Mitsubishi Great Driving Challenge wins Silver ABBY for Integrated Digital Campaign, beating Vodafone ZooZoo (which got bronze).

The metal looks like this.

and here is Team EC collecting the same.

The incredible success of our social media led campaign to garner fans and fanatic fans for CLUB Royal Challengers (both on the Website and Facebook pages), needs no further evidence; (see the graph below). The exponential, hockey-stick curve which is every social marketeer’s dream, has now come alive for us; and honestly is a treat to see the numbers leap, everyday. Team RCB has given a big helping hand, notching up 4 wins on the trot, and providing content ‘on-demand for the fans (smiling, singing, blogging whatever) and the traffic is just pouring in from around the world.

While industry pundits continue to wax eloquent about digital extensions to multi-crore advertising blockbusters (Tiger, ZooZoo et al.) and social media pundits mash-up and re-tweet the same, sterling examples such as Royal Challengers social-media powered website, fly completely below the radar.

Not a surprise, because traditional media has been given a ‘pass’ by fans who, instead, gorge on more exciting and original content churned out daily by Club RCB fans themselves on royalchallengers website . The crowd has taken over, and the website is now source of ‘original news, pictures and anecdotes’ for traditional media.

Instead of running gimmicky campaigns promising fans the world (and delivering peanuts), Team EC has carefully nurtured a small group of fanatic fans who are treated as esteemed guests of the Club. There is 2-way communication on several channels (including the coach). Several fans are now accredited and provided special access to players, post IPL parties, free-tickets to watch the match as group titled “Mighty 14”. We say this, because it is important for organizations to understand that the road to “engagement” does not often end by adding one new ‘fan’ on a facebook page - many a times it is just the beginning.

Coming back to the topic of “viral growth”, what we are seeing on Club RC is the result of 3-4 month long intense curation of content and profiles on site. We had the ‘core audience’ engaged and active long before the crowds arrived. A well-oiled machine was just more effective in converting casual visitors to fans.

Readers, we assure you that the journey does not end here. Whatever be the outcome of IPL 2010. Club RC is ready to raise the bar and take fan engagement to the next level.

IPL 2010 is off to a great start, with a bigger bang than ever before (so says the TV pundits). At EC, the entire team is currently immersed in cricket. You are all aware of our good work on Royal Challengers; but today we would like to introduce you to our BIG launch of the season which happened last Friday, just hours before the start of the first IPL 2010 match.

Welcome to Castrol Cricket (V 2.0), the new watering hole for all cricket pundits and fans of 20:20 - a format of the game which defies convention. In a T20 match, as you are aware, anything can happen any time; but there had to be a way to go under the skin of the game and analyze the performances. Not many people are aware of the key segments which define the T20 format, for ex. QUICKSTART, POWERPLAY etc. For the avid fan however, getting performance data of teams/players in these segments is crucial to understanding how they are doing and how the teams stack up against one another prior to a match, or in-play.

So if you are a cricket lover, may we ask you visit Castrol Cricket, and check out all the cool new stuff in store for you.



This project is delivered in close collaboration with mainline agency M&C Saatchi, Sports content provider Sportz Interactive and Brand Castrol.

The site is a complete departure from the 'yawn inducing' cricket portals, which all mash up the same news, celebrity blogs, tiring analysis and scores. It is refreshingly different, providing an ability to visualize cricket data like never before. What are the top performances in this tournament? Do you have an answer? - if not go check out Castrol Cricket, and find out why the top scorer is not necessarily the "top performer". Aha!




The other big hit on the site, is the live scoreboard, which is clearly designed for the cricket buff, who wants to know that little something extra, than just runs/over/wickets. The hero of our score-board are the "live worms" which keeps measuring performance (of both teams) after every over, measuring something that is not intuitively visible by looking at the score. If they travel together, you know the teams are going neck to neck; if they travel apart, you know for sure you can call the match way ahead of time. A sophisticated algorithm keeps track of dot balls, run rate, wickets taken, catches missed, computing live performance index on-the-fly.




So as Royal Challengers chewed up Rajasthan Royals on the night of 18th March, it was very clear to Castrol Cricket fans that the match could be called very early on.


But Castrol Cricket is not all about numbers; there is plenty of room for fun. Take the card game for instance - it is very addictive and can beat even the more ardent supporters of the game. Try it sometime.




Finally what is a game of cricket, if you are not rooting for your team and betting on a six-pack beer with friends and colleagues. Buddy, there is something for you too. Before you settle in as the "couch potato" for the evening and cheer lustily in front of your 42" LCD, why not head out to the Castrol Index zone and run a quick compare of teams and individual players. Trust Castrol Index to give you more returns on your money (or beer whatever). Just kidding folks

Let us know how you like this new stuff.




and in case the match is on right now, get the live scores right here.

A hearty congratulations to the EC team for winning their first award! And that too a GOLD! We now have proof to back up our claim that The Great Driving Challenge is India’s best social media campaign of 2009! Thanks to the committee behind the Indian Digital Media Awards 2010 for recognizing our work. We promise to deliver a lot more kick-ass digital marvels!

Our award inspired in-house artist Prashant so much, he whipped up this masterpiece in the wee hours of the morning.

It showcases the team effort aptly. Starts with the 10,000 applications received for the Great Driving Challenge. Continues to show the Top 100, the server crash we faced because of multitudes of visits… the issue of fake votes we painstakingly resolved to the final shortlist of Top 3 and winners of the Great Driving Challenge being announces. And right after that, EC passing the finish line at the IDMA 2010 with a beautiful crystal globe in hands!

The D-Day has arrived and now IPL is just 1 day away. At EC the team is working round the clock to engage audiences online on two of our biggest cricket related properties; castrolcricket.com and royalchallengers.com. Royal Challengers is now running entirely on social media and has reached an inflection point with daily sign-ups breaking all records through the lifetime of the site.

As all of you know getting people to pass the sign-up barrier is one of the most difficult task for website designers. Let me share with you the performance on our sign-up page (for royalchallengers); one look at the stats below, and you will agree that they are mind blowing.





There can be several reasons behind the amazingly low bounce rate of <5% - but here are some compelling ones that I feel merit observation:


a) Social media led referral traffic is of very good quality (specially when they are originate spam-free); thus the context is well set in mind of visitor.

b) Design of sign-up page is simple and without any frills.



c) The social buzz about the website has spread offline, and people are visiting website based on references of friends; again context is well set.

d) Unlike other IPL teams, RCB website is active with real people (fans, players, coach and celebrity). The currency of communication seems genuine, and fans just love associating with a brand that is thriving.


We expect the crowds to soar as IPL 2010 unfolds. Stay tuned for more updates.

Today, once more, we saw a sure sign that Twitter usage in India is on a sharp upward climb.

Today, Sachin Tendulkar beat the highest global ODI score of 194, and then surpassed it with a double ton, yep a full 200 not out. Not only did this mean that thousands of Indians were glued to their screens and that Cricinfo's traffic must have shot up, it also means that thousands of Twitter updates are catching Sachin fever like wildfire.

Take a look at the list of Global Twitter Trending Topics (time stamp around 7:00pm IST) . We Indians and global cricket fans have taken it over with Sachin, Tendulkar, #sachinisGod AND ODI.



It takes a huge magnitude of tweets to get there. See the graph below for an idea of how many times tweople typed up Sachin, Tendulkar and ODI (courtesy of TwitterVenn):



That's a total of 101,856 tweets around Sachin, Tendulkar and ODI, in FIVE hours (seeing as the match started at 2:30 and it's almost 7:30pm now)

The last time Indian cricketers took over Twitter was December 2009, when both Sachin and Dravid made the trending topics for passing their respective milestones. Clearly Indians are becoming more tvocal on Twitter and are geared to steal trending topic slots from US tweople. The fact that all matches of IPL 2010 will be available on YouTube means a lot more Indians will be watching the match on their computers, mere clicks away from Twitter. We will undoubtedly see a lot of Twitter activity around IPL.

But will we take over trending topics during IPL 2010 as well?

Let's do some math. Today we had the entire nation rooting for Sachin. There are about 15 lakh Indians on Twitter (as per Comscore), let's assume a major X of them were rooting for him. In 15 days, when IPL 2010 starts, the country will be divided into 8 groups since we have 8 IPL teams. Roughly one eighth, that is 0.125X will be supporting each IPL team -- 0.125X cheering for the Royal Challengers, 0.125X for Mumbai Indians and so on. Will they be able to provide the needed momentum to get their team and player names into the global trending list? Or will we just see #cricket and #IPL trending?

We just launched a new campaign to celebrate the launch of Tata Sumo Grande MK on ORKUT. Over the next few months, Orkut users will be able to schedule test drives with a dealer of their choice, directly within the social network. They can then choose to enter the contest for which all they need to do, is share their test drive experience with friends and ask people to vote for their review. Winner (i.e. people who post most interesting and popular review) will get all expenses paid trip for family of four to Goa.




Why did we choose to do this within Orkut?

- fresh, innovative idea. People have never tasted a contest like this within Orkut before.
- ease of access. One click from Banner AD to install the social app and get started.
- built in viral ability. You can ask your real friends and family to come along for drive.
- highest reach in multiple relevant markets (for the brand) across India



The contest idea is fun and yet has a direct connect with the marketing objective to get more people to test drive the vehicle, instead of relying on perceptions. The application engages users from the get go, with gorgeous imagery, inviting people to select the color/style of car of their choice. You get started with the test drive experience right-away as you schedule your appointment and a timer counts down to your scheduled date and time. A back-end data bridge transmits the information to the dealer location, for personalized phone follow-up.



We have placed our bets on the ORKUT platform (against Facebook) for this campaign, and it will be interesting to see how the idea evolves. Itching to take a test drive? Click on the banner below to reach Orkut (sign-in needed).

In a matter of just 30 days, the online community at royalchallengers.com has grown by over 33%, to cross 40,000 registered members. Thanks to 3 incredibly successful campaigns, launched just 3 weeks back and now running near simultaneously, recruitment for the club is on overdrive. On closing day for the first Campaign i.e. Fanatic Fans Challenge Season II, we clocked over 26,000 unique visitors - that is more than the total combined daily traffic to all other IPL team websites (as per comparative estimates on Alexa).





What makes EC campaigns so successful? Is it just the power of our ideas or our ability to execute, or both?

I think successful campaigns are not just about design or delivery, but also about the team's ability to provide support, 24x7. It is because of the sterling levels of commitment of EC support team, that we are able to generate so much positive buzz on the web. Read what happened at the Indibloggers meet last saturday, (reported by a Club RC Fanatic Fan).

We just updated our EC Digital Marketing Framework for 2010.




For those not familiar with the EC framework, this represents our grand unified vision of digital marketing. It draws upon the combined wisdom of EC founding team and our 15 years of digital marketing experience, ever since the banner ad was first discovered. Having withstood the test of time and now well-integrated with social media, this framework forms the basis of all our long term engagements with some of the biggest brands in the country.

Our vision will continue to evolve, as consumer behavior and engagement preferences on the digital web changes.

when fans on your website say this!