


	IFRA XMA Cross Media Awards 2008 projects





	Company: Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd
	Project name: MiD DAY Bollywood Lunch Contest

	Topical category of the project

	C: Cross media communities for special interest groups (e.g. travel, young audience, gardening), that are a platform for new advertiser target groups

	General information about the publication

	From a family-owned, one-paper company, MiD DAY has grown into a full-fledged, multiple-media conglomerate listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. It is one of the few Indian media groups to go public. MiD DAY enjoyes a special place in the hearts of Mumbaikars, since its inception 29 years ago. It has recently launched editions in Delhi, Bangalore & Pune as well. Besides being a strong Mumbai paper, MiD DAY has moulded itself to become the afternoon newspaper of choice for the young, urban, mobile, professional of India (YUMPI) during his / her typically busy day. It has a host of addictive and fun sections like What’s On, Hit List, Crosswords, Horoscope and Fun@ Work ensure the newspaper remains a welcome diversion for young professionals on the move or even a quick pick – me – up to perk up their day. Big Break, talks to the YUMPI about the latest in careers highlighting job opportunities to offering career advice. Hot Property published each Friday, helps the YUMPI plan his house hunting weekend with features on the best properties in and around town as well as information on interiors, exhibitions and more. Zing! is the latest addition to MiD DAY’s very successful efforts to connect with the YUMPI is his best guide to Style @ Work. This section features every Thursday along with the MiD DAY. Also the newly re-launched website www.mid-day.com intends to be a platform where readers can get a view of their world, find information that is relevant to them, be entertained, and also interact with other YUMPI’s as they surf. MiD DAY’s unique properties ‘Bollywood Lunch Contest’ and ‘Movie with the Stars’ are growing in popularity by the day. Through these contests, the winner gets a lunch date with a Bollywood star at their office or gets to watch a movie with the stars of the film at a city theatre. Thanks to the winner, the entire office also lunches with the stars or joins them at the cinema. Through these events, over the last few months, stars such as Rakhi Sawant, the Chak De Girls, John Abraham, Ajay Devgan, Ayesha Takia and Aamir Khan have joined office folk on an ordinary working day, making their day quite extraordinary. These contests are ongoing ones, and offer opportunities for much fun at work; After all, as MiD DAY believes – why must one wait for weekends to have fun, when you can instead make work fun!

	Project description

	MiD DAY India’s No. 1 Afternooner has been connecting and Engaging with the Young Urban mobile professionals across India (YUMPIs ) since the last 29 years. Since the last year MiD DAY had intensified its mission of engaging with the YUMPIs through its positioning of Make Work Fun. The key goal of this event was to create the desired MiD DAY Brand Experience for corporates and generate huge, high-impact buzz for brand MiD DAY.

	The basic idea of the project

	Corporate professionals today not only keep long hours at work, but also have to endure high stress levels at work. Thus they are constantly on the lookout for a much-needed break during work hours. Not only has MiD DAY always been the stress-reliever, but also a hugely welcome break for corporates in the middle of their stressful workday, thanks to its engaging content mix of local / latest news, Fun Guide and Bollywood listings among other offerings. Perhaps what was missing was the MiD DAY live brand experience of Making Work Fun for it’s target audience. Also a ground activation plan of Making Work Fun for corporates was needed, which would also create a high impact buzz for the brand. In order to take its brand positioning forward, MiD DAY launched an engaging and innovative property called MiD DAY Bollywood Lunch contest . Bollywood is one of the two hard-core religions in India, the other being cricket. Thus taking Bollywood into offices during lunch hours across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore through this never-done-before property, created a rage amongst corporates and the Bollywood industry. Under this property, MiD DAY tied up with a production house every month for a certain movie. A simple contest was promoted through MiD DAY wherein readers had to answer a simple question linked to the movie via SMS. The winner of that contest would actually have the Bollywood star/s of that movie visit his/ her office and have lunch with the entire office. The response was overwhelming. Not only was it a huge succes, but the sheer frenzy that followed the visit of a Bollywood star to any office was beyond description. And it stayed true to MiD DAY’s positioning of Make Work Fun. The producers/distributors of the films are the sponsors of the event. This Contest helps us in retaining existing custormers and also attracting new ones.

	Used media channels


	Newspaper		TV

	Event(s)		Supplement/Magazine

	Online		Radio

Other:

On ground activities;

The implementation

The involved departments were sales & marketing.
The Bollywood Lunch Contest started in August ’07 and since then we have been running this contest almost one every month.
The different media channels are used in promoting the contest. The contest appears on radio and print. The answer to the contest is given via sms. The event happens at the winner;s office.
Post event coverage happens in newspapers, magazines and TV.

Image(s)

Boman Irani Full page Ad.jpg (190 KB)

Chak De.bmp (1372 KB)

Chakde coverage in Fun@ Work.jpg (1175 KB)

Coverage in Fun@Work.jpg (374 KB)

Coverage in Fun@Work1.jpg (325 KB)

John Impact Ad.jpg (1495 KB)

Project results

This property delivered the MiD DAY brand experience bang-on and created the desired brand buzz.
So much so that today Bollywood producers request MiD DAY to partner them with this property. This property was initially created for buzz genearyion purposes only. Todays not only has it become a revenue stream for MiD DAY, but producers/ distributors pay monies to come on board this property.
Further this property has generated very high National PR for brand MiD DAY. Various channels like NDTV 24X7, CNN IBN amongst others have covered this property across the various offices.
Never before had anyone taken Bollywood to corporates in this heart-warmingly unique way as this property has been consistently doing. Morover it also helped create unforgettable ‘fun’ memories for the entire MiD DAY target audience.
Thus overall it was a successful combo of creating the MiD DAY brand experience for corporates, driving revenues for MiD DAY and also promoting the Bollywood industry – in a hugely entertaining and fun format.
So far almost 15 corporate offices have been covered across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
Bollywood biggies like Aamir Khan, John Abraham, Imraan Hashmi, Irfan Khan, Boman Irani, the Chak De girls, Rakhi Sawant and Rajpal Yadav have visited the winners at their offices. And these offices included corporates like Cadbury India, Tata Sky and Madison Communication amonst others.
To keep up the good work, this ongoing property will have Bollywood stars visiting offices across this year too.