HUL’s free mobile radio is the PR winner this week

Good PR

HUL creates user free mobile radio as a channel for its promotion

According to the Economic Times, HUL has created what it says is the largest radio station in Bihar on a mobile!

The channel called Kan Khajura Tesan, or 'centipede station' contains the usual mix of RJ chatter, movie songs, and jokes and is also a vehicle for HUL brands.

The way the radio operates is also interesting, all you have to do is give a missed call to a dedicated number and the station calls you back to play 15 minutes of entertainment.

The radio station has 5 million subscribers and according to HUL they have stopped advertising on radio stations in Bihar.

According to ET: “the channel interacts with about 1 lakh consumers every day. That means about 25,000 hours of engagement daily with consumers in Bihar. And the company says it has more than 26 million ad impressions to date. “

This is a great example of a company creating its own media channel in an out of the box manner which also targets rural areas where there are no FM stations.

The station which is already in Jharkhan will soon be expanded to other states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Zoiro innerwear man will keep his clothes off as long as you Tweet him challenges!

This one is a really interesting campaign by Zoiro, a brand that launched what it calls designer denim innerwear for men, in December last year.

To promote the innerwear, Zoiro has come up with a cracker of a campaign using the interactional power of Twitter with the hashtag #DontStopDenim.

The one day promotion that ended March 1^st, asked tweeples to throw interesting challenges at the Zoiro man, who then performed these live. As long as the challenges kept coming, the Zoiro man aka VJ Manish would stay in his denim innerwear!

A microsite showed the challenges being performed live. Here’s a tweet about my favourite challenge!

A quirky promotional video, asked you not to tweet!

Cheeky, highly interactive, creative – this one is a real pleaser for the millennials.

Phillips #StyleTurf uses selfies couples contest to promote its grooming range

Selfies was the word of the year in 2013 and quite naturally brands have been quick to capture the trend in their campaigns.

The latest to do so is Phillips. It is currently running a campaign called #StyleTurf with MTV India to find India’s most stylish couple. The marketing communication is designed to promote Phillips’ grooming range.

The idea is simple, log on to the microsite and upload a couples selfie based on the task of the week. Here is an entry from the task, dress to impress:

6 couples have currently been shortlisted from which the winner will be selected.

Very interesting use of the ever present selfie for brand promotion! Recently Dove did a great job with using selfies to redefine the idea of beauty.

Bad PR

AK Antony shows deep insensitivity towards Indian navy sailors

A lot has been written about the Defence Minister AK Antony’s unsuitability, the outdated state of army equipment and the lack of up gradation during his tenure. But to me the worst is one of the poorest public responses by Antony about the tragic death of sailors Lt Commander Kapish Muwal and Lt Manoranjan Kumar on board one of India’s 9 kilo class submarines, the INS Sindhuratna.

While the debate is still on whether the fire in which the sailors died was due to batteries or a cable catching fire, AK Antony is yet to issue any statement condoling the deaths or visit the families of the two sailors.

I don’t know of any other country which would have shown such disregard for its defence forces. In contrast to Antony’s behaviour the former Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi, resigned owing moral responsibility – the first defence forces chief in Indian history to resign in office.

It’s ironic that a minister who has gone so slow on procurement for fear of scandal, has come in with so much flak, in part for slow procurement, at the end of his term.

Have you seen any great or even bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.