Hakuhodo Percept, Allied Media & PK Online partners to market 'LINE' in India

Hakuhodo Percept, Allied Media & PK Online joined hands to execute an innovative brand marketing campaign for ‘LINE’ - a free calling and messaging app . ‘LINE’ is a popular global messenger application launched by LINE Corporation (HQ; Shibuya-ward Tokyo, CEO; Akira Morikawa) that has for the first time entered the Indian market and has 180mn user. The uniquely conceptualised campaign that went on air on September 5,2013 has been designed to promote Line’s free phone calls feature.

While the brand marketing campaign was launched through a series of TV commercials, targetted at the Indian youth, the first TV campaign in India was launched on June 30, 2013. The campaign focused on two very interesting advertisements highlighting the ‘group voice chat’ and ‘sticker’ features. The primary thought behind the ads was to target the Indian youth, by associating the key app features to their day-to-day activities. The film use humour to connect with the youth who are the target audience for the brand. A film titled ‘Proposal’ is set in a restaurant where a young couple is dining. After having their drinks, the young man with great hesitation asks, “Will you..” Anticipating that he is going to propose to her, she interrupts him gleefully, asks him to hold on and heads into a corner to call up her friend (Tina). She tells her friend that he is proposing and asks her opinion on what to do. They continue chatting with the leading lady contemplating her options. Time flies - from evening to night to dawn and then morning while the young man waits for her. Finally, when she has made up her mind, she returns to the table and asks him what he was saying. Exhausted with the wait, he reveals that he wanted her to pay the bill, as he had forgotten his wallet. Surprised and relieved, she asks Tina if she would like to join them for breakfast. The film ends with the voice over signing off, “Free call app - Line.” 

Line is a mobile messenger service capable of various types of communication with free call, voice chat and sticker chat. Available on both smartphones and PCs across multiple carriers and operating systems including iOS, Android, Nokia Asha, Windows phone, BlackBerry, Windows and Mac. LINE messenger app comes packed with new features and functionality for a truly connected experience. One of the main reasons why LINE is growing so rapidly compared to other major messenger apps is its stickers function. It is extremely well-received by users as they can send large-sized character pictures with the tap of a finger, thereby providing a simple, casual and exciting way to express their emotions. The sticker characters, include LINE's original characters and a variety of famous characters such as Disney, Hello Kitty and Ironman, are especially loved among the Asian youth, sparking LINE’s growth in many regions

Commenting Sabuj Sengupta, Executive Creative Director, Hakuhodo Percept said, “Line free call is one of the most useful services an app can offer. Our biggest challenge was to make sure the message of free calls comes across clearly.”

On the objective of the campaign, he said, “The objective was to establish Line as the most ideal app for long conversations amongst youth.”

Elaborated P.M. Balakrishna – COO, Allied Media, “Our ability to mount an integrated media strategy to optimize the communication and messaging with the core youth audience from both ROI and impact perspective is the primary reason, Line chose us as their partners. We are very excited to see the resonance the campaign has generated with the youth and the results have been fantastic with Line becoming one of the most popular Applications to be downloaded in a short span of the launch.

Said Daman Soni – Co-Founder & Head – Advertising Business, PK Online, “For Line we leveraged our advanced ad network  platform to target youth on the mobile platform across India. It was imperative that we drove a significant momentum in downloads within the TG so that the app gained acceptability in the audience and drive the Line app to the top of the leader boards.”

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