Results and Effectiveness

“Nokia Indiafest” accomplished the unprecedented feat of bringing together 2400 colleges! Over 50000+ college kids registered on the official website and 24,000 downloaded the customized mobile application. Novelty of the RFID wrist-bands created huge excitement among college students and they used it continuously to update their Facebook resulting in 59,000 Facebook updates from 6000+ participants in 2 days of the event. Assuming an average of 300 friends per participant on the friend list, the multiplier effect was to the tune of 18 Million! Brand preference in the 15-24 age bracket grew by 5% (Source:TNS)

Creative Execution

Event’s 1st leg was a talent competition. 2400 colleges participated in 28 cities. 700 participants were shortlisted for the final. Others got the opportunity to be part of the fest through a customized retail program – ‘Nokia Earn Your Right’, accumulating points to win passes to the event. The focal point was the dedicated website www.indiafest.in bringing together every element of the campaign. A mobile application was created that gave regular updates to registered users. Unique RFID technology enabled wrist-bands captured the Facebook details of each individual at the final event in Goa allowing real time sharing on fun@Indiafest. Electronic receiver boxes at the event, pre-loaded with descriptions of each event enabled instant uploads by individuals to their wall feeds. The event aired on No. 1 TV network of India-Star, reaching out to 30 million+ viewers. The winner got a wildcard entry on the biggest reality show on the network.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Nokia has been a laggard in terms of introducing product innovations, being the last entrant for all the product innovations in recent times. Youth want the latest and coolest as they fear losing their social currency among their peer group. Nokia was perceived as boring and outdated and youth had moved out of the Nokia fold. The biggest challenge for Nokia was to get youth back to the Nokia fold. Youth want to create distinct identities for themselves and stand out. College festivals are the biggest stage to showcase their talent and create their identities and Facebook the yardstick to measure their popularity and gain social currency. Nokia created a platform combining the power of college festivals and Facebook to create “Indiafest”, the biggest on-ground college fest transmitted live to Facebook, empowering Indian youth to carve out their identity. It integrated the on-ground festival with the virtual world of Facebook.