Airtel's 'Har friend zaroori hai, yaar' campaign goes viral

The campaign now takes the 'gamification' route in its new avatar. Online viewers of the new HFZ videos can earn points and upload their own videos

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | January 5, 2012

Bharti Airtel has announced that following the success of its 'Har friend zaroori hai, yaar' (HFZ) brand campaign, it has further extended this brand idea with the launch of an online viral campaign on its YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/airtel).

Created by TapRoot, these 20 videos are inspired by interesting 'friend types' or tags created by the online audience on Facebook (www.facebook.com/airtelindia) during an outreach programme initiated by Airtel earlier. Over the coming weeks, the company will periodically release these 20 videos on the web and use the concept of 'gamification' to excite viewers to unlock, access and share them.

Commenting on the launch of the HFZ viral campaign, Bharat Bambawale, Director - Global Brand, Bharti Airtel, said, “The youthful rendition of Airtel's 'har friend zaroori hai, yaar' campaign and its accompanying foot-tapping friendship anthem have resonated well with people of all age groups and backgrounds – much like the brand itself. Given the theme itself, focusing on the discerning online audience was a natural choice for us. With this in mind, Airtel earlier launched an online campaign that encouraged everyone to create unique friend types on Facebook which received a whopping 65,000 entries in a span of days. We have now chosen the most interesting friend tags of this crowd sourced lot (like 'Status Update fried, Activist Friend, Dhinchak friend', 'Filmi Friend', 'Chipkoo Friend' and 'Proxy Friend') to create new HFZ online viral videos. These videos will follow the increasingly popular global trend of 'gamification' to encourage viewers to spread the word on these evocative videos that bring alive ways in which friends touch different aspect of our lives.”

An interesting trend that depicts the way the current generation consumes and accesses information, gamification is an infusion of gaming techniques and unique story telling that makes content more fun and engaging. As part of this 'gamification' led initiative, everyone keen on watching these videos will need to visit www.youtube.com/airtel and will then be provided interesting cues, by responding correctly to which they will be able to 'unlock' video levels and gradually move ahead and watch all videos.

Tagging others and sharing these videos on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ will allow viewers to gather points on the leaderboard. Finally, one can upload one's own friend type video in order to win a Nokia Lumia 800 and a trip to Ibiza, Spain, to party with your friends as the grand prize.

As a complete deviation from traditional media strategy, Airtel started releasing these videos on the web starting January 4, 2012.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com