Best use of Influencer Marketing Campaign

#GoGustoRides – Mahindra Gusto Powers India’s First Ever Food Ride Led By Influential Food Bloggers


Mahindra arranged a food ride around Mumbai for building awareness about Gusto, its first automatic scooter. Foodies led by influential food bloggers rode their Gustos while exploring food.

Gusto, Mahindra Two Wheelers’ first automatic scooter developed entirely in-house has not been doing well. The award winning scooter needed more eyeballs and a large target set this financial year. Hopefully, its latest campaign could give it a boost.

In 2014 Mahindra Two Wheelers launched a unique initiative called ‘#GoGustoRides’, one that not only talks about the scooter’s features but does that in a fun way by blending the offline with the online.

The scooter brand brought together foodies from all walks of life to experience a ‘Go Gusto Ride’ like no other in the city of Mumbai. On the 12th of April, Sunday, Mahindra arranged a food ride with eminent food bloggers like Amrita Rana and Kalyan Karmarkar at the forefront. Riders who share a common passion for food explored the city’s most famous food joints on their Gusto. The campaign began building buzz in the beginning of April using the social media properties of Mahindra Scooters and the two influential food bloggers.

Mahindra Scooters geared up passionate folks on Twitter inviting them for a ride. The Twitter handle asked people what their gusto in life was, while informing about the food ride. Meanwhile, Amrita Rana and Kalyan Karmarkar, both highly influential in the area of food and enjoying a large fan base of passionate foodies, also began spreading the word.

Riders were selected on the basis of a 4-day contest where interested folks would have to learn about the Gusto from the website. Food was also a part of the contest, one had to share their favourite eating place, their favourite dish, etc.

The features of the scooter were also shared amidst all this excitement. The influencers tweeted about its adjustable seat and other useful features while building up the buzz for the ride. The brand then shared the food ride with its live tweets, giving a virtual experience to fans. The rest of the social buzz was created by the riders.

The brand then continued with informative tweets that spoke about riders’ experiences on the Gusto.

Simple yet brilliant brand awareness

Food can unite people like nothing else can. Indians love their food; in fact food is an integral part of our cultural diversity and brands that engage its consumers around food have already won half the battle. Hence a food ride for building brand awareness for a scooter is a refreshing idea. Who would have imagined a mere food ride around popular Mumbai food joints can create so much buzz for the Gusto? The hashtag #GoGustoRides had been trending on Twitter on the day of the ride.

Leveraging influential bloggers in the food domain is the icing on the cake here. The two bloggers and their passionate bunch of riders have managed to build the right buzz for the scooter. Content shared for the food ride was neat and organised, so much so that any Twitter follower could easily follow the excitement, while gaining some knowledge about the Gusto features.

This unique, fun and informative food ride has helped Mahindra Gusto establish itself as a scooter for fulfilling your ‘gusto’ in life!

Influencer marketing is designed to tap into an existing community of engaged followers. Influencers -- or influential people -- are specialists in their particular niches, and have established a high level of trust and two-way communication with their follower bases. As a result, these individuals have influence over an audience you might be trying to reach, and can be helpful marketing to those buyers.

There is some overlap between celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing campaigns, but fans of influencers trust that their endorsement of a product or brand comes from a well-researched, more holistic place, rather than something as simple as a signed contract. And while there is often a formal agreement in place between brands and influencers, influencers tend to be more selective about their affiliations, choosing to partner with brands that reflect their unique personal brands and won't alienate their followers.

Thrilled passengers, and Ola’s social media promotion around the activity led to a heightened number of Ola Prime bookings and helped the company drive conversation around their new service. The number of bookings too shot through the roof for Ola Prime.


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