Social media marketing is the new facet of marketing strategy. Social media marketing has altered the complete dimension of marketing objective. Launch of a product or a service, customer communication, engaging existing and the new customers with various attractive and interesting means have become an important aspect and these surely play an important role in the marketing world. Organizations have started diving into the ocean of virtual world to strengthen the bond between the customer and the business house.
There are various social media marketing techniques and strategies available that help individuals and organizations to boost their business. Social media is a platform which helps in amplifying the thoughts of an individual or an organization by reaching out to masses. This feature makes social media as the most popular medium to market.
The ultimate objective of social media marketing is to create a platform for anybody to showcase their services and efforts towards social responsibility. Bombarding customers with various products and services are not considered to be a healthy strategy. Customers look forward to build an association with the organization based on trust.
As more and more organizations are making a successful online presence using social media, Gillette India too did not want to miss out the wagon and grabbed their unique space in the social media world. Gillette India leveraged social media marketing to reach out to their targeted audience.
About Gillette India
Gillette is a Boston, Massachusetts, United States based organization. Gillette is the market leader among men’s safety Razor and other personal care products. It is owned by Procter & Gamble.
Gillette India was incorporated in India on 9th February 1984. It was a joint collaboration between House of Podder Enterprises (HOPE) and Gillette, USA. Gillette India manufactures stainless steel Razor blades, Razors and other shaving products. Gillette India’s tag line ‘the best a man can get’ is very popular. It is a brand which is used by Indian men belonging to all income levels.
Business Objective of Gillette India
The following were the objectives of Gillette India:
To promote their product Vector 3 Razor which was launched in India in November 2013.
To spread awareness among Indian men about the product.
To eradicate misconception that Razors are expensive.
Strategies Used by Gillette India
Gillette India took on to social media marketing to promote their product Vector 3 Razor. Gillette India used Facebook as their medium to post various advertisements about the product apart from other traditional advertising methods.
Two pioneers and award winning media agencies named IBS and MediaCom helped Gillette India to attain their objective. IBS is a unified media company which has helped many leading Indian and global brands with their digital led solutions. MediaCom is into media planning and buying for global advertisers. MediaCom’s strength lies in their thorough customer insights, analysis and years of experience.
Collaboration of two think tanks helped Gillette India to leverage social media marketing to reach their goals.
The following were the strategies employed by Gillette India:
Brand Ambassador: Gillette India chose ace cricket player Rahul Dravid as the brand ambassador for their product Vector 3 Razor. Choosing the right person as the brand ambassador is the first important aspect for any organization. Customers love to associate themselves with celebrities and believe what they see. In India, where cricket is followed like a religion, Rahul Dravid being a famous cricket player, gave a perfect launch to Vector 3 Razor.
Photo Ads: The second step was to place appropriate ads. Photo ads are the paid advertisements that appear in desktop and mobile news feed. These photo ads also appear at the right column of a Facebook page. Photo ads for Vector 3 Razor, displayed cricket player Rahul Dravid with the razor and other details like pricing and benefits of the product.
Target Audience: Gillette India’s ultimate aim was to target men residing in tier 2 cities. They used Facebook to tap potential customers. Facebook targeting is an interesting feature that helped Gillette India to identify their target people. Facebook Targeting provides complete details about the user’s location, demographics, interests, behaviours, connections, custom and lookalike audiences etc. This feature helps to reach-out to right people. Gillette India could research upon these target people and devise the right strategy to promote their product.
Feature Phones: Once the target audience was identified, the next step was to keep people abreast with information. Feature phones allows the user to access internet, store & play music. These phones are limited to certain features only when compared to smartphones. Gillette India targeted people having featured phones only by running photo ads and Facebook news feed. This strategy was one of its kind and Gillette India became the first company to target only featured phone users.
Campaign: Gillette India ran this campaign for a duration of 4 weeks between 13th December 2013 and 10th January 2014. The photo ad emphasised on the lines ‘Fast Shave at Rs.50 per month with New Gillette Vector 3 with 3 self-adjusting and easy-to-rinse blades.’
Results
The social media marketing campaign carried out by Gillette India helped them to achieve the following results:
The number of likes to the product increased from 16,006 to 26,386.
The number of comments on the Facebook page increased from 995 to 1,567.
60% of the target audience could be reached because of the campaign.
Message recall-rate got 4-point lift.
Ad recall-rate got 5-point lift.
Cost per person reached 12 paise.
Learning
Gillette India’s agenda was to promote their product Vector 3 Razor and to spread awareness among the men in India that their Razors were affordable across all financial classes. The entire campaign was very smartly run. The most interesting strategy was to tap featured phone users. Majority of people residing in tier 2 cities with lesser financial income prefer featured phones. Gillette India in partnership with leading media agencies like IBS and MediaCom, formulated well researched social media marketing strategies to tap this target audience. Using Facebook which is the most popularly used social networking site, for the campaign gave a cutting edge to the whole process.
Social media marketing is indeed a breakthrough in the world of marketing!!!
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