Star Cement goes big in the outdoors for Durga Puja

Star Cement, the prominent name in the building manufacturing product sector, for this festive season recently rolled out a comprehensive 360 degree campaign to celebrate the spirit of Durga Puja. OOH played a vital role, with presence across West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and other North Eastern States. In addition to outdoors, it has is also complemented other media formats like TV, Radio, Print & Digital.

According to the brand, the idea was conceived with the simple objective of increasing the TOMA (top of the mind awareness) of the brand and make Star Cement a household name. The outdoor campaign communicates the message in different languages like Bengali and Hindi. Creating the world's largest Durga Idol is an idea conceptualised by Star Cement to meet the objective in an innovative way. They wanted to do something that would bring Kolkata and West Bengal in the global spotlight.

The different outdoor formats used for this particular campaign include hoardings, traffic kiosks, pole kiosks, landmark GSBs, metro station signage, foot over bridges, gantries and temporary boards and posters at important road crossings.

Speaking on the USP of the campaign and why they selected Deshapriya Park for this revelation, Sanjay Gupta CEO Star Ferro and Cement Ltd. said, "The USP of the campaign is the'World's largest Durga Idol' and we have selected Deshapriya Park for the following reasons. First, it has a big space for hosting such a huge idol and hence it has the capacity to accommodate the huge inflow of crowd expected without compromising on the safety. Second, the central location of the place and the close proximity to the various modes of transport with nearby bus stands, metro station, regular plying of autos and taxis makes commutation easy. Third, it is a very renowned Puja with a rich and strong cultural heritage and experience of organising Durga Puja for the past 77 years.”

The campaign started with a teaser from mid of July'15, which will continue till end of Oct'15 for which multiple outdoor vendors helped the brand in making it a success. 

Further on why outdoor has been considered such an integral part of the brand campaign, Gupta adds, "Outdoor is an integral part of our media mix for any campaigns that we do since, OOH give us the reach at smaller towns and semi urban locations where other mediums have a low penetration. Also, outdoors act as a reminder medium for the campaign and complements television and print, helping to generate buzz and recall. This entire campaign has been an innovation. We have used the opportunity of Durga Puja to create a campaign which has been quite effective and has a high recall. During the main days of the Puja, a huge footfall is expected which provides immense branding opportunity.There are some innovations in the digital medium that we are in the verge of launching and we are sure this would be the first time any brand would be coming up with something like this. Specific to outdoors, we are making an LED, motor and cut-out based hoarding which will be different and will catch the attention of general public, in line with the innovative campaign that we are doing. Though temporary boards are not an innovation in the literal sense, but we consider them as an innovation since they have been a multiplier and have added to the buzz.”

According to Star Cement, the brand faced many challenges regarding implementing the idea, where the first challenge was to find an artist who could pull off such a massive structure. There are many big permanent idols around the world but to create an idol of fibre glass makes it more challenging. They are confident that in the able hands of Mintu Paul (artist), they will be able to present a craft of marvel.

On a concluding note, Gupta mentions, "The campaign has surely increased the TOMA (top of the mind awareness) for our brand and today Star Cement has become a household name. The event is the world's biggest Durga idol but Star Cement's name has been associated with it subtly but strongly. People today recognise our brand and the recall is very high. There is a contest running whereby people have to guess the height of the idol and there have been lacs of participation which shows the interest level among them. Hence with the increase in TOMA, we believe that there will be an increased consideration for our brand.”