For brands in mature categories like tea, the primary objective is to achieve salience. Therefore, our goal is to become unmissable for our target audience. In a landscape characterized by a significant attention deficit, we sought to go beyond conventional communication methods and create something that captures people's imagination while breaking through the clutter. Our approach led us to consider a public installation as the centerpiece of our campaign. The chosen location was right outside the railway station, and offered exceptional exposure, reaching 70% of the audience within just one month.

• Situation: Taj Mahal tea has been a patron of Indian classical music and wanted to connect with its audience in an engaging way.

• Brief: Create a memorable installation, specifically for the monsoon season that would create positive conversation for the brand

• Objectives: The objective was to increase awareness and brand love.

TEA AND RAIN:

In India, sipping tea while enjoying rain is a national pastime during the monsoon months. Whether in bustling cities or far-off villages, people throughout India gather at tea stalls or cozy up at homes to relish their beloved cup of tea.

RAGA OR INDIAN SYMPHONIES:

Indian classical music is characterized by a diverse range of ragas, or symphonies. One intriguing aspect of ragas is their flexibility, unlike their Western counterparts. Artists have the freedom to improvise and interpret ragas according to their own unique style, whether through vocals or musical instruments. This flexibility stems from the fact that each raga is comprised of a specific set of musical notes, which can be rearranged to create new melodies.

RAAG MEGH MALHAAR:

One such raga is Raag Megh Malhaar, also known as the Symphony of Rains, which is traditionally sung to celebrate the arrival of rainfall. The strings of Megh Santoor were embedded with the notes of Raag Megh Malhaar.

TEA STALLS AT RAILWAY STATION:

Railway stations across India are peppered with tea stalls and tea vendors. These stalls rarely shut and are always brewing fresh tea. No matter what time of the day, one can always see a crowd of tea drinkers sipping on piping hot tea at these stalls.

The idea was to create a musical instrument that only the rain could play. The result was - Megh Santoor. Derived from two words, Megh and Santoor, where ‘Megh’ means rain-bearing clouds and ‘Santoor’ is an Indian string and mallet instrument. Whenever it would rain, the rain would move the mallets to hit the strings and produce a musical note. This rising and falling of multiple mallets created music as long as it rained.

"Megh Santoor" was specifically designed to increase brand love and bring alive our association with Indian classical music. Taj Mahal Tea, already a dominant force in the market with a strong reputation, aimed to engage not only existing tea consumers but the entire population. Given the central theme of rain, the installation was strategically scheduled for August to October, the peak monsoon months in the region. To ensure maximum visibility, the installation was positioned directly in front of a busy Railway Station, surrounded by numerous tea vendors. This strategic placement meant that anyone passing through the station—whether arriving or departing—would have a firsthand encounter with "Megh Santoor," accompanied by the enticing aroma of freshly brewed tea.

"Megh Santoor" was a grand project displayed on a 75-foot-long billboard, towering 25 feet above the ground, and weighing around 320 kg, it was built to endure strong winds and heavy rain.

To build excitement, we launched an outdoor campaign with #NewUstaadofTaj, followed by a local Instagram campaign teasing the arrival of a new musical maestro. Once "Megh Santoor" was revealed, we invited people to witness the rain playing it through another outdoor campaign.

For national exposure, we created a captivating film released on September 19th. "Megh Santoor" was installed on August 3rd, 2023, and stood tall until it was taken down on October 16th, 2023.

The campaign went viral on social media and the video was one of the most shared ones. In one week, the video garnered 41k organic views and reached 300k+ organic views a month later. Google termed it “Breakout” as all the relevant search terms grew by 5000%. The campaign was also covered by over 10 major dailies nationally and was valued at over $2m. Before this campaign, the Top of Mind Awareness was stuck at 74%. With this campaign, brand awareness shot up by 15% to 89 (the highest ever for Taj Mahal Tea).

Taj Mahal wanted to engage with its customers in real time. We chose Out-of-Home media due to its wide reach and real-time engagement capabilities, both with people and the environment itself. Thus bringing alive the brand's association with Indian classical music. The choice of media for our activation helped us effectively engage with the person on the street and created positive word-of-mouth for the brand.