Here's how Koo plans to give common people in India a voice - in their language
Koo, an India-born micro-blogging site (and also India’s local language answer to Twitter) has launched its maiden brand campaign. The Drum finds out what makes Koo so confident within 18 months of its launch.
Koo launches its maiden brand campaign
Koo, the new-age Indian multi-language micro-blogging platform, has launched its first brand campaign after its launch 18 months ago. The platform, with aspirations according to industry observers of becoming what Twitter has become to the English-speaking world, has collaborated with Ogilvy India to launch its creative platform - ‘Koo Kiya Kya’ (translated as ‘have you Koo-ed’). The campaign reflects users’ desire to leverage social media for self-expression and to connect and engage with their communities in a language of their choice.
“As a brand, we are about common people and giving them a voice – in their language,” says Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of Koo.
Why the big campaign now
Koo was founded in March 2020 as a multilingual micro-blogging platform and is available in multiple Indian languages, to help people from different regions in India to express themselves in their mother tongue. The platform has big ambitions to establish itself as an inclusive platform and a platform for self-expression, by giving voice to a large part of the country in language-based social media.
About the timing of the campaign, Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of Koo shares in an exclusive chat with The Drum, “the first year after the launch, was spent in getting the product right, building the technical capabilities, etc., and the next phase is about building the brand trust now.”
To build the trust for a country the size of India, we decided to take the mass-media route, he adds.
The campaign, conceptualized by Ogilvy India, has been launched to catch the excitement around the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 since “cricket is a great way to build eyeballs”, says Bidawatka.
Campaign:
Cafe film
Cricket film
Valentine film
Wedding film
How - and why - Koo makes sense in a world that knows Twitter better
It does make immense sense and our product is relevant to a large part that does not speak English, according to Bidawatka who says, “80% of the world does not use English and closer home, almost a billion people in India do not speak English.”
A large part of India hasn’t been given an online public platform to express their thoughts in people’s preferred language, he adds explaining why Koo’s time has come.
Koo, which has been created around content sharing in non-English languages seems to be riding on the prevalent ‘pride in buying Indian’ wave of the country. Bidawatka admits to being excited about taking its “core proposition of language-based thought sharing with India at large”. The campaign is thus designed around the need to express in the mother tongue.
The campaign with the local touch
The campaign takes the non-celebrity route, with a cast of mostly unknown actors, and deploys humor in normal daily routine situations, with catchy idioms that can be ‘Kooed’. The brief, according to Sukesh Nayak, chief creative officer, Ogilvy India was very clear - “Make India, the one that speaks in local languages, know that there is a platform made just for them. A platform where they can connect and express their thoughts freely with people who speak their language.” The campaign comprises a series of short-format witty and quirky 20-second films around the tagline #KooKiyaKya.
Bidawatka explains it thus, “this is a part of the brand’s journey from being a noun to becoming a verb,” the way it has happened with brands like Uber and Google.