Those who know the city of Chennai cannot miss the importance of its shopping district, Thyagaraya Nagar. And the most important part of this area is the Soundarapandianar Angadi – or the Pondy Bazaar. This market street that never sleeps, and within it one can find anything available in the commercial market. It is in this area that we from the6.in got a chance to exhibit our marketing abilities.
The Corporation of Chennai and The Hindu collectively approached us for a unique concept of engaging people there for various activities that establish their efforts in the market street which is now a Smart Street as recognised by our Corporation bodies. On a saturday, when the trial for Smart Street was on, we were performing flashmobs & dancing our heart out. A huge crowd gathered around us. People from the bus also started to record the mob. Our Guitarist & Singers started to play the best of the songs. We were now holding the attention of a massive crowd, that too in Pondy Bazaar, Suddenly an idea struck my mind, why not a #MannequinChallenge.
I approached people who gathered around us. Volunteers from schools & colleges agreed for the challenge. It took a little time for me to convince the employees of the shops. It was a decently numbered and everyone agreed. The only challenge was no one should move until the video is complete. Since it is the general public & the traffic was moving we had to re take many a times. The ladies would talk sometimes, the men would adjust their hair. School kids would complain that someone changed the position. It took almost 45 minutes for us to take a video with no one moving. MYTH #3 GUERRILLA MARKETING IS EXPENSIVE 25 The people of Pondy Bazaar stood as mannequins. More than 65 people were part of a huge chain and stood with different poses as mannequins. The active participation was a boost and encouragement to us, because we could bring the novelty of an international concept on a local level.
#MannequinChallenge was a worldwide popular phenomenon, gaining more traction with every passing day. Famous celebrities and even sports people were participating in this challenge and making it popular. Every video tagged under this hashtag had become part of a viral collection of videos.. The entire exercise did not cost us anything, and was the most cost effective outlier marketing idea. We only had our brains put to work, and with that we decided to try something unique that will get our name famous across platforms, and also send a message. The guerrilla marketing was effective, and people noticed the unique ideas we had, associating it with our innovative marketing team.
On success of the mannequin challenge in Pondy Bazaar, we had an article written about it. For a zero cost venture with just brainstorming, we got a great amount of reach and brand recognition. The mannequin challenge was an example of innovative methods reaching greater heights simply with proper planning and execution with zero monetary investments. After this, the6.in became famous all over social media to the extent where other people attempted the same mannequin challenge we had popularized and tagged us in particular, making our name synonymous with the challenge. It is an appreciable venture that got the6.in a lot of recognition from Government bodies too, and the various teams involved were praised for their innovative approach to marketing.
This attempt is a milestone one for us and it marked the effectiveness of creativity and out of the box thinking in marketing avenues.
