Indiantelevision.com's Kidology Special Report
 
 
Diptrix.com: Virtual reality grabs kids

By RENELLE SNELLEKSZ
(16 September 2006 4:00 pm)
 

Has anyone heard about the Adventures of Trix Rabbit? Just click your way through the hip hoppity town, to the habitat of the super energetic Trix Rabbit, Diptrix.com. It exemplifies a world of freebies and games galore, a kid's haven!

As marketers look for new ways and means to connect with their consumers, the task becomes doubly hard when the target group is a bunch of kids. In what appears to be an emerging trend among brands today, marketers are increasingly using the concept of community based websites. This provides a medium to directly reach out to each consumer via active engagement with the product, thus strengthening the 'connect' between the two.

The Dip Trix homepage

Following this path, General Mills latest offering Dip Trix Cookies 'n' Cream launched diptrix.com simultaneously with its national rollout in March this year.

To make a big noise around the new product, the brand aimed at creating a "virtual playground" - a space for their little consumers to have fun through games, sharing stories, trivia and downloads.

A key hook used to build participation was the oft used collect points proposition (in this case virtual currency "cookies"), which can be exchanged for real life merchandise.

Additionally, the 'Hall of Fame' announces the names of participants with the highest scores. The leader in this currently is a kid who has gathered more than 10,000 "cookies".

Diptrix.com also provides a learning experience for kids via quizzes and an opportunity to express their point of view. The brand mascot Trix Rabbit befriends each visitor guiding them through every section of the site and through a story narrates the Dip Trix experience.

 

General Mills, India marketing director Gayatri Yadav believes, "Children of today are increasingly technology savvy, requiring marketers to think of new ways to connect and communicate with them. The traditional modes of TV and print media are no longer enough. It is important to explore new media options that allow not just a one way communication, but a two way dialogue and interactivity. The key is to go beyond brand exposure to brand engagement."

Brand mascot Trix Rabbit narrates his story

It is estimated that the average time spent on the site by the TG (kids between the age group of 6-14 years) ranges from 20-25 minutes. Within the first five months, the site had more than 10,000 registered users, with the monthly average of page views nearing 300,000.

Unlike other community websites that boast of a huge user base, Diptrix.com is content with its set of loyal visitors. This fulfills one of their key objectives which is to increase frequency of visitors rather than expand their reach. The site epitomizes fun for kids with its cute look and feel and it has been calculated that on an average, kids log on to this site to play the games more than thrice a week. The games differ in complexity making it appropriate to the wide TG, although it may be said that the average age of visitors are approximately 10 year olds.

The key idea was to provide kids with a space of their own to learn, play and be rewarded for their efforts. This subtly acts as a sphere of empowering the 'little fellows', giving them an incentive to keep them coming back for more. They can redeem these "cookies" for a whole range of branded goodies offered at the online store, from Trix Rabbit caps, T-shirts and bags, to lower value items like stationary and stickers.

The Krissh and Trix game

Moreover, the launch of the website was also co-ordinated with the release of Krissh. During a promotional period, the official mask of the Indian superhero was distributed on purchase of Dip Trix Cookies 'n' Cream. Currently, a Krissh 'advergame' has been posted on the site, which allows kids to put on the mantle of their hero and outrun the 'silly' rabbit thus, redeeming cookies for the mask. This has served as an effective tie-up as the buzz around this has driven traffic to the website.

The creative team, Hungama.com (Virtual Marketing (India) Pvt.Ltd) handles the website and has worked on several brand websites including Coca Cola and Axe. However, in this case the challenge for them was to develop an online solution for a kid's centric category that had to be exciting and addictive. As a result of being a new entrant in the Indian market, the website had to be an integral part of the entire communication mix.

Kids voice their opinions on Kid Speak

Besides the buzz sparked off with Krissh, the website was also promoted via on-pack messaging and TV. However, much ideation went into the initiative as kiddies are no longer passive consumers. The creative team tells us that various competitive kids' websites and other consumer engagement websites were analyzed while preparing the content strategy for the Dip Trix website. To keep a tab on the activity on the site, Hungama.com has an in-house tracking and reporting application and follows web trends to monitor page views and visitor analysis, in order to study the behaviour of registered users. "To have a set of loyal visitors to your website, community building is one of the best tools available."

To sustain the hype around diptrix.com, content is regularly updated to keep the interest levels high. Two new games are added every month while other sections are updated on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Besides, there are plans to introduce new branded merchandise like watches and umbrellas in the coming weeks, as a trend has been observed whereby, kids are accumulating a huge amount of "cookies." To prevent stagnation, these new items will be of higher value thus allowing kids to redeem the bulk of points collected.

Kids can download wallpapers & more

What is also interesting is that this activity also allows for a 'sharing experience' among kids and their parents. As parents guide their kids through the site, it creates for quality time spent and includes parental involvement. Parents are even kept informed about their kid's activities and the freebies they win on the site.

As every brand attempts to give its customer the value of an emotional connect, Dip Trix Cookies 'n' Cream believes, "The website is not about generating brand sales but about building an enduring and vibrant relationship with the Indian child. We see this as a long term channel to interact and engage with the child, and build a brand via a relationship, not just messaging, via creating a community and not just communication."

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