Mobile trumps desktop at GroupM's Grand Diwali Mela

The Grand Diwali Mela organised by GroupM in association with Google, Amazon.in, LINE, Games2Win and Hungama.com was a runaway success, attracting over 55 lakh visitors. The first of its kind initiative by GroupM to take the offline concept of Diwali Mela to an online destination was a hit with users across India.  The ‘Grand Diwali Mela’ saw very high engagement with users, who spent time getting product samples @ Re.1, enjoying movies and videos, playing games and greeting each other via the LINE messenger. The number of visits on the virtual mela as well as time spent surpasses any offline brand activation initiative organised during the festival in India.

The ‘Grand Diwali received an overwhelming response with over 55 lakh visitors,the majority of which came from mobile phones with over 45% women visitors!. On October 24th, Diwali day, the mela received over 4.6 lakh visitors! In all mela visitors spent over 125,000 hours browsing various brand and entertainment stalls in the mela besides which many more hours were spent on partner sites - Amazon.in, Games2win and Hungama.com. Interestingly almost half the visitors discovered the mela through Search and LINE Messenger.

The ‘Grand Diwali Mela’ emerged as the largest online sampling platform for brands. Over 150,000 samples were shipped across India, with 70% samples going to Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. The samples ranged from skincare and household products relevant to both men & women. To celebrate the partnership LINE Messenger came out with a set of special edition stickers for the ‘Grand Diwali Mela’. More than 5 million ‘Grand Diwali Mela’ stickers were exchanged in during this festive season, as visitors wished friends and family via the LINE platform. 

Popular Diwali games like Rummy and the Diwali Chakri kept people engaged and entertained with over 36 lakh game plays. Diwali Chakri which was a special game launched by Games2Win to celebrate Grand Diwali Mela - saw over 1M plays!

On the success of the Grand Diwali Mela, CVL Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia said, “We are excited about the success of the first Grand Diwali Mela. We were able to create a great platform for consumers to come and sample products and interact with brands. It is also heartening to see the reach of the virtual mela was not restricted to the metros but filtered down to smaller towns where the digital penetration is growing exponentially. We also have seen a distinct spike in access via mobile phones, a clear indicator that India is opening up readily to mobile data and communication.”

Speaking Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director of Google India, said “I would like to congratulate GroupM and all the participating partners for the success of the first grand Diwali mela. The fact that majority of the users experienced the mela from their mobile phones goes onto show the growing importance of mobile devices in India. With over 150,000 samples being tested on the platform, the initiative is likely to open up newer ways of engaging buyers online for brands and marketers on the mobile phones. Online brand activation during festivals is a brand new territory and I am confident that we will be able to scale this further next year.”