Airtel's 'Twitter on SMS' offering urges users to share from anywhere

Airtel has recently partnered with Twitter in a deal that enables Airtel users to send and receive tweets via SMS. To launch this service, Airtel has rolled out a new campaign, that has been conceived by Rediffusion Y&R. The campaign portrays how users can update their Twitter status from anywhere and at anytime, without enabling GPRS on the handsets.

Speaking to Campaign India, Abhinav Pratiman, creative director, Rediffusion Y&R said, "Our task, as the agency, was to announce that Twitter is now available on Airtel through push SMS.  It’s a push SMS service unlike Facebook on Aircel, which is GPRS dependent. The entire concept cuts across, as it is not handset dependent and can be availed by absolutely any non-GPRS phone."

The campaign consists of three 30 second TVCs. Watch them below:

Airtel - Twitter 'Sky Diver'


Airtel - Twitter 'Hitch-hiker'


Airtel - Twitter 'Guitar'

"Since the offering allows you to share your feelings from anywhere, the far-fetched outdoor locations helped in making the point strongly. There were many situations, but we finally zeroed in on a sky diver, a hitch-hiker and a girl playing the guitar, as they not only made the point, but also had the high cinematic value that we wanted," added Upputuru.

Speaking about the consumer insight, Daniel Upputuru, creative director, Rediffusion Y&R said, "As human beings, we have an innate desire to express/share our feelings. It is often observed that whenever we are alone, there is a gush of thoughts and feelings in our mind which we go through, and we feel happy when we share these feelings with someone whom we know. The advantage with using ‘Twitter on Airtel’ is that one can share/tweet the feeling right when it occurs. It doesn’t have the time dependency (as opposed to Tweeting on Internet).

Hence ‘Share from Anywhere’ is the proposition we worked upon towards bringing alive this campaign".

The TVCs have been shot outdoors, where the protagonists are shown to be completely alone, with their thoughts. Says Pratiman, "The films were directed by Shashanka Chaturvedi (of Good Morning Films) in South Africa, over three days. The whole idea was to give the films a very distinct style, a kind of mood that would be expressive of the inner feelings one is going through. That’s why we kept the feel very soulful and emotive, with some brilliant music that captured this essence." 

 

Credit Details: 
 
Project: Twitter 
Client: Airtel 
National Creative Director:  Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, Minakshi Achan
Creative Director: Abhinav Pratiman, Daniel Upputuru 
Account Management: Abhik Santara, Tariq Afzal 
Strategic planning: Kushagra Bhatnagar
Production house: Good Morning Films 
Director: Shashanka Chaturvedi a.k.a Bob
Media used: TV, Internet 
Media agency: Madison

Music: Dhruv Ghanekar