MAM
Orchard innovates with social media for Decathlon’s recruitment drive
MUMBAI: Orchard Advertising recently created a first-of-its kind digital recruitment campaign for Decathlon Sports India, a subsidiary of France based Decathlon Sports International.
The initial brief was to create a recruitment ad. Instead of doing the obvious thing i.e. recommend a print campaign that would reach millions of people and invite CVs, Orchard identified two key challenges and decided to tackle them in an out of the box manner.
The first challenge was that not many people outside Bangalore were aware of Decathlon, and so the response a print ad would generate was questionable. Secondly, Decathlon has a strong culture of hiring sports passionate people. Everyone who works at Decathlon, from the sales personnel, to the CEO himself, actively plays and promotes sport. Hence, a print campaign would never allow the recruiters to sieve out the sports-passionate people from among the respondents.
Orchard then decided to design a digital campaign that would (i) create awareness about Decathlon in India and (ii) get relevant enquiries from people who are passionate about sports.
The agency chose social networking website Facebook as a participation platform, with conversations being mirrored on Twitter and Linkedin. The target is to hire 100+ sports enthusiasts over the two-month campaign across departments – stores/IT/logistics/finance/legal /real estate across the country. The campaign started with an online teaser that ran for five days, which spoke of job opportunities for sports lovers. On the sixth day, the recruitment campaign was revealed through five short films, made specifically for the digital medium. The films showed various sports enthusiasts who were misfits in their current jobs, and were probably better off working for Decathlon where they can find like-minded people who appreciate their passion for sport.
The films, made by production house Nirvana Films, and released on YouTube, were posted for fans to see on Facebook. All people had to do was to like the “work for sport” page on the social networking website and click on the “Apply Now” tab. This was a special application created on Facebook, which allows one to see jobs available, job descriptions, requisite qualifications, and apply. In addition to this, applicants had to create a video of theirs’, expressing their passion for sport and Decathlon and post a link on the application. Mumbai-based digital agency WATConsult was hired to develop the application and manage the social media conversations over the two month of the campaign.
Orchard vice president and branch head Anish Daryani said, “The most exciting part about working with Decathlon is that they already have a strong Human Purpose – the democratisation of sports in India. It gives us an opportunity to exploit our creative ideas to tackle some key social issues pertaining to sports in India. We are in a timeline that calls for a change in human behaviour, and that’s exactly where the proprietary HumanKind® philosophy of The Leo Group comes into play. I think our ability to understand the Decathlon brand, and use this to think on new media opportunities, calls for a beginning of this great partnership. Moreover, in Decathlon, we’ve found a client that’s willing to try out new things, junk clichés, and open up to fresh ideas.”
Orchard chairman and national creative director Thomas Xavier added, “It is rare to get an opportunity to work on a brand that is so strongly inclined to bring about a social change. The strong ethos of the brand gives us an opportunity to push ourselves towards a larger cause.”
MAM
Schneider Electric launches One Unit Mission for Women’s Day
Green Yodha 2.0 urges every Indian household to save one unit of electricity daily.
MUMBAI: Schneider Electric just flipped the switch on savings because this Women’s Day the brightest idea isn’t a new bulb, it’s turning one unit off. Schneider Electric launched the second phase of its Green Yodha initiative, ‘One Unit Mission’, on International Women’s Day 2026, calling on every Indian household to save at least one unit of electricity daily. The campaign was flagged off in Delhi by chief minister Rekha Gupta, actor and sustainability advocate Bhumi Pednekar, and other dignitaries.
Rekha Gupta said, “Delhi’s journey towards clean, resilient growth begins with how efficiently we use the energy we already have. Green Yodha 2.0 reminds us that every citizen is a stakeholder in India’s energy future, and saving one unit of power today is an act of nation-building for tomorrow.”
Schneider Electric India zone president, MD & CEO Deepak Sharma added, “India is entering a decade of unprecedented growth, and that growth will require enormous amounts of energy. The real challenge is not just how much power we produce, but how intelligently we use it. If every Indian household saves just one unit of electricity a day, the impact would be equivalent to planting billions of trees or taking millions of cars off the road.”
Schneider Electric India, vice president of marketing Rajat Abbi noted, “Sustainability becomes real when it is simple and measurable. The One Unit Mission is about turning awareness into everyday action.”
In FY 2023–24, India’s energy-efficiency programmes (PAT, UJALA, S&L, SLNP, CAFÉ) collectively saved 53.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent, avoided 321 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, and reduced energy expenditure by Rs 2 lakh crore equivalent to nearly 6 per cent of national primary energy supply.
The initiative aligns with government efforts on efficient cooling, appliance standards and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s state-level SEEI FY 2024 framework, emphasising demand-side efficiency as a cost-effective complement to new generation capacity.
In a nation sprinting toward brighter, bigger tomorrows, Schneider isn’t selling more power, it’s quietly handing every household a daily superpower: the ability to save one unit and help light up a cleaner, more efficient future, one thoughtful switch at a time.
