Mumbai to celebrate 'Good Deeds'

On a daily basis, we meet numerous people who also, just like you perform umpteen number to acts and deeds; some good some bad. Ever wondered to leave behind the bad and celebrate the good deeds that you or anyone else does?! Standard Chartered has an answer to this! The 'brand Standard Chartered' is known to be associated with marathons across various cities. Standard Chartered India is the lead sponsor for the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. And two very important pillars of the marathon are Charity and Celebrating the spirit of the city that it is held in. This time around, it another feather to its humanitarian efforts and bring ‘The Good Deed Marathon’ to the business capital of India – Mumbai.

Adgully caught up with Debal Dutt, Head – Brand, India & South Asia and Shormistha Mukherjee of FlyingCursor, the agency handling the creative and digital mandates for the marathon, to know more about the same.

Speaking about the differentiating element that they aim to get this time around, Dutt said, “In Mumbai Marathon here rests on 4 pillars – and one of them is charity. The Good Deed Marathon is a vehicle to get Mumbaikars feel the joy of being part of a marathon – move the marathon from the 40000 running to the lakhs of Mumbaikars who are part of the city. The Good Deed Marathon would give the people of Mumbai the joy of belonging to a community, the celebration, the feeling of 

Talking about how and why the birth of the theme - 'Good Deed', Mukherjee said, “We all do good deeds, some small, some big. But it never gets talked about collectively. It never becomes a reason for all of us to come together, showcase the good we do or would like to do and then celebrate it. The good deed marathon was created so we could do that. It also tied up with the charity angle of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon”.

Sharing the thought process that went into the creation and development of the theme she said, “Our task was ‘how do we get all of Mumbai to feel the joy of being part of a marathon?’ The joy of belonging to a community, the celebration, the feeling of doing good, of doing charity. How do we take all those highs of the marathon and let everybody experience it? And that’s where the idea of the Good Deed Marathon came from - a marathon that didn’t need shoes or stamina, but a heart. All 

The theme was developed is credited to the teams at Flying Cursor and Standard Chartered. “We worked together on cracking this. But that said, once we had cracked the concept, we started bringing in partners who could help amplify Good Deed Marathon across various platforms. The response from all partners has been amazing. They’ve all heard the concept, come on board and embraced the Good Deed Marathon as their own; which is what has helped us make it bigger and bigger”, she added.

Starting 5th December, the marathon, that is largely led by social media, people will be asked to register and submit their good deeds, on the marathon’s Facebook page or on a mobile app. In the light to amplify The Good Deed Marathon, they have been driving people to that app through posts on Facebook, posts of partner sites, tweets on partner sites, and through their Instagram account. Apart from crowdsourcing pictures and populating it with their own content, which ranges from generic good deeds to topical stuff, they have been populating the account, with the help of 5 influential instagrammers from Mumbai. With the #Instagooddeed acivity, people are encouraged to post pictures of anything that made their day. And the five popular instagrammers judged these pictures for ten days. Along with this, there are campaign films that will be done on youtube to create greater visual engagement as well.

What happens once someone registers? “Well, once they register on the app, the first 2000 people get a Good Deed marathon starter pack which contains a letter and a band. The starter pack is delivered by Mirakle Couriers, who are an award winning courier company that only employ low income deaf adults. We have also shot a film with them”, Mukherjee said.

For their offline bits, they have roped in Radio Mirchi for radio spots, RJ mentions, asking people to tell Mumbai what good deed they want to do. Radio Mirchi will also activate the Good Deed Marathon taxis. These will keep commuters a lift for 5 working days from Andheri station to Seepz. Commuters will get a little refresher pack and a good deed starter pack in the taxi. It will also do a mall activation which will bring alive the experience and rewards of doing good. PVR cinemas will be screening their Coming Soon film and the launch film which asks people they could do a good deed today, what would they do. PVR will also be giving a Good Deed Marathon band to every person who buys a ticket during this 15 day period.

Being a social media led campaign, when asked what was the rationale behind the use offline, radio, videos etc, Dutt said, “We don’t believe social media is only restricted to Facebook, Twitter or a few other platforms. Social media is anywhere where you can socialize with the brand or others like you.
A campaign like this, which asked people to go out and do good, had to talk to people in different ways, in different mediums. Some platforms like twitter would serve as commentary to the Good Deed Marathon, some would serve as though starters, like the films in cinemas, some would actually do good and encourage you to do the same, like the Good Deed Marathon Taxis that will ferry commuters for free, from Andheri Station to Seepz, some visually showcased the journey of the movement, like our Good Deed Marathon instagram account, some would motivate you, like what our digital partners are doing, by showcasing good deeds that have already happened in Mumbai. We looked at each medium differently, and together, they’ll motivate, engage, showcase, involve and in some cases, even lead by example.