Airtel had been spending huge amounts of money for employees/sales teams recognition thru on and off reward schemes mostly around travel and holidays.
Observation: While the rewards create a hype and excitement it was shortlived. It failed to achieve long term affinity and brand stickiness
Brief to EuroRSCG (Agency):
- To devise a long term, umbrella branded initiative for employee loyalty and motivation.
- Launch of an elite club, that would keep coming back with various exciting motivational and recognition programs
- Position the club as “The group of achievers within Airtel”
- Simultaneously launch the first 7 month program for the sales team
- Launch of an elite club, that would keep coming back with various exciting motivational and recognition programs
- Position the club as “The group of achievers within Airtel”
- Simultaneously launch the first 7 month program for the sales team
In 2008 EuroRSCG created Achievers' Club
Race2Bali
The same year (2008) EuroRSCG helped Airtel to launch their most ambitious program "Race to Bali" designed for their internal employees to meet their sales targets and as an incentive the winners get to visit one of the most beautiful and lovely place on this planet, and the only Hindu state of Indonesia - BALI.
The same year (2008) EuroRSCG helped Airtel to launch their most ambitious program "Race to Bali" designed for their internal employees to meet their sales targets and as an incentive the winners get to visit one of the most beautiful and lovely place on this planet, and the only Hindu state of Indonesia - BALI.
Achievers' Club Program AV
from the time EuroRSCG was commissioned the job, the entire 4D team - 4 "D" consist of Drive (events & promotions), Digital (web), Data & Direct (CRM) were involved in the business.
What followed was one of EuroRSCG's most challenging program & activity which was remembered for a long long time... (2008 to 2011).
Due to the super success of the CRM program, my team's task was to carry forward and create a better experience for the program participants in these exotic foreign locales. Being the head of Events, I got down to creating the look & feel for the event including on-stie branding, Stage designs, Scouting for entertainment artists from local host city / country, Celebrity Event Emcee. The work did not end there... alien country, alien language, difficult conversion of currency and all this fitting into client's given budgets.
Yes it was challenging, but then that's where the fun is...
Finally the event was all set. Designs approved. Budgets & vendors closed.
This is what we did at Bali.
The Race2Bali Program AV
Over 250 participants made it to Bali as final winners.
Shruti Seth, the popular TV actor and compare was the event host & MC. We had over 5 international acts during the 3 hours awards ceremony. Over 22 + 1 Mega (Best Hub) trophies were awarded that evening.
Post event, I still remember Airtel's chief program head, Mr.Ajit Chakarborthy (who was instrumental in creating this Achievers' Club program) walking up to me and saying - "Sanjeev, this was one of the best shows that I have attended. Well Done! Now let see how you will make the same show better next year..." "Yes Sir, I will do my best... "
By the way, Mr.Ajit co-hosted the Race2Bali show, along with Shurti Seth... and trust me, he sure makes a great MC himself.
But as luck would have it, Mr.Ajit left the organisation in 2009 well before we were planning for the next show in Phuket. Yes Sir. We missed you in Phuket. Sir, here is a recap of the Race2Bali event...
Race2Bali Post Event AV
Dash2Phuket:
The success of Race 2 Bali program set new bench marks for both the Airtel & EuroRSCG Program teams. Both had their task clear - to make the program better than last year.
The program not only helped Bharti Airtel achieve its initial objective of "brand attention" and "employee satisfaction" it also helped them churn out greater numbers in the market. This program helped Airtel achieve better market share and increase in its net revenue.
With this backdrop, the 2010 program was launched for 2 teams... Mobility & Telemedia.
Over 3500+ employees were now enrolled in the program out of which around 500 made it to Phuket. The event was held at LeMeridien Phuket in July 2010.
This is what we did....
Since Phuket is associated with Beaches and Surfing, our event invite was designed in the shape of a Surf board... made in acrylic, packed in a card box.
Over 500 participants made it to Phuket and the Le Meridian hall was packed....
This time the event MC was Roshni Chopra, another popular TV actor and compare.
Multiple international acts were performed during a 4 hours awards ceremony.
And yes many participants who attended the Bali event told us that the Phuket event was better than the previous show but I still feel that Bali event was better due to a lot of factors...
During the show, the President of Mobile Services Mr.Atul Bindal had to head back to India and that had a big impact. Secondly the winners were more keen to head for the local market for more 'late-night excursions" that the post event party never took off. Guess we can blame it to Phuket and the various entertainment options it offers it's visitors..
Cruise 2 Singapore
The 2011 Program brought in different challenges and difficulties.
Unfortunately, the country was hit by numerous scams including the 2G & Commonwealth Games scam...
Coupled with this, the Achievers's Club program had already become a super success with huge amount of monies being spent on the CRM and Events...
So the focus this year was on doing "a great show but with limited budgets".
Unfortunately, Singapore is not a cheap country to do a "limited budget" show....
We realized this immediately after we closed the budget with Airtel finance team and went to Singapore to see if we can fit this and make it into reality.
We were completely off the mark... and that was a big mistake we had done. We closed the budget with client before we did our first event recee.
More over the total audience had increased from 500+ to 1000+ people travelling to Singapore and the budget allocated to us was almost the same as Phuket show (and we later realized that it was much much less, because of currency conversion). Thai Bhatt was around 2.5 times INR while Singapore Dollar was almost 35 times INR...
The team (including me and my Singapore partners) spent more time on costs than on working on actual show-running.
Today when I sit back and think about this show, I realize it was indeed a big risk on my part to have agreed to do this show in such tight budgets, little realizing that we would eventually loose money from our own pocket...
What hit us most was the currency difference. Unlike India or vendors in Bali & Phuket - the Singapore vendors were just not willing to budge from their rates. And that hit us real hard.
But because Airtel was an important client for EuroRSCG, we did not want to give up so easily.
After struggling for over 3 weeks with numerous Singapore vendors and local agencies we landed in Singapore with little expectations. Yet we got a great support from our local team - David Anthony. and I must say, he is one of the most helpful guy in town. Thankyou David.
And yes, finally we did manage to pull off a successful show.
But I know from deep inside my heart... that I could have done a better show than this one... I have done it in the past, and I have the capability of doing better shows....
So here's what we did...
Pre-Event & Program AV
Post Event AV
