Radio Mirchi's social media innovation makes FB into an Audio book

Sud, who has been entertaining listeners on Radio Mirchi with his hilarious jokes from his book "hansi ke phuwaare' and his unique style of talking, came live on Facebook and entertained people in a unique digital marketing initiative launched by Radio Mirchi on 13th Dec. This six hour live session on Facebook was unique because rather than giving just a regular "written status updates', Sud was responding to his fans and their questions through "audio updates' in his characteristic style of talking. This was probably the first time that any brand attempted to take a radio character and adapted it to a social media platform like Facebook.

People responded with great enthusiasm to this initiative. Each update by Sud was consumed by over 20,000 people. Fans were asking him personal questions about his married life (with Monali, who he sometimes mentions on-radio before reading his jokes). Some were asking funny questions like - why did chicken cross the road (Sud answered "because the vegetarians were on this side"). Some questions stumped even Sud, as a listener asked "which came first chicken or the egg', to which the listener himself replied, "depends on what you ordered first'. At one point Ajay Devghan was in the studio while Sud was live, but then Sud's pen wasn't working and he could not take back an autograph for his wife Monali.

Says Rahul Balyan, head of Digital Initiatives at Radio Mirchi ' "While we always knew that Sud has a strong appeal across all cross-section of our listeners, but we realized the intensity of that affection for the first time through this activity."

People shared their own jokes with Sud, and one lucky fan even had his joke selected to be read out by Sud as an audio update. All the posts are still live on Radio mirchi fan page on facebook www.facebook.com/mirchi983fm. Sud even composed and sang a farewell song on facebook for his fans. As the majority of posts indicated, everyone was having a lot of fun.

Radio Mirchi adapted Sud to Facebook by creating the audio updates, which is the key to sud's personality. Even the writing style was crafted to reflect the personality of Sud, and soon the fans of Sud were starting to imitate his expressions, and his style of writing.

Continues Rahul' "We were actually overwhelmed by the positive responses to Sud. There were even requests for copies of "Hansi ke phuwaare', the book of jokes that Sud reads from, which does not exist except on-air on Radio Mirchi and on our website www.radiomirchi.com.' On the issue of using social media for marketing, Rahul said, "On Facebook, consumers can be lavish with their praise, but can also be very vocal with their discontent. To get such a positive response to our facebook initiative is a great testimony to the strength of our Brand. Actually, one of the challenges that we have is to give a platform to our passionate fan base to express themselves, and such activities help us with this crucial interaction.'