UCWeb goes quirky with #UCBaba to get rid of admission blues

UCWeb, an Alibaba Mobile Business Group Company and makers of UC Browser, recently concluded their social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter. The 10-day campaign, conceptualised by Cheil India, was to introduce #UCBaba, an interactive initiative which has been designed to offer funny and quirky insights to young students.

UCWeb’s social media campaign #UCBaba was a light hearted engagement initiative by the brand to work with the student community, who during the admission season go through myriad emotions ranging from confusion, excitement and nervousness. #UCBaba, therefore, sought to engage with the students and motivate, inspiring them to follow their passions and minimise their stress during the admission season.

The concept

UCBaba was an effort to merge tradition with the new age. The Baba or a sage is considered to be a holy person who has answers to all the queries. UCWeb reversed the concept with the Baba offering funny and quirky answers to the queries posted by visitors. The character, while being funny, offered single piece of wisdom to everyone – which was to follow the passion and not take stress.

How the campaign worked

The reveal – Part 1 of the campaign when Baba was introduced to the audience (June 18, 19 and 20)
The interaction – Part 2 of the campaign when Baba starts interacting with the Public
The live stage – Part 3 when we conduct a Facebook poll to lock in on the three most popular category of careers and finally on July 7 do a Facebook Live with a Stand-up comedian to conclude the campaign.

The Engagement Metrics generated

UC Baba generated over 17.2 million brand impressions and the campaign engaged with a total 183,980 people during the course of its duration. 21,513 hashtags were generated and the campaign trended on Twitter on day 3 of its launch.

Sharing his thoughts on the campaign, Robert Bu, General Manager – India, UCWeb, said, “UCWeb is India’s first choice as a mobile browser. With over 80 million MAUs in India, we can confidently claim to have an understanding of how India thinks and what it looks for, on the Internet. This campaign was designed to offer relief to students who undergo admission related stress and anxiety at this time of the year, in an engaging creative and fun way. We’re passionate about technology and yet understand local content. In this very unique and special time for students we want them to laugh, and pursue their dreams with a passion.”

Speaking further on the rationale behind the campaign, Bu said, “UCWeb is India’s favourite mobile browser and we have a very strong, loyal consumer base in the student community which seeks faster browsing experience at the costs that don’t hurt the pockets. We observed that in India, June is the time for college results and admissions and students are more excited/ confused/ nervous. The students are always told that the time to relax is after exams. But with the pressure of mark sheets and career advice pouring in from all corners, students end up feeling all the more confused. The brand, therefore, decided that it needed to play a role in reducing this stress and engage with the students with a view to remind them that path to excellence comes by following passions.”

On the brief shared with the agency, Blu said that in India, usually parents or relatives give advice about life and what they should do, but there were a lot of students who wanted to do different things in life apart from serious academics. “So we asked our social media agency Cheil India to come up with a social media campaign that would reduce the tensions and stress for those users who are in the situations mentioned above. UCWeb’s brief to agency was to address the plight of students in an engaging manner. We wanted to engage with the student community socially by capitalising on the admission season. The response on the first two days of the campaign (#UCbaba started trending on June 21 organically) made us expand the scope of the program to job seekers and people in their first jobs with the same message #follow the passion.”

The end objective was to create buzz around the brand on social media by engaging the youth – inspiring and motivating them to follow their dreams/ passion, he added.

Blu further said that the company wanted to make #UCBaba a permanent property. “We want to assure our young users that UC Baba will always be there to help reduce stress and motivate. Though this is a seasonal property, we’ll incorporate more innovative ways to connect with the audience in the next session,” he concluded.