In just 3 weeks since launch, the online destination has logged 3M+ page views, and risen fast on Alexa.

Powered dominantly by 'Social Media' and supported by print (some radio & TV), this campaign is certainly a candidate case-study on Internet Marketing in India.  Google ' great driving challenge ' and discover for yourself how the event is being talked about on multiple blogs, forums, facebook, orkut and twitter.

Those of you who are following the success of the Mitsubishi-Cedia campaign "The Great Driving Challenge" (TGDC), here is an interim update. In just 2 weeks since launch, TGDC has garnered over 1Million+ page views and attracted 150K unique visitors. The traffic pattern is very healthy and devoid of any "media-led" spikes.

At EC we always measure our campaigns using the AIV metrics i.e. Adoption (A), Interaction (I) and Velocity (V). With an average of around 10+ page views and time-spent on site hovering around 8 minutes, interaction (I) within the branded destination is very healthy. Many of our partners have asked us how we are doing compared to the (now) world famous Queensland Campaign (Best Job) at http://www.islandreefjob.com/, as both of them are from the same genre.






The viral velocity experienced on this campaign is very good, and only time will tell if this interest level can sustained. Observing  the Queensland campaign, we have learnt that audience interest is likely to wane, once the results are announced. Only time will tell, how the GDC audience behaves.

Another interesting campaign we wanted to benchmark TGDC against is the well known (http://www.jaagore.com). Most people in media are aware of the 'advertising spends' on building awareness around that campaign. What you can see in the screen below are the traffic spikes which have a direct correlation to mainline advertising; this reflects the total lack of stickiness around the 'idea' and the resulting yo-yo curve. GDC is running on its own fuel, with online advertising driving less that 5% of traffic. That is a direct reflection of the power of social media.

EC launched Mitsubishi Cedia Sports - The Great Driving Challenge on June 22, 2009. For the next 8 weeks, the online destination will invite driving enthusiasts (couples only) from around the country, to apply for an all-expenses paid drive-away, lasting 12 days. A grand Jury will shortlist the finalists, based on the quality of their application, enthusiasm they demonstrate online, the support they garner on their social networks, their passion for the road, and also their ability to narrate the live journey through blogs, photos, videos online.



Day 1 turned out to be a 'myth-buster' for EC team. Here are some of the lessons learnt.




Busted Myth #1: Print Medium does not work for Internet Campaigns.

The GDC campaign started with a mainline AD (print), which garnered over 5000 unique visitors within few hours. We held back on a simultaneous release of online campaign, just to gauge the reach, quality of traffic and effectiveness in terms of conversion - it was important for us as a Digital Agency in India, to measure the ROI on print.  While the traffic volume was in line with our expectations, what turned out to be surprise was the very high quality (inferred from the super-low bounce rate (<6%), and conversion ratio >25%) of traffic - far exceeding benchmarks for brand supported destinations, that we seen in our past projects.

Busted Myth #2: Social Media Content is primarily generated by youths.

We assume that social media content is mostly created by youth, and it would be a challenge to ignite interest in the more mature community (25 years+) to apply online (writing blogs, uploading photos etc), while busy with their work, family, jobs etc. "Who will have so much time to spend online, creating applications", speculated a team-member when the idea was first conceptualized.  Guess what?  We have seen some awesome applications from many couples all ranging from 25-60 years old. Average age of applicants is hovering around 31. One applicant in his sixties, appeals to all in his application, arguing that they are the best couple because.. “29 states, 13 countries, 15000 KM per year drive and 35 years of experience. Beat that! ”

Busted Myth #3: Deep engagement in online marketing campaigns is a challenge, since we are dealing with the impatient generation.


Over 2000 people signed up in a matter of hours and over 50% had already started a meaningful application within Hour 3. By end of day over 300 people had completed a meaningful application, uploaded photos, mashed up their flickr streams, annotated a google map, and were ready to reach out on their social graph for testimonials and votes.  The average stay time for people creating application was over an hour. Our jaws dropped! We were prepared for a long haul to entice applicants to fill up their forms (blogs), but the core of the community had formed rather quickly.

Our take-away from the campaign thus far:

(1) "Print media" works amazingly well for such campaigns, setting expectation for users, who navigate to the website with a clear intent to participate. The crisp design of the site is a bonus, capturing attention in precious few seconds, and persuades the user to engage by signing up in 2 clicks.

(2) Do not underestimate the power of user-generated-content (UGC) from the mature Indian Audience (aged 25-45). The quality of user generated content witnessed thus far, is proof positive of the rapid ascent of the indian internet audience on the Social Technographics ladder.The social computing behavior of indian professionals, weaned on Orkut & Facebook, demonstrates their rapid evolution from joiners/spectators to critics/creators.



(3) The Indian Internet Audience has many other faces than 'just' the youth on Orkut and Facebook caught up in their world of pokes, scraps, games, chat and flirt. The other half of the audience, who are professionals with a busy schedule, juggling jobs, family, trips etc , seem equally interested to participate in the social web, when presented with a compelling idea.

EC team enjoyed a dream run delivering a branded destination (castrolcricket.com) for Brand Castrol, at the recently concluded IPL Cricket Championships 09. Cricket Fanatics converged on this destination to understand the current performance index of players and teams, based on their performance in T20 games.

Starting with over 10K unique visitors per day from the very start, the traffic picked up reaching an average of 30K within 2 weeks from start, and peaked at around 75K unique visitors per day near the finals. The site delivered around 5M page views and many more millions of exposures through its badge application on popular social network Facebook.

The traffic pattern witnessed demonstrated the power of social media, as advertising led traffic made way for organic search and direct visits. Over 20% of traffic was delivered by EC social media penetration alone and accounted for the steady rise from the 10K media to the 30K median.

[caption id="attachment_63" align="aligncenter" width="582" caption="Traffic Pattern on CastrolCricket.com"][/caption]

Our much loved bhai from Mumbai has gone completely social - blogging, twittering, orkut'ing, after reading social metropolis. What about you?

Application ideas need to pass the "clarity of purpose" test, before its design is cast in stone. An application can serve the individual OR the group and it can deliver lot of fun OR provide some utility. Try mixing these purposes (a little bit of this and a little bit of that), and you are likely to land up in the clouded middle, with little user adoption. At EC, we always design apps for the extremities.

Designing a smart consumer application is as much about the 'right' brain as it is about the 'left'. The EC design team applies a judicious mix of both, while conceptualizing web-apps. To make these successful, what is needed is equal parts 'COOL' and equal parts 'SIMPLICITY'.

Unlike mainline media, which is more about creativity, web-apps are more about usability; with multiplying standards, browsers & social platforms, these applications are complex to build and deliver on time.

A cool application that can serve millions of users and spread like wildfire, takes time to design, build, test and deploy. The EC recipe to deliver on time is simple -  Parallel everything!