'Twittering' footfalls at The Bombay Store

Mindshift Interactive created a buzz for the retailer for its flip-flops with the 'Chappal Maaro' Twitter trend

Ananya Saha | Delhi | February 24, 2012

Talk of politics – and the topic of shoe hurling comes to the fore! It's almost like a new jargon. Giving an interesting spin to this was the recent social media campaign 'Chappal Maaro' (hurl flip-flop) designed for The Bombay Store by Mindshift Interactive.

The objective of the campaign was to spread awareness about the new flip-flops, introduced by The Bombay Store via Twitter, creating instant buzz for the product. The campaign was launched on the day of the BMC elections in Mumbai (February 16, 2012). While leveraging the Mumbai civic elections as the conversation starter, Twitter was used as the primary platform to engage and interact with the audience. The '#ChappalMaaro' trend reached 16,277 accounts in the first 25 minutes, and 17,672 exposures were recorded. The Bombay Store reached 4,465 accounts and was exposed to 15,843 impressions. About 147,622 accounts were reached and 410,916 impressions were recorded.

Anaggh Desai, CEO, The Bombay Store, said, “The idea was not a promotional activity but as a tool to listen to what the consumer feels and gain mindshare of the younger lot for the brand.”

Zafar Rais, CEO, MindShift Interactive, said, “The core idea of the campaign was aimed at 'chappal maaro' on things going wrong on the election day, such as people not coming out to vote. However, when it started trending across India, people also started criticising autowallahs or anything that was wrong in their immediate surroundings.” The trend continued on Twitter for two days.

On why did the brand choose the word 'chappal' and not flip-flop to create buzz, Rais explained, “The word 'chappal' creates a faster connect than flip-flop in India, no matter what brand is!”

The campaign also helped the brand attract footfall in its stores. “The stock of flip-flops was supposed to last 90 days. But as things stand today, with so many walk-ins at our mall stores, we might just run out of stock in a few days,” said Desai.

Despite the traction, the campaign also faced criticism. Rais elucidated, “There was a group of people who picked on the campaign saying that it does not relate to 'The Bombay Store' brand, which retails 95 per cent Indian goods.”

After two days of 'Chappal Maaro', the campaign was followed by a 'Gale Lagao' (hug them) trend, wherein the people tweeted about things or people they loved around them. Beginning next week, the brand is planning to leverage the trend for Women's Day as well.

Going forward, The Bombay Store plans to leverage social and digital media to reach its TG of sub-30-year-olds. “We do very little print media. But we focus heavily on alternative media. Apart from social and digital media, we are planning to focus on events to gain mindshare,” said Desai.

Ananya@BestMediaInfo.com

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