Quick Heal's first social media campaign 'attacks' virus problems with humour

The term "anti-virus" doesn't have anything to do with humour. But, a recent social media campaign by internet security solutions firm Quick Heal Technologies, in association with its digital agency CogMat, hopes to change the notion by getting the humour quotient into the term 'anti-virus'. Titled '101 Uses of Gadgets without Quick Heal', the company’s first-ever social media campaign is slated to run for a period of five weeks and create awareness that without anti-virus all gadgets, devices and Smartphone’s are ‘useless’! And the brand's Facebook page has already got over 40,000 fans since launch and is trending now across social media networks.

The campaign has been getting a good response for the memes, infographs and virus of the week updates as part of the communication strategy for 101 uses of gadgets. The first week's hashtag, #ADayWithoutInternet, garnered more than 6 million impressions over a three-day period, with over 5,200 tweets received. #ADayWithoutInternet trended at No. 1 in India and at No. 4 globally. The trending continued for over 24 hours, in many places.

The core of the campaign is a series of 30-second YouTube videos that bring home the message through infusion of humour and unpredictability. It is supported by a dedicated Facebook page, Twitter handle and a special Microsite that contains contests, offers and more. The crucial videos that form the basis of the campaign are broadcast on Quick Heal's official YouTube channel.

Through this campaign, Quick Heal looks to reinforce the idea that IT security is not optional, but a necessity in today's connected age. Over the course of the campaign, Quick Heal plans to give audiences 101 ways (hilarious or otherwise) to put their ‘useless’ gadgets to good use. The uses will be showcased through videos, memes, infographics, user-generated content via images/videos, contests and blog posts. The focus of this campaign is to build awareness across gadget users that security solutions are a must to protect the device as well as the data inside the device. This campaign is targeted to individual users across age group 10 years to 45 years, as smart phone devices and high end devices usage penetration is high across this age group.

“These days without an effective security solution on your gadgets, one is vulnerable to potential dangers like Phishing, Identity theft, Device theft; hassles from undesired SMS & Calls, virus & malware attacks. But most importantly smartphones are devices for data management, therefore they may contain sensitive data like credit card numbers, authentication information, personal information, activity logs like calendar, call log book; this needs to be protected. A lot of times, a simple virus attack might result in the device getting hung, slowing down or being rendered useless. But people don’t realize that it could be a virus problem rather they reset the device or buy a new device. We want to generate more awareness about this, so that people can take proactive steps about such attacks. ” Katkar added.

The brand has also been running a picture/video contest on its microsite (www.101usesofgadgets.com), supported by memes for inspiration. The contest has garnered a favourable response, with users uploading their own uses of useless gadgets. Quick Heal has a dedicated Facebook Page where it shares tips for safety of gadgets, the Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/quickhealav. The twitter handle for Quick Heal (https://twitter.com/Quickheal) answers users’ questions about security solutions and also helps them spread awareness about the latest happenings across the cyber world relating to cyber security.

The campaign kicked off with the release of the first video and a supporting hashtag contest on Twitter. This campaign is focused towards the idea that security for your gadgets is a must in today’s age. The core ideas of the campaign are videos which give the same message but adding humour to it. There is a dedicated microsite https://www.101usesofgadgets.com where you can watch these videos. Each week a new video is released. There also is a #tag contest which is happening over twitter and the twitter handle is - https://twitter.com/101useofgadgets (850 Followers). The Facebook page for this campaign is https://www.facebook.com/101usesofgadgets (40K+ Likes) where we are interacting with our Facebook fans on the security aspects for their gadgets. The Facebook page got about 40,000 fans and has been getting a good response for the memes, infographs and virus of the week updates.