Benetton involves millennial minds in creation and conceptualisation of #UnitedByVote campaign

Benetton involves millennial minds in creation and conceptualisation of #UnitedByVote campaign

Emojis connect with the consumers fast.

Sundeep Kumar Chugh

MUMBAI: As per a recent study by Accenture, conducted across the globe, 82 per cent of the consumers in India prefer to buy goods and services from companies that have a ‘shared purpose’ with them and stand for important causes in the society, reflecting similar values and beliefs as their own. This very well might be the reason why most brands, no matter what category they fall into, are taking the ‘cause-approved’ route for marketing their products. There have been several phenomenal campaigns taking up the cause of greater good with their campaigns, be it Ariels ‘#ShareTheLoad’ or HUL’s ‘Start A Little Good’.  

Another commendable effort in this regard has been United Colors of Benetton (UCB) India’s ‘United By’ series, the latest offering of which “#UnitedByVote’ is getting traction on social media. The campaign, in a very creative way, tries to awaken the citizens to the force of the great authority they have in the form of their vote.

Indiantelevision.com recently interacted with Benetton India CEO and MD Sundeep Kumar Chugh to know more about the campaign and how it came into shape. He shared that the main purpose of the campaign is to connect with the millennial audience, like every other part of the ‘United By’ series.

“‘United By’ is a series that was started by Benetton in 2016, exclusively in India, keeping in mind socially relevant topics that can help us connect with our millennial audience and raise issues that are extremely important. We want a positive conversation and want to contribute towards the society’s welfare by taking up these issues and generating discussions and debates around it. Overall, the purpose is building optimism around key topics,” said Chugh.

‘United By Vote’ is the 10th campaign in this series, which has earlier stood up for causes like same-sex relationships (#UnitedByColors), unity and secularism (#UnitedByHope), and diversity in art (#UnitedByArt).  

Chugh reveals that the brand tries to bring out just one or two campaigns every year and this time it wanted to focus on the ‘most relevant topic of 2019’, i.e. the elections. “We realise that currently, a sort of narrative is happening in the country where different people are talking different things. And it is our duty to appeal to 900 million voters out there to not get influenced or affected by these debates or discussions and just go out and vote because the ultimate power lies with every individual voter. Each and every vote is going to make a lot of difference,” he stated.

Since the prime target of the campaign is the millennial, Benetton makes it a point to involve a lot of young power in its creation and conceptualisation. Chugh reveals that the average age of the brand is 28-29. And young people, not just from the marketing team but from across departments, are consulted before coming out with the final campaign.

“What I have seen is that the younger generation has more exposure to technology and they are very quick and fast in taking up things. Thus, it is very important to have the millennial talking and suggesting and guiding and mentoring the brands,” Chugh said.

He further continued, “I have, say, a 20-member strong marketing team and I am very actively involved in pushing this ‘United By’ series. But it’s not like just this team is working on the campaign. We have seven different functions across the organisation and we pick up two or three young people from each of these departments. Then we take inputs based on what they are seeing or hearing and discuss and debate ideas. Even with this campaign, we followed the process. The final video was shown to those people before the launch.”

The campaign also has its own official Twitter emoji. Talking about the same, Chugh shared that the emoji highlights the strength of the whole campaign. He stated, “When we discussed the campaign with the Twitter team, they were quite impressed. We then discussed with them if it’s possible to create an emoji around it, they were very supportive about it. We are really grateful to them as if we look at India, in terms of the digital penetration, this sort of emoji helps in spreading a bit more of positivity and connects with the consumer fast.”

The campaign is running across cinemas, social media channels, print, and radio. Chugh has deliberately kept the campaign away from TV because the election is spread across different phases and the build-up won’t have happened in a manner the campaign required.