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Aditya Birla Group Leadership Programs

Online Branding

3/1/2012

MixORG

©MixORG Page 2

Contents Brand ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

Company ................................................................................................................................................. 3

Industry ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Duration .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Target Audience ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Aim/Objective ......................................................................................................................................... 3

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. 4

Platforms Used ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Online Strategy ........................................................................................................................................ 6

Online Branding ................................................................................................................................... 6

Innovation in Platform Development ................................................................................................... 6

Engaging Community ........................................................................................................................... 7

Lead Generation Mechanism ............................................................................................................... 8

Targeted Advertisements .................................................................................................................... 8

Outcome and Impact ............................................................................................................................... 9

Learning ................................................................................................................................................ 10

Links ...................................................................................................................................................... 10

Screenshots ........................................................................................................................................... 11

1. ABGLP Ads run on LinkedIn ........................................................................................................ 11

2. The LinkedIn Company Page opened up with an attractive banner in the front .......................... 11

3. Visitors to the Company Page could opt to ‘Follow Company’ .................................................... 12

4. Video Testimonial by Current ABGLP employees who had interned before being hired .............. 12

5. Employees can tag themselves to the Company Page................................................................. 13

6. ABGLP Programs listed as Products of the ‘Company’ ................................................................ 14

7. Map of ABG Corporate Office embedded on LinkedIn Company Page ........................................ 15

8. Targeted Ads Run on LinkedIn .................................................................................................... 16

9. Targeted Ads Run on Facebook .................................................................................................. 16

10. Impressions of Ad run on LinkedIn ......................................................................................... 17

©MixORG Page 3

Company

A US$ 30 billion corporation, the Aditya Birla Group is an India-based, global conglomerate.

With an extraordinary force of 130,600 employees, belonging to 40 different nationalities, the

Group spans sectors from Retail to Mining, Financial Services, Cement, Chemicals, Textiles and

many more.

Brand The Aditya Birla Group Leadership Programs (ABGLP) were launched in 2007 with the objective

of creating an alternate leadership pipeline for the Aditya Birla Group. Through these programs,

ABG hires and grooms the best talent from select leading business schools. The focus is on

cultivating high quality future leaders with innovative thinking.

ABGLP includes the following programs:

LEAD (for individuals with 4-6 years’ experience) LEAP (for individuals with 0-3 years’ experience) Group Internship Program

Industry

Global conglomerate

Duration 10 days in February 2012

Target Audience Premium talent from the top six leading Business Schools of the country: IIM Ahmedabad, IIM

Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, XLRI and ISB-Hyderabad.

Aim/Objective

In order to facilitate the leadership grooming process at ABGLP, ABG seeks to interact and

engage with students on the targeted six campuses. The purpose of the campaign specifically,

was to utilize social networking platforms to:

Ensure Brand Building for the ABG Leadership Programs

Create awareness about the LEAD and LEAP programs

Encourage visits to the ABGLP website and ABGLP LinkedIn page

©MixORG Page 4

Executive Summary

Aditya Birla Group Leadership Programs offer prestigious employment to the finest Business

School Graduates in India. Till date, the programs were primarily being branded offline on

campuses. However, ABG having lately decided to make a move towards online branding

through social media, hired MixORG to drive the campaign.

In the online sphere, ABGLP existed in the form of their website. To bring them on a social

networking website, MixORG created a Company Page for ABGLP on LinkedIn. Targeted

advertisements were then run on both Facebook and LinkedIn to create top-of-the-mind recall

with repeated ad impressions. Further, these ads served towards driving traffic to the ABGLP

website and LinkedIn page.

Leveraging on the various features that a LinkedIn company page offers, visitors to the page

were engaged through attractive banners, videos and relevant information. Further, the viral

nature of the social media platform was tapped into by allowing for programs and the page to

be ‘Shared’ and ‘Recommended’.

In the ten days that the ads were run on each platform, it received close to 1.9 million

impressions. Around 1500 people clicked through the ads and arrived at the landing pages. All

this was achieved in a modest budget.

The campaign was thus, a success. The execution of it involved some innovations and

experimentations in the field which led to useful learning for future campaigns. It also served as

a good introductory experience for ABG in their first attempt at tapping into social media. As

next steps, ABGLP can also use the LinkedIn portal MixORG created for uploading job postings,

enabling job application processes and engaging with job-seekers. In addition, they can increase

their presence on more social network platforms.

©MixORG Page 5

Platforms Used

Apart from the website, which already existed, two platforms were utilized for the campaign:

LinkedIn:

While Aditya Birla Group and its various companies owned LinkedIn company pages, there

was no separate space specially devoted to the ABG Leadership Programs. Thus, as one of

the first steps, a LinkedIn company page was built solely for APGLP in order to ensure that it

exists as an entity in itself on LinkedIn. Furthermore, targeted ads were run on LinkedIn that

led to the ABGLP LinkedIn page on being clicked.

Facebook:

In order to reach out to larger numbers, Facebook was a useful portal. Facebook ads were

run for the target audience, who are present on a much larger scale on Facebook as

compared to LinkedIn. The group that was being targeted is also likely to spend more time

on Facebook than LinkedIn at an average, thus ensuring the likelihood of repeat views.

Website:

The website of ABG Leadership Programs was already in existence. While no addition were

made to it directly, it was set as the landing page for the Facebook advertisements in order

to channel visitors to it. The idea was to get relevant people to scan the website and the

information, which they otherwise may not have come across on their own.

©MixORG Page 6

Online Strategy The following tactics were used towards ensuring Online Branding for ABGLP:

Online Branding

The primary objective was to achieve significant online branding for Aditya Birla Group

Leadership Programs over Social Media platforms. For this purpose, MixORG wanted to run

advertisements on the two platforms where the target audience are present the most- LinkedIn

and Facebook. The idea was to ensure as many impressions of the ad as possible on a relevant

person’s profile, within the given budget of Rs 10,000 per platform. (Figure 1)

Furthermore, the landing page of the ads should be attractive and give out maximum possible

information about ABGLP in the most effective way.

Innovation in Platform Development

While ABGLP already had a website of its own, it lacked a dedicated space on LinkedIn. To

enable this, MixORG had three options – create a Profile of ABGLP, create a Group by the name

of ABGLP or create a stand-alone Company page of ABGLP. LinkedIn rules, however, allow

company pages only for registered companies, which it verifies via a company email id and

website. ABGLP, being only a program run by a company, could not technically register for a

Company page on LinkedIn. MixORG was clear about the fact though, that a Company Page

offers maximum flexibility and options to brand ABGLP as compared to Profile or Group pages.

LinkedIn Company Page LinkedIn Group LinkedIn Profile

Tell your company’s story Start a topic of discussion Represent your career

accomplishments

Highlight your products and services

Like and comment on

discussions

Enable people to connect with

you

Engage with followers and drive word of mouth

Follow people in your group Get and give

recommendations

Share career opportunities Discuss career opportunities Search for jobs

©MixORG Page 7

MixORG thus, found a way around by purchasing domain space in the name of ABGLP, creating

‘company’ email addresses, referring to the already existent website as the ‘company website’.

As a result, a LinkedIn Company Page was successfully created for ABGLP.

Engaging Community

The LinkedIn Company Page was then utilized for the following engagement activities:

An engaging banner on the home page was meant to hold a visitor’s attention and impart maximum information in the most effective way. (Figure 2) To ensure cross-channel integration, this banner was kept the same as the one on the BAGLP website. However, the option to view other banners existed as a slider.

Interested visitors were given the option to “Follow Company” so that they receive regular updates from the page (Figure 3)

One could also Share the page among one’s network on LinkedIn

A video testimonial by current ABGLP employees was embedded on the page. First-hand experiences and recommendations from one’s own alumni can be extremely effective towards online branding for any company (Figure 4)

Employees of ABG working as part of the ABGLP can tag themselves as employees, thus creating a visible database of people working with ABGLP (Figure 5)

The programs within the ABGLP were listed as Products of the company. Thus, the LEAD (for individuals with 4-6 years’ experience), LEAP (for individuals with 0-3 years’ experience), Group Internship Program and STRATOS (an Annual Business Simulation competition) were listed as Products of ABGLP. (Figure 6)

Each of these ‘Products’ can be ‘Recommended’ or ‘Shared’, thus allowing for social word-of-mouth

A Company Page on LinkedIn also allows for a map of the Company. The ABGLP corporate office map was embedded on the home page (Figure 7)

Since there were no vacancies to be advertised immediately, that was not done. However, a Company Page allows for a ‘Careers’ tab, wherein ABGLP can upload job postings in the future as and when required.

©MixORG Page 8

Lead Generation Mechanism

LinkedIn Company pages’ ads offer an added feature of gathering leads among visitors to one’s

page. This feature was leveraged on by MixORG to create a very relevant database of people

who are interested in ABGLP. Such people grant approval to be contacted later by ABGLP with

information regarding job and other opportunities.

Targeted Advertisements

Given that ABGLP only hires premium talent from the top six leading Business Schools of the

country: IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, XLRI and ISB-Hyderabad,

advertisements for the Program were only targeted to profiles that listed one of these B-

Schools. These ads were run on LinkedIn (Figure 8) and Facebook (Figure 9). The downside of

this approach is that one would miss out targeting those students or alumni who haven’t

overtly mentioned their college on their profile. The very obvious upside, however, is that one

saves superfluous advertisement costs which would have otherwise been wasted on producing

impressions of the ad on irrelevant profiles.

An additional strategy with respect to advertisements was to pay per impression rather than

pay per click. The reasoning behind this was that a high CTR was expected for the ABGLP

advertisements. A short test-run with constant monitoring evidenced the CTR for the ads to be

around 1.5%, much higher than the industry average of 0.2%. Pay per click, thus would have

proved to be an expensive model of payment. Pay per impressions was used instead as a

payment model and this ensured higher ROI within the given budget, making the ads far more

effective and economical.

©MixORG Page 9

Outcome and Impact

Within the allotted budget, the campaign achieved large scale branding for ABGLP. Ads for

ABGLP were run on both LinkedIn and Facebook. The landing page for the ads on each of these

portals was different, so as to direct visitors to both, the ABGLP website and LinkedIn company

page.

The number of people fitting the description of the target audience was far higher on Facebook,

as compared to LinkedIn, and thus, the corresponding number of impressions and clicks were

higher too. However, advertising on both medium was important for the audience could be

exclusive. Furthermore, sighting the ads repeatedly on multiple portals serves to increase brand

recall, which was the primary objective of the campaign.

LinkedIn also offered Lead Generation Mechanism to gather lead database for ABGLP, an

option that Facebook did not offer.

Some facts and figures that reflect the outcome of the campaign:

LinkedIn Facebook

Number of people targeted 3,514 61,700

Number of Impressions/ people viewing: 18,935 1,874,931

CPM (Cost per 1000 views) Rs 500 Rs 5.33

Landing Page of Ad LinkedIn company page ABGLP website

Number of people who clicked on Ad 87 1,382

Cost per click Rs 115 Rs 7.25

Lead Count* 18 N/A

Cost per Lead generated Rs 555 N/A

Frequency** N/A 35

Amount spent on campaign Rs 10,000 Rs 10,000

*Number of leads ABGLP received, that is people who requested to be contacted about ABGLP

**Number of times the advertisement appeared per profile, indicating number of times one single person could

have seen the ad

For a visual representation of the steadily high number of impressions the LinkedIn

advertisements received over the period of ten days that it was run, refer to Figure 10.

©MixORG Page 10

Learning

A big take-away for the MixORG team by the end of the campaign came from the innovation of creating a Company Page for ABGLP on LinkedIn, which would otherwise not have been possible. For future purposes too, it was a revelation, that company departments, branches and programs need not be restricted to the limited functionality of a LinkedIN group, but can avail the advantages of a Company Page.

With regard to Targeted advertisements, a learning from the campaign was the need to judge and choose wisely between ‘Pay per Click’ and ‘Pay per Impression’ payment models. On monitoring ads, if it is noticed that the CTR is low, ‘pay per click’ model can be used. For high CTR ads, ‘pay per impression’ is a more judicious option.

While LinkedIn proved to be more expensive than Facebook, garnering much lesser impressions and clicks on the same budget, it is still advisable to utilize multiple platforms as repeated sightings of the same advertisement are bound to increase brand recall.

Links Website: http://www.abglp.com/

LinkedIn : http://www.LinkedIn.com/company/aditya-birla-group-leadership-

programs?trk=tabs_biz_home

©MixORG Page 11

Screenshots

1. ABGLP Ads run on LinkedIn

Figure 1: LinkedIn ads

2. The LinkedIn Company Page opened up with an attractive banner in the

front

Figure 2: Company Page Banner

©MixORG Page 12

3. Visitors to the Company Page could opt to ‘Follow Company’

Figure 3: Follow Company

4. Video Testimonial by Current ABGLP employees who had interned

before being hired

Figure 4: Video on LinkedIn

©MixORG Page 13

5. Employees can tag themselves to the Company Page

Figure 5: Employee Tags

©MixORG Page 14

6. ABGLP Programs listed as Products of the ‘Company’

Figure 6: ABGLP Products

©MixORG Page 15

7. Map of ABG Corporate Office embedded on LinkedIn Company Page

Figure 7: Map

©MixORG Page 16

8. Targeted Ads Run on LinkedIn

Figure 8: LinkedIn Ads

9. Targeted Ads Run on Facebook

Figure 9: Facebook Ads

©MixORG Page 17

10. Impressions of Ad run on LinkedIn

Figure 10: Impressions