Summary
Kamasutra Condom has been sold on the basis of its latent awareness and strong sexual connotation. However, over the years, its competitors have gained market dominance in flavored condoms, one of the major selling points. To regain more market share, in the past 2 years, the brand was invigorated with the addition of new variants and packaging.
Challenge
KamaSutra is a well-known brand in the Indian sexual wellness space. When it was launched in 1991, it was strongly associated with power, potency, and sensuality. However, with time, the market has become cluttered and today most brands project the same values – sex and sensuality. There are stringent regulations on top media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. Our objective, therefore, was to break through this clutter and do a highly memorable campaign that gains momentum organically, leading to a viral buzz and word-of-mouth promotion. We wanted to drive preference for the brand KamaSutra, by increasing its popularity and making it a part of the popular discourse. We tried to make the brand relevant in the current context by normalizing sexual conversations and driving the desirability of our products among the open, outgoing, and experimentative GenZ
Objective
We figured out that the campaign has to do with enhancing our TG’s expressions. We decided to create futuristic brand experiences by adopting the latest technologies that our TG related to and used extensively. The current generations want to engage, share and become an inclusive part of the brand. We opted for conversation media marketing and NFTs as the campaign platform with a belief with a firm conviction that it would lead to incremental consumers and strike meaningful interactions with them. We wanted to get as many organic eyeballs as possible for the campaign that leads to a viral buzz and word-of-mouth promotion.
Strategy
Keeping consumer insights in mind, we decided to follow the 3 R approach R: Reach Users where they are conversing R: Relevance: Be present with edgy content pieces and contextually push brand communication R: Response: Checking the User response to drive engagement We partnered with Bobble AI which created conversational content for KamaSutra Condom, through the most original media formats: visual stickers. We allocated 55% of our marketing budget to smartphones. As our consumers shared these stickers in a two-tap process while messaging each other, it illustrated the campaign messaging in a subtle yet impactful way, enabling its contextual discovery and dissemination in everyday conversations. It made Kamasutra Condom a part of millions of conversations and built recognition and popularity of its stickers among millions of users. KamaSutra’s branded content was made available to 65 million+ Bobble users who shared it with their partners and love interests. Nothing is more authentic than what a friend says to another, meaning the branded content created a lasting recall and chatter around Kamasutra Condom. Later, we converted the most engaging stickers to special edition NFTs.
Data
Our TG is the youth – the heartbeat of India – is inclusive of all genders, aged 18-25 years, SEC A/B. It consists of both the youth – millennials, and GenZ. Every year millions enter this category. A Nielsen research report suggested that the youth had reduced the time spent watching TV. They have started spending time on Online Videos, Social, Messaging Apps, Cryptocurrency, and more. Younger entrants into the category spend more than 2.5 hours on chatting & related apps. The youth not only chats in the text but also prefers sending quirky stickers/images with its partner, spends time exploring avatars in the Metaverse, transacts & reads about cryptocurrency, As per a recent report, more than 50% of the owners of NFT stickers, were youth. They own stickers/collectibles from brands like Nike, Adidas, McDonald’s, etc. This space is not very cluttered yet, thus easy to gain the user's attention. Kamasutra Condom reached out to millions of relevant audiences through a highly innovative and strategic 2-phase campaign to increase the brand visibility & popularize its creative content through the platform before launching the first-ever NFTs in the sexual wellness category. Bobble AI’s conversation media platform understood a user’s real-time intent with sophisticated AI-based tools, analyzing the words that he/she typed while chatting with each other on their smartphone. We picked terms relevant to the category like love, sex, protection, etc., and mapped them to the KamaSutra branded content. Every time a user typed these words, they were suggested the brand content. For example, when a user types ‘sex’ in their chat message, they could discover and share the below stickers.
Solution
Based on our TG's lifestyle and behavioral patterns, we realized we could leverage chat platforms for running the campaign, the likes of WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. We wanted to be there where the conversations were. Hence we partnered with Bobble AI which created conversational content for KamaSutra, through the most original media formats: visual stickers. These stickers were discoverable and shareable in daily conversations. Next, we selected the content language that users could relate to very easily and share with each other. In Phase 1, we launched a conversation media campaign where 9 Kamasutra Condom branded stickers and “Poptexts” was created. These stickers denoted various flavors of the brand surrounding their “Flavors of Love” mantra and could be used by consumers in the conversational space on leading chat platforms. We picked texts used in high volumes as well as took cues from the brand’s tonality for the creative language. These ensured that the users could see the content as an organic extension of the ideas and thoughts they wished to express and share with each other. We picked up the best-performing stickers and converted them into NFTs that people could buy online.
Results
The campaign ran in 2 phases. In the 1st phase, we did a conversation media marketing activity where Kamasutra Condom content was made available to chat platform users. In just 3 weeks, the campaign reached more than 879,000 users, generating around 6.2 million brand impressions and 82,000 original content shares. The engagement rate for the KamaSutra brand content was 2% as compared to about 1% for an average conversation media campaign, which indicates the relevance and popularity of our creative language, summed up with the brand's core messaging with which our TG connected well. In the second phase, we converted the content that went most viral in the 1st phase into limited edition NFTs and minted it on the Kamasutra NFT storefront. The campaign went viral with earned coverage in 34 publications, the likes of ET Brand Equity, Yourstory, and Social Samosa, and also trended on Twitter for more than 5 hours. These drove more than 15000 visitors to the storefront in just 2 weeks of the campaign. We saw 67% Growth in Q1 Sales & Market Share Gain of 170bps. We got to know 3 NFTs already sold in the first week of launching them which opened our doors for the brand in Metaverse. Reaching our destiny was quite tricky as we were driving conversations without using the medium of Google & Facebook. PR links:- https://yourstory.com/the-decrypting-story/sexual-wellness-brand-kamasutra-launches-nfts-sale-digital-collectibles-bobble-ai/amp https://bestmediainfo.com/2022/06/kamasutra-joins-forces-with-bobble-ai-to-launch-nfts-in-sexual-wellness-category https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/marketing/kamasutra-launches-nfts-in-sexual-wellness-category/92079859 https://www.adgully.com/madison-media-bobble-ai-supports-kamasutra-s-sexual-wellness-initiative-118810.html