Dil, dosti, campaigns: How brands are making the most of Friendship Day

Occasion-based marketing is increasingly becoming a strong tool in brands’ marketing arsenal. This year, Friendship Day is witnessing some heartwarming campaigns celebrating enduring and unconventional relationships. Also seen is brands’ increasing use of digital in creating a greater connect and growing reach. 

HDFC Bank #YaariNotUdhaari

Conceptualised and executed by Kinnect.

Cabury Purple Hearts

The #HeartTheHate campaign is in line with the company’s objective to continue fostering love for Cadbury Dairy Milk by strengthening its generosity narrative.

The integrated multi-media marketing campaign, which will include influencers engagements and on-ground activations and is being executed with the help of Wavemaker India.

Agency: Ogilvy, Mumbai

Account Management: Prakash Nair, Neha Shah, Navika Jain, Princia Dsouza, Deeksha Chaturvedi, Manseerat Sethi,

Planning: Ganapathy Balagopalan, Bhakti Malik, Prasidh Dalvi

Creative: Sukesh Nayak, Neville Shah, Hemant Sharma, Sagar Jadhav, Mahima Kukreja, Rahul Jagtap, Shibumi Desai

Production House: Caffeine Films

Director: Abhishek Sinha 

Executive Producer: Shahzad Bhagwagar

Director of photography: Anuj Dhavan

Snapchat’s ‘Real Friends’ campaign 

On the occasion of the United Nations’ International Day of Friendship on July 30, Snapchat announced the launch of the ‘Real Friends’ campaign – its first ever global integrated marketing campaign. The campaign highlights the spirit of the brand and the product, where true friendship is and always has been at the core. 

As a part of the campaign, Snapchat connected with various friend-duos from 13 countries, each with a unique tale of their friendship journey. The videos capture their honest, intimate idiosyncrasies and unfiltered but relatable dynamics of these diverse sets of friends including a pair who have been lifelong friends, another a long-distance couple, and even one mother-daughter duo. For the first time ever, the friend-duos also shared a collection of their personals Snaps – 1:1 picture and video messages sent to each other on Snapchat. 

In India, Snapchat connected with duos, Zara & Prakriti, who have together overcome anxiety, Ronit & Tanisha, who found a judgement-free space with Snapchat to share zany, quirky and intimate moments with each other, and Ruchi & Sanabh, childhood pals, now in their late 20s and use Snapchat to stay connected despite their overwhelming schedules. 

You can watch their Snapchat Friendship journeys here:
Ruchi & Sanabh, Zara & Prakriti, Ronit & Tanisha 

IDBI Federal Life Insurance – #KeepMovingTogether 

Extending its #KeepMoving philosophy, this Friendship Day IDBI Federal Life Insurance encourages people to celebrate the joy and warmth of companionship with their close friends who have rejoiced in their happiness and supported them during their lows. The campaign’s core thought is that over the years, gadgets have overpowered human emotions. This Friendship Day, the #KeepMovingTogether film communicates the message that it is important to physically connect with our loved ones and nurture these friendships. 

The film shows a young boy in the building lift with an elderly gentleman who happens to notice the trend of staying in touch through online chats. The elderly gentleman, who is somewhat surprised, explains that friendship thrives when friends meet up in person, crack jokes and play pranks. It is this personal touch that makes a real difference in nurturing friendship. The video emphasises that the bonding that can happen through physical presence is not possible through mere digital conversation. 

Honor celebrates #FriendshipZaraHatke 

Leading smartphone e-brand Honor’s campaign, ‘Friendship Zara Hatke’ aims at embracing the friendships that go beyond the realm of convention and do not fit into the generic understanding of a friendship. The campaign is running on social media. Through this campaign, Honor is urging the audience to break the stereotype this Friendship Day and cherish these unconventional friendships that we share and that do not come with a friendship tag – such as a student sharing a laugh with the hostel guard, a granddaughter teaching her granddad how to play games on smartphone or the neighbour’s uncle playing cricket with the young boys. 

Honor will also run a contest for the audience, asking them to share their #FriendshipZaraHatke stories. Participants have to simply share a selfie with their ‘Zara Hatke Friend’ along with the story that makes it ‘Hatke’ (unconventional) in the comment section of the contest post on Facebook or Twitter. Best entries will stand a chance to win gifts from honor. 

McDowell’s musical tribute to friends with ‘Apni Yaari’ 

McDowell’s No.1 Soda, through its music platform, ‘No.1 Yaari Jam’, has been synonymous with bringing alive enthralling stories of Yaari through music. To give the spirit of Friendship Day an extra special boost, McDowell’s No.1 Yaari Jam has partnered with music band Sanam to release an original song – ‘Apni Yaari’. 

The song highlights the real-life yaari among the band members of Sanam – Sanam, Venkat, Samar and Keshav – and how they connect with their fans. The band members of Sanam were friends before forming a band in the year 2010. In the 9 years that they have performed together, they have become one of the country’s most popular bands with over 6 million followers on YouTube and some amazing hits to their credit. 

‘Apni Yaari’ has been composed by Clinton Cerejo and Sanam and written by acclaimed lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya. The song is youthful, lively, full of emotions and embraces the essence of modern-day friendships. The song has been created by Qyuki Media and the music video has been produced by The Glitch team. 

SBI Life’s Twitter conversation with its competitors wins hearts 

Social media is abuzz with conversations about SBI Life’s Friendship Day message on Twitter, which struck the right cord with peers in the insurance sector in India. 

Acknowledging the industry’s common dream of a well-protected and insured India, SBI Life sent friendship day messages on Twitter in a unique and fascinating style to life insurers across the country, triggering a chain of positive conversations from its peers in the insurance space and other social media users. The conversations are vital to increase awareness about the importance of life insurance and will benefit the entire insurance industry. 

Speaking on the campaign, Ravindra Sharma, Chief of Brand and Corporate Communication, SBI Life Insurance, said, “As responsible life insurers, we strive to create values that resonate with the customers and build on it to establish a life-long relationship. Whilst there will always be a competitive narrative for market share and business overall, at the core of it is a common dream of every insurer which is to protect and insure lives. It is this dream that connects us all life insurers. For us at SBI Life, friendship day laid down a perfect foundation to be able to rejoice this dream for a moment together with other life insurers. With this gesture, we hope to spark more positive conversations and stand united for a greater good.” 

Star Movies creates a bouquet of unusual but true friendships 

Star Movies celebrates this Friendship Day with a bouquet of extraordinary friendship tales all day, to give a glimpse of various emotions and languages every BFF has. The channel shall showcase an array of unusual friendships through some of the biggest blockbuster movies like ‘The Toy Story 3’, ‘Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy’, ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’ and ‘Marvel’s Avengers Age of Ultron’. 

This Friendship Day tune into Star Movies with a friend 11 am onwards to celebrate the day with that one person you love the most.