In India, there is a certain upsurge in digitization. The way people consume information is changing rapidly. With internet content taking over television viewership, Over the Top (OTT) media or Video on Demand (VoD) apps have clearly become the next big thing. As technology has started to deliver audio and video over the internet, there is a complete new way for operators to generate revenue from VoD, catch-up TV and other interactive applications.

However, the position of big players such as Netflix and Hotstar soon got challenged when emerging players of internet TV such as Voot, SonyLiv, Amazon Prime Video, Vodafone Play, Spuul, JioCinema, Hoichoi and Ditto stepped into the Over-the-Top digital space (OTT).

With the OTT explosion seen in India and the rise in the number of people consuming web-based OTT content, the need of the hour is to create a revolutionizing marketing campaign.

Targeted Media for Mobile App Promotions

Most live-streaming apps have embraced social media, traditional marketing, paper cup advertising and emerging channels to build their audiences. The real trick in winning the target market is to capture the attention of tier III towns and the rural areas via a medium that is targeted to drive viewership among very specific audiences.

Unlike multilingual video on-demand apps that can be promoted using array of mediums, apps that deliver regional content need a marketing medium that is targeted and strikes the right chords of the niche market. Hindi videos constitute over 40% of viewership traffic in India while videos in languages such as Tamil, Telugu and Bengali and Marathi have only 8%, 6%, and 4% viewership respectively. According to a survey, 79% of India prefers mobile video apps in native languages.

Cup Branding Marketing Strategy for Hoichoi

GingerCup used custom creative paper cups to promote Hoichoi, an on-demand video streaming platform for Bengalis all over the world. The app is promoted and marketed by SVF (Shree Venkatesh Films). Hoichoi is home to the largest collection of over 500 Bengali movies, over 800 songs for music lovers, original web-series, short films, documentaries and acquired content.

Eastern India’s largest entertainment and film production company SVF approached the GingerCup team with the aim of promoting their newly launched digital content platform ‘Hoichoi’. Since the platform offered regional content (Bengali), we decided to take Hoichoi branded paper cups into corporate parks, offices and colleges in cities of West Bengal. The aim was to not just enter the capital city (Kolkata), but to hit Tier II and Tier III cities such as Howrah, Durgapur and Asansol. The out-of-the-cup marketing campaign was successful in creating buzz about the immaculate app by urging people to download it by scanning the QR code.

For an OTT mobile app to carry its exuberance into a sustainable future and lure millennials for a longer period of time, paper cup marketing strategies seem to be the trendsetter.

A similar campaign like this was carried out for Hotstar and Voot. Pictures from the campaign can be viewed here.