Indiantelevision.com Team

(6 May 2008 6:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: "It happens only in India" is an online contest aimed at creating a buzz around a virtual calling card service, launched by Bharti Airtel.

The contest looks at popularising its enhanced version of Airtel CallHome, a service for making calls from US to India .

The online contest, aiming at the 2.5 million-strong NRIs in the US market, has been conceptualised by Webchutney while all the platform integration has been done by Rediff.com.

According to Bharti Airtel calling card services head Arun Bhardwaj, “Keeping in mind the NRI community-targeted approach of CallHome, our online contest 'It happens only in India' follows the same route of inspiring the very same community to celebrate and remember all things Indian with humor and wit. We are aiming to encourage a lighthearted celebration of Indianness.”

Spread across a period of eight-weeks, the online contest is hosted on Rediff.com’s social networking platform, i-share, and can be accessed at ithappensonlyinindia.net.

Rediff.com Associate Vice President Sumer Mehta added, “Airtel ICS launched an interactive video contest in association with Rediff i-share to connect with their NRI TG. This property provided a platform to NRIs to share what they miss the most – doing things truly, deeply, madly Indian. This was an out-of-the-box unique idea that proved its stickiness with the NRI audience.”

To participate in the contest, viewers will have to upload a video or photo of a "funny" Indian moment featuring himself, his friends or family. The uploaded videos and photos will be ranked by a jury in order of their popularity.

Webchutney COO Rahul Nanda added, "The website design was aimed at connecting with the Indians based out of the country, involving them in a fun dialogue and understanding what being Indian means to them – in as much a quirky way as possible. We have made it possible for them to come together on an online platform in doing just that - have a good time being who they are."