Plan-T

Background

In 2010, Hippo baked munchies was successfully launched into the Indian snack market on the back of the slogan 'Hunger is the root of all evil. So, don't go hungry.' The brand became a runaway success. However, its nascent sales & distribution network found it challenging to keep track of stock, identify and re-stock empty shelves across 400,000 stores nationwide.

Across India there are some 12 million small-sized stores and local shops. Moreover, 92% of the snack market is unorganized and inventory tracking is an on-ground exercise undertaken only by sales staff by personally visiting every local store. This was a logistical nightmare for Hippo.

To solve the problem, Hippo turned to its followers on Twitter and asked them to tweet whenever they couldn't find the snack in store.

Idea

Hippo spoke to his fans as friends urging them to help fight hunger by identifying empty shelves and informing him with a tweet whenever they found a store had sold out.

Tweets poured in from more than 50 cities. People tweeted from their cellphones from supermarkets, hypermarkets and local grocery stores. Hippo collected this information, analysed and sent it to the local distributors of respective areas, who eventually restocked the packs. This was much faster and cheaper than any of its giant competitors, who were backed by huge supply chains.

Hippo rewarded the most active tweeters (or hunger-fighters) by sending them a Hippo Hamper along with a personally handwritten note and a Hunger-Fighting Certificate. The Hippo Hamper was one of the most talked-about topics and most desirable items among the followers. This encouraged even more followers to track inventory and tweet about it to Hippo.

Results

Plan-T helped Hippo gauge demand, prioritise and identify new markets. It helped up sales by a staggering 76%.

For consumers, the knowledge that a mere tweet could restock their neighborhood store with their favorite snack was highly fulfilling. Hippo could also measure the rate of investment per tweet.

Plan-T is now a case study taught at leading B-schools such as IIM-L and featured in various books on online marketing around the world.

Even Twitter at TWTRCON San Francisco acknowledged the innovative and effective manner in which Plan-T solved such a technical problem.

Plan-T showcased that social media can be so much more than just a mere medium for communication.

Our Thoughts

This is one of Directory’s favourite ideas of 2011 and one we show again and again in presentations. It measures how far the agency creative has come from the writer or art director who fashioned a great TV ad only a couple of years ago into someone who can understand a business problem and provide a solution through the application of technology.

But it’s not just about clever geekiness. This only worked because a good product and a distinctive brand were created, which made Hippo fans want to tweet when they saw an empty shelf.

Ideas like this reveal how agencies can become once again the creative business partners to their clients they were in Bill Bernbach’s day (see Andrew Cracknell’s piece on p.x-x) because they aren’t interested in creating ads but in creating marketplace success.