#WhatsNewThisDiwali – Citi celebrates Diwali with a Twist!

By GizBot Bureau

| Updated: Tuesday, December 15, 2015, 15:46 [IST]

Diwali is a largely celebrated festival of India. Also known as the festival of lights, Diwali is associated with shopping for oneself, family and friends, decorating homes, and exchanging gifts and sweets to lighten up the festive spirit.

#WhatsNewThisDiwali – Citi celebrates Diwali with a Twist!

Well, the basic idea behind the tradition of gift giving is to accelerate the feeling of love, bonding, affection and appreciation. People convey their respect, good wishes, and love for their loved ones through gifts.

This year, Citibank celebrated the festival differently by launching its Digital Diwali initiative. The campaign started on November 1 and went all the way up to Diwali. Citibank is a banking service provider that offered great saves and deals at leading brands across categories this Diwali like for shopping (Flipkart, Amazon), travel (Make My Trip), electronics (Vijay Sales, Apple), Grocery (Reliance fresh, super mart) and more.

The company is well trusted and known for its services. Citi also ran its first ever Festive online sale, across key products: credit cards and personal loan, to generate leads and drive fresh acquisitions.

Here is more about the #WhatsNewThisDiwali campaign:

Diwali with Virtual Firecrackers this time! On the first day of the initiative, Citibank used the Augmented Reality (AR) technology at DLF Saket mall in Delhi to celebrate virtual Diwali, which let people enjoy a safe and pollution free Diwali by burning crackers virtually.

Participants quite liked Citibank's concept of celebrating Diwali differently this year with technology. Many of them even shared the idea on social media by tweeting about how they loved the Digital Diwali concept, and their pictures on Facebook and other platforms. The objective of the campaign was to position the brand on top of the mind of people, and drive home a strong 'Word of Mouth' with meticulous use of social media influencers.

Many people shared their experience about the AR technology on Twitter using #WhatsNewThisDiwali, while some other twitted about their childhood memories and how loved ones could be surprised with Gifts on Diwali.

People also shared their resolutions for the New Year and spoke about the need of a healthier lifestyle adoption this Diwali.

Make Wishes Come True!

Citibank celebrated the great response it received for the campaign and came up with its first brand video dedicated to the theme. The video with a twist was based on how people surprise their loved ones with a Diwali gift. The campaign was a hit considering that the hashtag #WhatsNewThisDiwali, which it used, was one of the most trended on Twitter with close to 200 million impressions at an engaging rate of over 8 percent, which was quite impressive. People tweeted about how they plan to surprise their loved ones this year.

Diwali with Playstation!

Furthermore, on November 7, Citibank released its second brand video, which made people speak about how their childhood memories related to Diwali, and how they used to celebrate the festival with their siblings. On this day, the hashtag #Citi trended, which meant to establish a connection and association of #WhatsNewThisDiwali with Citibank.

All the videos were uploaded on several video-sharing sites like Youtube, Vdopia, Vuclip to name a few. All three videos reached maximum audience with total views of close to 5 million.

The #WhatsNewThisDiwali trended on first three days of the activity and #Citi on the 4th day, which states people, could associate the campaign with the brand name. The campaign has more than 7million reach.

The campaign generated close to 196 million impressions at an engagement rate of over 8 percent.