The Ministry of Tourism recently appointed Ignitee Digital Solutions to handle the all-India creative duties for the “Incredible India” online account. Atul Hegde, CEO Ignitee Digital Solution divulges the creative initiatives undertaken by his team to ensure foreigners keep streaming into India, in a year that has seen some real challenges to the tourism industry.

What are the creative initiatives Ignitee has undertaken for the Incredible India online Campaign?
First of all, the Incredible India campaign is one of the largest online activities in the country and we are reaching out to 17   countries through it. From the creative perspective, the campaign works on two different levels –the International Visit India 2009 campaign and the domestic Atithi  Deva Bhavah campaign. The International  Visit India 2009 campaign invites foreigners to come to India citing different reasons why a foreigner to visit this beautiful and culturally rich country. It goes beyond the boundaries  of a single  state . location or even theme and has a variety of fresh looks that keeps getting updated every week . For the domestic campaign we have tried to garner participation of Indians to fight the huge problems that tourism in our country is facing today. We have launched a website www.atithi.org with Aamir Khan as the brand ambassador and are addressing the issue of molestation of foreign lady tourists in the country and educating people to stop graffiti scribbling on monuments. The website has a seven point program for Indians on how they can help India curb these evils and is also inviting their suggestions on how to fight the same.

What is the strategy you have adopted?
From an overall marketing perspective, our job is to reach out to foreigners and bring people to India. While we may not be successful in drawing foreigners to India at that given moment, we would be successful if we have influenced them into looking at
India differently and created in them a ~ TUL HEGDE desire to visit the country. From the Indian perspective it is educating Indians about welcoming tourists into the country, taking the concept of Atithi Devo Bhavah forward.

How are you identifying who you need to reach out to? And what is your game plan for reaching out to the same?
The MoT has given us a list of countries we need to reach out to. These include USA, Canada, Latin Amercia, Europe, Middle East, China, Russia, Japan, Singapore and Australia, besides India. For the international campaign we are reaching out to foreigners through social networking sites such as MSN, Yahoo, Rediff and 5ify as well as popular blogs. For foreigners, travel is a very well planned activity and they research considerably about the country before they decide to visit. We want to be present in places where they will be researching and thus have identified contextual genres in these social networking sites such as news and travel. For the domestic segment we are targeting Indian consumers like you and me. This is an extensive campaign which has never been conducted on this scale before in the country.

How effective is an online campaign? How many eyeballs are you targeting?
Every campaign has its place and an important role to play. While the outdoor campaign has a different impact, the internet is a strong medium for one to one communication. Ultimately whether it is creating the emotional impact or recall, or educating the end user, all the messages get integrated as all the messages are saying the same thing. But today the internet is a strong medium and the place where all the content is present and where all purchases are happening. We have invested Rs 20 crore in this campaign and are targeting 300 million eyeballs through this campaign, which will be running for six months. Like I said before we are ensuring that the Incredible India message reaches out, whether they travel or not. That is our aim.

                                                                                        ADITI JAVAKAR KANE