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
Gurpreet Singh named President of DishTV Alumni Network
Former Dish TV executive to lead community building and collaboration.
MUMBAI: Back to the dish, but this time it’s about connections, not channels Gurpreet Singh is returning to familiar territory with a new mandate that swaps subscribers for relationships. Singh has been appointed President of the DishTV Alumni Network, a move aimed at strengthening ties among former employees and building a more engaged professional community around the Dish TV ecosystem. The initiative reflects a growing trend among large organisations to formalise alumni networks as platforms for collaboration, mentorship and business opportunities.
The appointment draws on Singh’s deep-rooted history with Dish TV, where he held multiple leadership roles over nearly a decade. As National Business Head between June 2019 and September 2020, he oversaw profit and loss as well as operations, managing revenues of Rs 6,000 crore and leading a team of around 1,250 employees across the country. His tenure included working alongside two regional business heads and 16 circle heads, underscoring the scale of operations he handled.
Prior to that, Singh served as Executive Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue from 2016 to 2019, and earlier as Senior Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue. He also briefly led international operations as Country Head for Sri Lanka, further expanding his exposure across markets.
His broader career spans leadership roles across telecom and consumer businesses, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer at Bharti Airtel’s Malawi operations, senior leadership roles at Reliance Communications, and earlier positions at Hindustan Sanitaryware and Kodak India, where he spent over a decade.
In his new role, Singh is expected to focus on reconnecting former employees, fostering collaboration, and building a structured alumni ecosystem that leverages shared experience and industry networks. As companies increasingly recognise the long-term value of their extended workforce, the DishTV Alumni Network appears set to turn nostalgia into a strategic asset, one connection at a time.
