The Campaign

The Indian Premier League cricket (IPL) is the Superbowl of India. Played over a month, the IPL matches are watched religiously by millions on televisions across India. But being played every day, there is high repeat viewership across the games, causing viewer fatigue with even the best of ads. We wondered, if there was a way to surprise people day after day, for a month? To engage them daily and make them look forward to the commercial breaks between the games? We developed a campaign consisting of 30 films and aired them across 30 days of the IPL championship. We created a special world inhabited by lovable characters named Zoozoos. These species with a hysterical laugh and gibberish language told stories about Vodafone’s wide range of Value Added Services – 30 simple stories told through 30 films – a film a day, every day all through the IPL.

Success of the Campaign

Individual VAS sales grew from 30 to 200%, while brand preference scores amongst intenders rose from 20 to 24 (the highest in the year). And for the first time, on parameters of stature and popularity, Vodafone scored higher than the market leader. The Facebook fan page has over 310,000 fans, the largest for any Indian person or brand. With over seven million views it has more views than the official IPL website. The Zoozoos YouTube channel became the most subscribed channel in the country. Within ten days “Zoozoo” became the fourth most searched word on Google. Zoozoos competed with Indian elections for editorial space in all mainstream dailies and magazines while all TV stations including channels like CNN-IBN and CNBC carried hour-long specials. Zoozoos topped Advertising Age’s list of world’s top virals in May 2009, debuting on the chart at number one; a first for any campaign in the world.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Zoozoos were born on Saturday, April 18th during the inaugural game of IPL ’09. Simultaneously a micro-site on Vodafone Zoozoos went live. The next day, Zoozoos were on billboards across India. Two days later, we started a Facebook fan page. And a YouTube Channel on Vodafone Zoozoos was launched. By the middle of the week, we got radio show hosts talking about Zoozoos. Second week, we broke a Twitter campaign to help followers keep track. Of course, everyday a new Zoozoo film was aired. But more interestingly, in response to the demands of the fans, new ads were posted exclusively on Facebook a few hours before they went on air. Downloadable Zoozoo screen savers, contests and games were added. Three weeks later, we posted films on the making of the Zoozoos. Special Zoozoo merchandise was developed. We also had live interviews with the Zoozoos at the stadium during the matches.