BANGALORE: Himalaya Herbal Healthcare (Himalaya) and its creative agency Meridian have decided to tap selected facebook community members for creating awareness about its hand sanitizer ‘Pure Hands’ and to create video content and/or ideation for ads through a contest (www.facebook.com/himalayapurehandsvideocontest).

The TG is the India youth and Himalaya has roped in 15 colleges from Bangalore to take part in the competition with the winning team walking away with Rs 100,000. The first and second runners-up win Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively. The contest began about two weeks ago and will close by the end of this month.

The competition invites young minds to make a video for Pure Hands that will highlight the product benefits in an exciting way.

“The objective of the contest is to generate fresh communication ideas for PureHands , to enhance brand experience for customers by giving them a platform to tell their story and to directly involve users of the product in the communication”, said Himalaya India marketing manager, Consumer Product Division, Ramakant Sista.

Adds Sista, “We wanted to involve the user community in developing an advertisement for PureHands. Students, who are big users of the product, are better placed to narrate their experience with the product and how it plays a role in their life. If we want customers to connect with the brand and the category, we need to create communication that they can identify with. The product must seamlessly integrate into their life experiences!”

“Crowd sourcing is a great way to access fresh, exciting ideas. Companies across the globe are looking at the internet to reach out to their consumers. We chose to run our contest on Facebook as the social networking site is most popular among youngsters. They congregate on Facebook, express their opinions, discuss, deliberate. The contest is a first for us. We are hopeful that students will participate and enjoy the experience”, concludes Sista.

Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune contribute to almost two thirds of the users of Himalaya’s hand sanitizers. Karnataka is a big contributor to sales of Pure Hands.

At present the Himalaya estimates the market size in India for hand sanitizers as Rs 250 million and growing at an annual compounded rate of around 40 per cent.

Depending upon the success of the Bangalore initiative, Himalaya may take the contest to other cities in the country.