Ola: Ola Drunk Tweets

Drunk driving is a pervasive problem in our society, while the Government of India has rolled out several initiatives, spreading awareness urging people to not ‘drink and drive’ continues to be critical. In continued commitment towards promoting safe driving, Ola, India’s most popular mobile app for transportation launched ‘#PeekeMatChala’ initiative, conceptualized by Happy mcgarrybowen, to discourage drunken driving during the New Year festivities. The last week of December usually witnesses’ revelry and parties across the country, everyone is celebrating the end of the year and welcoming the new year. In all the celebration, cases of drunken driving also tend to increase manifolds. It provided for the perfect opportunity to bridge the gap between the growing problems with an already existing convenient solution - booking an Ola cab if one is under the influence of alcohol, to ensure a safe ride back. The challenge, however, was about talking to the consumers in a way to make them sit back and take notice. The need of the hour therefore was the campaign to be fun and relatable. Staying true to the brand's tonality Happy mcgarrybowen took this serious problem by the horns and gave the message out in a cheeky way, leading to a social media stunt that had not been pulled by any brand before. At a time when several social media hacks have been seen, Ola smartly used this trend to land the message of 'don't drink and drive'. Several ‘drunk tweets’ went out of the brand's twitter handle on the evening of 25th December 2016. Ola even tagged brands like Zomato, Flipkart, Netflix India in some of their tweets besides tagging popular content providers such as AIB and TVF. As expected, it almost immediately grabbed attention of the social world. Some wondered if the social media manager was drunk on job, while many questioned if an intern was left unattended