Godrej Cinthol’s Engaging Twitter Campaign – #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn

Recently, I came across an interesting Twitter campaign on Godrej Cinthol #DeoCalculator. Before, we go through the campaign, let’s understand this product category in India.

Deodorants (or Deo), undoubtedly are the most widely used personal grooming product by both men and women. We keep seeing one Deo after another being launched in the market. Even wondered how many Deo brands exist in Indian market? According to Nielsen India, its the most crowded category with over 500 brands competing for the pie. It’s a INR 2,300 crore market in India. In this crowded market, Vini Cosmetics’ Fogg is the market leader with a volume share of 12.5%. ITC’s Engage follows up with a volume share of 8.1%, while Axe and Wildstone are the third spot with a volume share of 6.9%.

Now, let’s talk about the marketing communications route taken by Deo brands. Most of these brands’s TVCs have focused on the ‘attraction’ route. However, Fogg came up with a different route by claiming to provide more quantity than any other brand in the market. Some brands have played on the wide variants also. I hope this context sets a good tone for us to go through the Godrej Cinthol #DeoCalculator Twitter campaign.

Godrej Cinthol #DeoCalculator Campaign

While browsing Twitter, I came across this tweet, which was very intriguing and forced me to check out in detail.

Tweet and tell us the cost of your deo spray.
We’ll tell you how it can be spent better. #DeoRebornpic.twitter.com/P3fl2PfwAt

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

It was very interesting to see a Deo brand playing on a pricing lever. The messaging was very clear, as they straightaway tried to convince users that their brand would cost less.

So, wondering how did they engage users? While users started replying with their deodorant’s price, Cinthol beautifully replied them with a customized creative showing how much they could save by opting for Cinthol DeoStick. Check out some of these cool responses by the brand:

Hey @ns_verma next time you go buy a deodorant, make sure you have a look at this. #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn pic.twitter.com/NX5pGDViwK

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

Hey @pateldevang035 you are either rich or out of good deo options. Have a look. #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn pic.twitter.com/Dsu7MklH2r

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

Hey @colorless_man you know what to look for the next time you go deo shopping. #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn pic.twitter.com/CWjWCUKhDK

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

@vantaskigoli, your deodorant is being too pricey. Time to dump it for something better. #DeoCalculator#DeoRebornpic.twitter.com/k51U6x4SY7

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

The most interesting part of this cool Godrej Cinthol #DeoCalculator campaign was the customized creative that brand put in to reply each user. I agree its not the first time some brand has attempted, but this time, there is fair amount of creativity too involved. While I tried to play around, they came back with a cool response, which clearly shows that they had done their homework well.

@anandan22 #DeoReborn #DeoCalculator pic.twitter.com/dG2pq1Lsyi

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

This seemed to continue for good 4-5 hours. Later, Godrej flipped the coin. They fixed the price of XYZ deodorant to be INR 200, and asked users to suggest how they would use the saving of INR 131.

Fill the blank boxes & tell us what you’ll get with the Rs.131 saved. Best combos win big! #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn pic.twitter.com/fb6C1zjjdG

— Cinthol (@GodrejCinthol) May 16, 2016

This led to further user participation. Some of the replies are here for your reference.

@GodrejCinthol #DeoCalculator 1 bread = 30? + 1 butter = 40? + 1/2 kg tomato = 15? + 1/2 kg cucumber = 15? = SANDWICH + milk = 31? = 131?

— Anurag Sinha (@anuragsinha1992) May 16, 2016

@GodrejCinthol #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn
115( kingfisher beer)+
5(Lays)+
11(mild cigarette, match box)

— Mudit Khandelwal (@muditkh) May 16, 2016

@GodrejCinthol #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn
1) 10 chocolates for small kids Rs 50
2) 1 Cinthol soap for my Bro Rs31
3) Recharge Mom phone Rs50

— Harveen Kaur (@harveensachdeva) May 16, 2016

@GodrejCinthol #DeoCalculator #DeoReborn
5 coloring books for 5 poor kids= Rs. 50
10 pencils for 10 poor kids =Rs. 50
1 cinthol soap=Rs.31

— Kanchan Negi (@coool_kashish) May 16, 2016

This second round has been continuing even today and the brand is receiving interesting responses from users. This Godrej Cinthol #DeoCalculator campaign definitely succeeded in driving lot of engagement with the users. Here are few points where I feel brand could have done it better:

1) Why two hashtags? – Two hashtags – #DeoCalculator and #DeoReborn were used during the campaign. When I first came across this campaign, I took #DeoReborn to be the brand name, while later understood they were promoting Cinthol DeoStick. I feel this was definitely confusing. They could have stuck to just one hashtag (#DeoCalculator), which is the usual norm in case of hashtag-based campaigns. Rather, I am always pro when hashtags have a brand name included in them. I would have gone for #GodrejDeoCalculator for better brand recall.

2) What about brand’s visual identity? – I appreciate the unique imagery followed by Godrej for this creatives, but won’t it make sense to include the picture of real deodorant bottle in atleast the response creatives? Most of us are very well versed with the bottle shape, colour and other branding elements of various brands. This was a perfect opportunity for Godrej to reinforce its visual identity. While they were anyhow creating customized creative banners as responses, I feel they could have focused on this.

3) How about complimentary SEM campaign? – Digital campaigns are no more about a Facebook campaign OR Twitter campaign OR Search campaign. Users (customers) do not think in a sequential manner. As a customer, once I was introduced to this new product on Twitter, what would I do next? Won’t I search and try to buy? I tried to search with keyword ‘Godrej Cinthol Deo’, this is what I saw on Google!

While running a large scale on Twitter based on ‘pricing’, I am not sure how effective it is for brand to sustain its SEM campaigns with products with MRP at INR 160, 175 etc. Then, I searched for the keyword ‘Godrej Cinthol Deostick’ and found the below result. This was fair enough, however there was still an odd-one there!

I truly loved the Twitter campaign part and I think it would have been a perfect digital marketing case study, had they also focused on other elements. We all digital marketers should focus on a 360 degree approach rather than just a platform specific approach. Always try to map multiple digital channels that would increase the customer touchpoints.

What are your thoughts on this campaign?