VIABUZZ - THE VOICE OF VIACOM18

TitleVIABUZZ - THE VOICE OF VIACOM18
BrandVIACOM18 MEDIA PVT. LTD.
Product / ServiceVIABUZZ
CategoryB13. Content-led Engagement & Marketing
EntrantVIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Idea Creation VIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
PR VIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Production GOZOOP Mumbai, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Sonia Huria Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. Head - Corporate Communications & CSR
Aditi Chada Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. Director - Corporate Communications & CSR
Misha Paul Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. Assistant Manager
Prasanna Ratanjankar Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. Senior Manager
Sreemoyee Banerjee Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd. Executive

The Campaign

To create a democratic platform for the employees, the stories had to come from them. The idea was to involve the employees wholly in the content creation process and make them the owners of the content. We devised an ingenious plan to rope in our employees. If it was to be by the people, of the people and for the people, we couldn’t leave anyone out, right from our Group CEO to our staff members and even our office pets, everyone needed to be touched upon.

Execution

The logo and name of the webzine were crowdsourced from our employees, making them the stakeholders. Our monthly webzine appears in inboxes as an HTMLized image. When clicked, it reroutes to the Viabuzz closed website where all stories are housed. With monthly themes and season specials, our content varies - from a regular editor’s note by the CEO, a rapid-fire section with leaders to a gossip column called ChamCham Speaks, named after our office floof. There's a hugely popular section called ‘Spotlight’ featuring our staff members who often go unnoticed. We have features on new joiners, employee engagement properties, pieces boosting internal marketing by sharing updates on our myriad brands, travel stories, health and and fitness sections, opinion and human pieces. The first printed Viabuzz was released in November, dedicated to our Regional employees, welcoming them into the family. The second print edition was our special anniversary issue, themed #OneTogether.

On a monthly basis we receive stories and inputs from employees across regions on our write-back ID Viabuzz@viacom18.com For our anniversary issue the entire organisation came #OneTogether and shared the stories of each brand under our network’s umbrella along with a unique photo concept for each team, as a result of Viabuzz's promotion of the ethos. After reading the interview of Lawrence, our pantry boy, our employees decided to start a fundraiser to make his dream of travelling to a church with his family come true. Lawrence received a MakeMyTrip travel voucher worth 1000 USD to visit the church with his family. He brought back banana chips and gulaab jamuns (sweets) for the Viabuzz team. ChamCham, our in-house pupper who has her own column called ChamCham Speaks, was injured and needed to be operated on. Our employees, from across locations contributed to the fundraiser that was started for her. They might not have seen ChamCham, but they sure knew her and cared about her thanks to Viabuzz. We featured another staff member in the newsletter, Sajida, whose big dream is to learn English. Within an hour of releasing the issue of Viabuzz with this interview, employees reached out to the team asking how can they help to make Sajida’s dream come true. We are working out the schedule for her to attend English classes after work. 1300 first time views on an average per month. Which is pretty much the entire organization. Average time spent – 06:34 minutes

The Situation

We are a family of families. With Viabuzz- our monthly internal magazine, we created a democratic platform for our employees. Instead of having a one-way communication, we designed an in-house platform of conversations; a platform that delivered our brand promise of #OneTogether. It started as a webzine giving every person (and animal)- from our Group CEO to the pantry boy to our in-house pet ChamCham a voice, and celebrated its first anniversary with a coffee table book. So why is Viabuzz relevant for this category? Because with every issue of Viabuzz, we’ve seen the voice of this organization come #OneTogether.

The Strategy

Employees of our organization cut across locations, demographics and cultural backgrounds. Our TG ranges from the difficult to please Youth entertainment punks and the ever-enthusiastic English entertainment team to the culturally differentiated Regional employees to the no-nonsense Strategy team and everyone in between. As this was an internal magazine, our aim was to reach out to our employees through creative internal mediums of communication, from digital standees, television screens, to our closed group page on Facebook to their desk, when need be, through engagement activities directly with them. Since our audience was internal, amplification was done through internal communication activities to generate buzz. We launched the webzine with coffee and doughnuts for all employees across locations. Every month we decided upon a theme and made sure the stories revolved around it. Throughout the year we kept creating noise and making heroes out of the storytellers.