talk #OrgasmInequality and Fake Orgasms. Ask a question, tell us your story or just be part of the conversation with #IFakedItToo. pic.twitter.com/cxeZRHkA0N
— Durex India (@DurexIndia) May 31, 2019
Phase 2: #FakeOrgasm - Here, Pooja Bedi addressed the issue and engaged the audience. To get the audience talking about the fake orgasms and share their stories and experiences.
Phase 3: #OrgasmsDecodedWithPoojaBedi, Pooja Bedi went live online validating the problem and providing solutions during the interaction.
Phase 4: #DurexMutualClimax — And finally, the product was launched.
Unacademy and TVF’s web series ‘Kota Factory’
The Viral Fever (TVF) partnered with Unacademy, the learning platform, to launch ‘Kota Factory’, a ‘black and white’ series that revolves around the lives of IIT aspirants based in Kota, a coaching centre industry in Rajasthan, and the difficulties of a student’s life. The web series also topped IMDb’s most-watched web series list based on customer ratings.
The web series:
Fashion at Big Bazaar launched Instagram web series ‘#PujoPerfect Love Story’
Future Group Fashion at Big Bazaar’s fashion content hub FBB TV launched one-of-its-kind Instagram web series, ‘#PujoPerfect Love Story’, to engage with the youth during Dussehra time last year. The five-episode web series is Ananya and Roy’s love story that blossoms around the Pujo.
Claimed to be the first branded content web series on Instagram, it is co-created along with the agency NDMPL (Nishtasha Digital Media Pvt Ltd). Utilising the power of Instagram engagement tools like voting, asking questions, emojis and others, after every episode, the brand invited the viewers where the story should lead to. The brand had already shot two versions of the story.
The trailer of the web series:
DSP Mutual Funds and TVF’s web series ‘Cubicles’
The web series marks the brand’s foray into web series-based content format. Targeting millennials, Cubicles fits in perfectly with DSP Mutual Fund’s communication credo of making finance fun. Set in a modern-day context, Cubicles is a fresh take on the life of millennials who are ready to dive into the corporate world and their experiences of the many firsts during this journey. The five-episode series is available on TVFPlay and TVF’s YouTube Channel.
The web series trailer:
Royal Enfield and Indiatimes’ video ‘Meet the first female Dare Devil of the Indian Army
Royal Enfield capitalised on the news that for the first time, a female officer will be riding a Royal Enfield as a part of the Republic Day contingent. The brand enjoys a close association with the Indian Army, and they wanted to be at the forefront with this milestone event happening on India’s 70th Republic Day.
Owing to the topicality, Indiatimes went behind the scenes with Indian Army’s Captain Shikha Sharma and caught her in action. In her candid interview, she talked about the stability of the Royal Enfield 350cc and about being fearless on the tarmac. In just a day, the video reached over 4.2 million people on the Internet and garnered over 1.1 million views on Facebook and YouTube combined. Add to it, it had over four thousand shares across both the platforms.
The video:
Ford India’s social content series #DiscoverMoreWithEmotions
A vehicle often stands witness to several self-discoveries one makes in a life, spanning from a daily commute to an ultimate road trip. Such discoveries often relate us to new places, people, experiences and above all, emotions. Ford India’s campaign seeks to celebrate these discoveries with a unique emotional touch — using original poems. The social campaign took to crowd-source original, thoughtful verse on self-discoveries from the audience and fans, only to be turned into more videos in the future. Until now, the brand has released three beautiful films as part of the series.
Film 1 Galiyan:
The video of the series also highlights the nimbleness of New Ford Figo among narrow lanes, thanks to the compactness on offer with the much-loved hatchback brand.
Film 2 Aasmaan:
The video features new Ford Aspire as an enabler of discoveries as a perfect family vehicle, not just for the everyday commute but weekend travel with kids.
Film 3 Raastey:
The video features Ford Endeavour as the vehicle of choice and a worthy enabler of discoveries for those who dare to charter their unique routes.
Nike and iDiva’s ‘If Society Were A Person’
In collaboration with Nike, the Indiatimes Lifestyle Network’s channel iDiva launched the video ‘If Society Was A Person’ with the aim at pushing women to participate more in sports and push beyond the usual ‘Log kya kahenge’ subtext and #MakeTheWorldListen.
iDiva created a short, humorous sketch centred around a woman’s biggest enemy: the fated three words ‘Log Kya Kahenge.’ By personifying ‘society’ as a person, the focus was thus on the judgment that women face daily, even when just going about living their life, which inspired them to be their role models. This was integrated towards the end of the video, where the protagonist stood up to ‘Society’ and made it clear that she will not let unpopular opinions get in the way of her dreams. Thus, the protagonist herself chose to be the change she wished to see. To integrate the clothing, iDiva created a fun gym sequence, where the protagonist was working out in Nike Apparel when the ‘Society’ auntie pops in to make her unwarranted comments.
Zee English Cluster’s #WhereIsMyChannel campaign
With TRAI initiating the implementation of the MRP regime, consumers were faced with a choice to select the packs and channels that best meet their content needs. While the broadcasters were busy building their bouquets and communicating the prices to the viewers, Zee English Cluster took a somewhat differentiated route. The new insightful ad campaign #WhereIsMyChannel encourages the viewers to choose their preferred channels and inform their cable operators.
YouTube videos:
Zee Café:
Why is Sivamani angry about his missing TV channel? #WhereIsMyChannel
&flix:
Anurag Kashyap’s Movie Channel on TV Goes Missing! #WhereIsMyChannel
To amplify the same, the channel collaborated with popular stand-up comedians Mallika Dua, Varun Thakur and RJ Balaji. The digital videos are a success indicator for the original films which have become a reference point for other unbranded original renditions to be created.
Instagram posts:
Varun Thakur:
View this post on Instagram
Mallika Dua:
View this post on Instagram
RJ Balaji:
View this post on Instagram
Diageo CSR campaign ‘Road to Safety - Towards responsible youth’ with Network 18
Diageo partnered with Network 18 to launch its CSR campaign ‘Road to Safety- Towards responsible Youth’. The brand objective was to create awareness regarding road safety among young drivers. The media hub created a microsite on Firstpost, including a link to pledge ‘I Will Never Drink and Drive’. As part of the campaign, the brand and Network 18 launched several videos, posts, doodles and write-ups.
The initiative #BollywoodGoneWrong included posts of various Bollywood movies, where it’s shown how Bollywood has gone wrong with the traffic rules. One of the initiatives for the campaign was #OneLife, where a game was showcasing the importance of Road Safety. Using the design and layout of the old arcade games and implementing it in the form of a video to connect the game with road safety, was the overall idea and concept. The activity proved to be fruitful in terms of reach, due to the gaming interface and provided awareness to the Road Safety mission.
The brand and the publisher launched another initiative, #ThankYouPolice, to thank the superheroes of the nation who help us in every good and bad situation. Diageo asked the social media users to participate in our contest by telling the memorable moment where he/she was helped by the police. In the activity ‘Never Break the Bandhan’ during Raksha Bandhan week, Diageo asked social media users to tie rakhi to their vehicle and take a selfie.
Network 18 also launched a lot of celebrity and influencers-led videos to promote the cause.
Flipkart and ScoopWhoop ‘Getting Styled By A Pro For A Week’ video
Flipkart with its ‘India Ka Fashion Capital’ campaign wanted to establish itself as the go-to destination for affordable premium fashion and style. The strategy behind the video was that it had to talk about Flipkart being the platform which made fashion available and accessible to everyone. The best way to show this was to make one of its anchors try Flipkart Fashion and hence the idea ‘Getting Styled By A Pro For A Week’ was born. The idea brought major audience involvement. Memes, articles and other similar content were pushed through different social media platforms.
The video gained over 1.7 million views on YouTube and Facebook combined. Based on brand lift study, the brand saw a 13% rise in brand recall and a 10% hike in purchase intent with the video and other content pieces. ScoopWhoop reached almost 3.25 million people with this campaign. On average, 43.9 % of the video was viewed by the audience on YouTube with 25k likes. On other social media platforms, the engagement was 318k through memes, articles, etc.
The video:
Bacardi’s Scotch brand Dewar’s and Pocket Aces channel Gobble’s 2nd season of ‘You Got Chef’d!’
Dewar’s by Bacardi India in collaboration with Pocket Aces’ food and lifestyle channel, Gobble, launched the Season 2 of the web series ‘You Got Chef’d!’. The show was hosted by celebrated chef Ranveer Brar along with Greg Benson, Brand Ambassador, Dewar’s India, featuring names like Nakuul Mehta, Barkha Singh, Shweta Tripathi, Arjun Kanungo and Ayush Mehra.
The show shot in an alfresco setting sees a gourmet expert adding their spin on home-style versions of popular comfort food dishes created by celebrities, complemented with specially curated whisky cocktails to go with the occasion. Adhering to the brand philosophy of double is better, the celebrities faced a fun ‘double challenge’ preparing a home-style version of a dish alongside chef Brar’s gourmet version. At the same time, celebrated mixologist and highball lover Benson got them to play crazy whisky games and bar tricks. Benson also played around with Scotch and other ingredients to curate some creative whisky highballs to go with Ranveer’s dishes.
One of the videos from the series:
The Man Company’s video ‘Gentleman Kise Kehte hain’
The video that took no time to go viral featured Bollywood actor Ayushmann Khurrana. As the brand ambassador of men’s grooming essentials brand The Man Company (TMC), Khurana can be seen delivering a heartfelt poem against gender stereotyping, urging viewers to recognise the gentleman in their lives, around International Men’s Day. He urged the audience not to measure ‘masculinity’ based on social norms and instead reinforces that men should be allowed to be as they want to be and that there are no ideal ‘qualities’ of a gentleman.
The video:
Bharat Matrimony’s Care for Customers
The brand launched the initiative ‘BharatMatrimony cares for customers’ in the form of follow-up interviews with its customers to know how happy they were, post their matchmaking on BharatMatrimony. The brand curated 500 stories of the couples who met through Bharat Matrimony.
https://www.bharatmatrimony.com/success/happy-marriages.php?viewtab=stories&gasrc=HAPPYMARRIAGES
The stories are in-depth interviews with the couples to understand what anchored them to each other, how they support and care for the spouse, and how they’ve been growing the bonds of their friendship. These stories were showcased to more than 4.3 million active members, apart from the public. The brand witnesses 1000s of registrations every month after the initiative.