Chennai: House of Hiranandani (HOH), a luxury real estate brand recently staged “Photowalk”, a photography contest at its OMR, Chennai property, which spans across 120 acres and houses over 2000 families. This campaign was an effort to connect and encourage Millennials and GenZ photographers to capture the township’s beauty, aiming to provide them a platform to showcase their abilities and creativity by drawing inspiration from a varied mix of objects within the township. – The #PhotowalkatOMR campaign was timed to coincide with the opening of the new #HomesOfInspiration projects Octavius & Verona at OMR, Chennai.
Over 100+ photography enthusiasts visited the township to draw inspiration from the brand’s neo-classical architecture, greenery, landscapes and open spaces and capture it through their lenses. Social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp were used to share the content captured by the photographers. On the platform, the brand received a massive reach of 15,74,000+ impressions and 9,00,000 + views on the videos. Photowalk was a huge success, with over 250 pieces of rich media content, including pictures, reels, and films, displaying concept photography.
Winners of the photowalk campaign received a GoPro Hero 9 camera, a DJI Osmo action camera, and surprise coupons.
Ms. Ramya Sriram, who was awarded the first prize, said “I am grateful to the House of Hiranandani group for allowing us to exhibit our skills by participating in the contest. It helped us connect with the brand and offered us a glimpse into its history and architectural style. I look forward to engaging with the brand for more fruitful experiences.”
The push marketing method, in which content was extensively promoted through traditional advertising media, is on its ways out. Brands are now using a pull strategy which includes the User Generated Content (UGC), in which users are encouraged to narrate their experiences with the product in an engaging way, thus indirectly and positively impacting the minds of potential customers. Real experiences from genuine customers also help in building trust and helps customers make sound buying decisions.
Despite its broad use in other industries, user generated content is currently less popular in the real estate industry. However, its significance is the most in this sector as property buying involves huge capital and is a time consuming process. The time between a customer is introduced to the brand to the final buying decision may range between one month to three months. A user-generated content in real estate not only helps buyers make a uniformed property buying decision, but also develops trust towards the brand and the product.
As a brand that leads in innovation, we’ve been pushing our campaigns with user-generated content. Photowalk is the most recent in a long line of user-generated content campaigns that have not only allowed us to communicate with current and potential customers, but have also helped us strategically establish a positive brand image.
Commenting on the success of the campaign, Mr. Prashin Jhobalia, Vice President, Marketing Strategy at House of Hiranandani, said, “Today, brands are evolving with the changing generational shift and are focused on creating unique and experiential campaigns to communicate with the end consumers. With the rise of user-generated content, we are constantly adapting to the new-age marketing strategies and focusing on millennials as they can offer long-term value to the brand. We, at the House of Hiranandani, are known for our picturesque architectural designs and are synonymous with photography. We are happy to see that the ‘Photowalk’ contest received such a positive and encouraging response.”
Among the past campaigns includes the Christmas tree campaign in which a Christmas tree was created out of plastic bottles crowd-sourced from residents. Kite flying festival, lighting festival are some other examples of user-generated content campaigns that have helped us bridge the gap between us and the potential customers.
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