Campaign Summary

UltraTech migrated an offline campaign online with an extensive virtual studio, mirroring a state-of-the-art demonstration that offered round-the-clock access to home builders to virtually walk around and get all possible information on home building.

Strategy

Objective:

UltraTech Cement is the largest manufacturer of cement in India operating at 57 percent share of voice in the cement category and 11 percent in the building and construction Category. The category narrative has always been focused on the functional aspect of cement i.e., strength and durability. Top players are looking for unique ways of saying the same thing and focusing on different aspects like longevity, durability, and exaggerated claims of strength. The cement industry has historically been a low involvement category, and the consumer relationship with the category was purely transactional.

Building a home is an emotional journey for every individual home builder. But lack of complete knowledge and no reliable source of information leads to a huge gap between the way people want to build the home and what they know about building the home.

UltraTech launched the 'Baat Ghar Ki Shivir,' a consultative set-up, establishing hyper-local interactions with individual home builders (IHBs) and UltraTech experts. In this on-ground platform, the brand invited potential IHBs from nearby districts/panchayats for comprehensive workshops on home building in an entertaining and interactive format.

The campaign was gaining momentum until the pandemic hit the country. Everything came to a standstill, as did the Shivir activations. But the brand's zeal to partner with home builders, continued, unfazed and uninterrupted. The challenge was to reach and engage with IHBs amid these critical times.

Target Audience:

The primary audience was IHBs (Individual Home Builders), males between the ages of 30-50 living in Tier 2-3 cities and rural areas in India. They contribute to 75 percent of the business.

Empirical data suggests that only three out of 10 people in UltraTech's focused markets had access to the internet. However, data also suggested that the mobile penetration stood at 90 percent (2.5 times higher as compared to TV) in focused markets. Considering the diverse landscape, UltraTech had to focus on audiences wired for the internet at the same time as its audience that resided in media-dark areas.

Creative Strategy:

To identify the home building challenges and to demonstrate the solutions for it, Baat Ghar Ki Shivir was swiftly recreated in a virtual avatar. With the simple goal of reaching homebuilders right at their doorstep, UltraTech created an extensive virtual studio, mirroring a state-of-the-art demonstration that offered round-the-clock access to home builders to virtually walk around and get all possible information on home building. Built on the four pillars of connectivity, accessibility, relevance, and consumer-centricity, the virtual Baat Ghar Ki Shivir was designed to be engaging, entertaining and educational. This program covered everything about home building and even ensured to address queries on a one-to-one basis through live sessions with experts, thereby re-affirming the brand's position as an "empathetic expert."

Context:

In the year 2019, UltraTech launched a digital campaign that aimed to partner with individual home builders to help them build their home. The campaign was successful and became an offline activation. #BaatGharKiShivir was launched, a first of its kind initiative in the industry. However, as the campaign was scaling up, the world was hit by the pandemic, and offline activation came to a halt. It was a challenge to find a meaningful way to engage with IHBs and strengthen the brand proposition of being a home building companion. But the zeal to partner with individual home builders facilitated the amplification of the offline program to a digital platform.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

The virtual Baat Ghar Ki Shivir was built on four main pillars:

1. Connectivity: Since a large chunk of individual home builders had access to the internet, it gave the brand an effective platform to connect with its audience even during the pandemic.
2. Accessibility: Entering the Shivir was possible simply by visiting the website. No app downloads were required, and all the information was optimized in local languages.
3. Consumer-centricity: The entire platform was curated with regards to consumer needs for a simplified interface, high-quality content on different stages of home building, gamified digital experience to gauge the knowledge, and live expert advice. The focus was to fulfill consumers' ambitions of building a home with a reduction of time, money, and efforts.
4. Relevance: The exhaustive and engaging content was made with respect to the common queries of home builders. The brand did a mobile-led sharp targeting through programmatic and reinforced the brand message through relevant media channels including Facebook, Google, Dailyhunt, and One India and to identify and engage with IHBs. These platforms were shortlisted based on the reach and affinity and targeted audience through innovative mobile formats.

The campaign was extended to the priority states of Punjab, Rajasthan, MP, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Telangana.

Mobile Execution:

Mobile was the backbone of this campaign. The campaign was deployed on the shoulders of technology through an informative mobile-based website and replicating the information on various mobile-friendly platforms. Due to the pandemic, the 'Baat Ghar Ki' activation was replicated on an interactive online platform. The virtual Baat Ghar Ki platform covered consumer-centric content, focusing on building knowledge around home building.

Business Impact (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

The return on investment UltraTech received proved that the campaign had struck the right chord with its audience.

Results:

• The campaign reached 40 million people over a period of four months.
• More than 17,000 individual home builders registered on the platform.
• More than 11,000 users shared their home building queries.
• 1.8 times uplift on brand assets' association and empathy attributes.
• Two times lift in brand message recall.
• Nine out of 10 IHBs correctly linked the activity with UltraTech.

Though #BaatGharKi Shivir was virtual, it brought the UltraTech brand closer to consumers and cemented UltraTech's position as consumers' home building companion.