Nuggets

Scooting in with a virtual pitch and win

On–demand scooter rental company Vogo has appointed Leo Burnett Orchard as its creative partner. Apart from developing strategic narrative for the brand, the agency will also help Vogo build a brand connect with its potential customers and communicate the brand message of easing the burden of daily commute. What is interesting about the deal is that the entire process, from inquiry to the pitch to the closure of the partnership, happened virtually.

As lockdown lifts and consumers look for a safe and reliable means of transport, personal mobility is expected to be at all-time high amongst daily commuters. Keeping this in mind, Vogo intends to undertake aggressive marketing efforts, including digital and other innovative media options as well as key strategic partnerships to target Indian commuters and offer a compelling value proposition.

Says Anand Ayyadurai, Chief Executive Officer, Vogo, “We believe that this is the inflection point for personal mobility solutions like ours and are building new products to ensure safe, reliable commute for all consumers — be it office commute, leisure or errands.”

Speaking about the association, Dheeraj Sinha, Managing Director - India & Chief Strategy Officer, Leo Burnett South Asia, said, “At Leo Burnett we are always excited about opportunities where we have to build new markets and change behaviour. The Vogo proposition is extremely exciting and very timely.”

The quarantine beard

Men’s grooming product company Beardo is shining the spotlight on beards grown during lockdown in a cool new music video titled Always Beardo. Men were encouraged to share videos and images of their lockdown beards using the catchy, rap based Always Beardo song as the soundtrack. What started as a fun idea snowballed into a massive project, given the 10,000-strong responses received across India. The video features over 50 of India’s coolest beardos whose entries were shortlisted and edited to the final crowdsourced video.

But the brand felt they needed to celebrate all entries received. As a token of appreciation to the staggering response received, Beardo leveraged technology to create over 3,500 edits by way of personalised videos featuring every customer’s image and shared it back to them. “ALWAYS A BEARDO is all about being loud and proud of your beards old and new. If there’s anything that isolation has done, it’s renew and reignite the passion in men, giving them the time they needed to grow the bad-ass beards or style the moustache they’ve always wanted”, said Sujot Malhotra, Chief Business Officer