Play it by ear

Sony used webisodes to target on-the-go music listeners

While music lovers religiously update playlists on their devices and stay abreast with the kind of music their favourite artists are making, they are relatively casual about how they listen to that music. Sony India, a lead player in headphones, came to its agency with this business challenge.

Says Sanjeev Jasani, senior vice-president, OgilvyOne, "We understood early on that no product advertising could achieve our client's objectives. Sony wanted to target music lovers who were listening to music on-the-go. Also, the company observed how closely young music lovers follow their music idols. "The power of recommendation commanded by celebrities can be leveraged only when the brand message is not all about pushing products," adds Jasani.

Sony found the answer for its business challenge in Project Resound, an exclusive online property. The company decided to take music lovers through the entire process of composing music. Singing sensations Kailash Kher and Shreya Ghoshal were roped in to collaborate for the first time. Both the celebrities were encouraged to push their ideas on subjects like Indian languages and music genres. Shot over 45 days , the project was converted into nine webisodes. The product placement was subtle - while Sony headphones were used by both Ghoshal and Kher, there was limited focus on the brand logo.

Name of the brand: Sony

Agency: OgilvyOne
Digital case: Project Resound

Through the journey, the artists showed how much effort goes into making every note perfect. The journey culminated into an online concert where the new song Naina Chaar was released. As part of the media plan, both the artists used their Twitter handles to talk about the progress of the project. The microsite received more than 4.6 lakh visits during the campaign period. The Naina Chaar song got 2.85 lakh downloads and received more than 3 lakh views on YouTube. A research by Nielsen noted a significant rise in Sony's brand recall. While there was a marginal increase in sales, Sony saw record increase in enquiries across multi-brand outlets.