MUMBAI: Sunday, January 26, at a time when millions of Indians were glued to their TV sets for one the most awaited Bollywood Award Ceremonies, the social media world was going abuzz with an award ceremony of its own.

Capturing the hearts of youthful, vibrant and super active followers and influencers in the Twitter world, American Tourister was hosting an award ceremony like never before. With every matching award in real time on television there was a category or an award being announced in the social media world with the hash tag #BAGtheAwards and @AMtouristerIN

Reaching out directly to its consumers, the American Tourister handle created one of the biggest mass engagements in real – time. A burst of contests that matched the exact pattern as the awards, winner announcements, timely and innovative creatives with its products made the social experience lively and engaging. What followed was beyond expectations:-

•Within the first 30 minutes of both the awards going live, influencers began tweeting a fun contest on twitter #BAGtheAwards

•Contests that asked users to nominate their friends for Best Actor, Best Singer, Best
Director, Life Time Achievement award amongst others went viral in a matter of minutes

•Within the first 60 minutes, we #BAGtheAwards was trending at #1

•American Tourister made it to Trendsmap India in no time

•In less than 4 hours we were ranked as the 6th most trending topic across India

•Our innovative movie posters combined with movie trivia got a phenomenal response

•We had our own Mr. Bagchhan, towering over others on stage in real time

•Icing on the cake: Consumers started trending #BAGtheAwards along with Bollywood actors and the awards, creating a seamless synergy of interests

•Direct one-on-one tweets with the audiences won more than just a round of applause

•#CreativitykaBaap, #Hatsoff, #ClassicallyWild were just some of our recognitions

•In 4 hours, American Tourister acquired

•240 Followers, 2.1 mentions per minute, for the brand

•More than 3000+ Brand Mentions

•Was viewed by 7.5 Lakh unique users

•8.5 Million Timeline impressions delivered in Twitter nd more….
         

Celebrating the success, Anushree Tainwala, Director Marketing, Samsonite South Asia Pvt Ltd said: "#Bagtheawards campaign is one of the best examples of smart and effective integration of a Brand with an event. It ensured we reached out to our core audience. It was heartening to see the participation in the activity with so much enthusiasm. The big learning for us was, creativity, coupled with intelligent use of Social Networks can be an effective substitute for huge media spends and sponsorships"

Driving the creativity, Ankit Mishra, Chief- Brand Strategy, Eccentric Engine said "An activity like #Bagtheawards shows our intent, of establishing American Tourister as one of the smartest Brands on Digital in India. Our strategy is to leverage the power of Real Time Marketing. This kind of creativity will help us cut through the clutter and redefine the Vanity Metrics currently being used to assess the impact of a Social media activity"

In 2014, American Tourister aims to direct a large amount of its brand building efforts in the social media space. The campaigns will not only reach out to its young, youthful set of customers but also aim to set benchmarks for innovation and real time social media activities.