In advertising, media channels are everything. But in Bihar & Jharkhhand, two states in India , people have no electricity for 8 to 10 hours a day. So people here live isolated from entertainment, communication and brands. But with 130 million people, these are important growth markets for Unilever.

Since existing media couldn’t reach them, we looked deeper and found that 54 million people here had rudimentary mobile phones. So our strategy was to find a way to transform these rudimentary phones into a platform that connects them with the world. And our brands.

In an electricity deficient and hence entertainment starved area, we created a direct mobile channel, that could get our brands in touch with people through entertainment.

Each time people call in, they get 15 minutes of FREE music, jokes, Bollywood songs and advertisements from our brands. Content is refreshed each week, enabling us to be their only constant, reliable source of entertainment.

By transforming their basic mobile phones into an entertainment channel, we found a way to directly engage with people who were otherwise inaccessible to the world and our brands.

By bringing together mobile phone operators, content providers and our brands we transformed their rudimentary phones into their only constant and reliable medium of entertainment.

The Kan Khajura station - A 15 minute FREE entertainment channel, that worked very simply. People just had to make a missed call to a number and we called them back instantly with 15 minutes of FREE entertainment and of course advertisements from our brands.

We targeted an ambitious 6-7 million calls in 6 months. But people kept dialling in with a peak of 200,000 calls in a single day.

In just 6 months we are the largest media channel in Bihar & Jharkhand with 24 million calls.

2.3 million hours of content heard with 70 million ad impressions.

Rise in spontaneous recall- CloseUp-1300 bps, Ponds-1400bps & Wheel-1100bps.

We refresh and evolve the 15 minute content every week based on listener-ship trends. Consumers listen in for 12 minutes in an era where 12 seconds is a challenge.

We have 8 million loyal subscribers who call in every week.

We achieved one-on-one engagement, but with the reach of a mass radio channel - at a cost of under 4 cents per person.