BuzzInContent unveils top 21 video branded content campaigns from 2022

Every year, BuzzInContent.com releases a list of its favourite content-driven campaigns and strategies by brands. This time around, it’s been a tough game to figure out the top campaigns from the amazing lot of content-led work produced last year. 

Given the kind of campaigns that made it to the list, there is no doubt that the entertainment factor has been the brands’ top priority. Not just fictional content, but real authentic conversations also gained popularity among consumers. 

The list includes only video-branded content and has been put in alphabetic order.  

Here are some of BuzzInContent’s favourites:

1. Alpenliebe Juzt Jelly’s baking talent hunt Bakers' Studio on Zee

Alpenliebe Juzt Jelly, the jelly brand from the house of Perfetti Van Melle India, in partnership with Zee Entertainment launched the second season of the baking talent hunt – Alpenliebe Juzt Jelly Baker’s Studio. 

The initiative is conceptualised and crafted by Wavemaker India for Perfetti Van Melle India in partnership with Zee Brand Works – the branded content division of Zee Entertainment. The six-episode family-entertainer series is being aired across Zee Entertainment’s channels – Zee TV, Zee Zest and the digital platform Zee5. The show is hosted by celebrated chefs Amrita Raichand and Kunal Kapur. 

2. Season 6 of Asian Paints’ ‘Where the Heart is’

Asian Paints returned with Season 6 of the original home décor web series, ‘Asian Paints Where The Heart Is’. The series gives viewers a walk through the homes of celebrities. For the first time, this digital series was also streamed on the OTT platform Voot. 

This year the likes of celebrities such as Anil Kapoor and Harshvardhan Kapoor, Pooja Hegde, Yuvraj Singh, PV Sindhu, Jim Sarbh, and Mouni Roy opened their doors to viewers. Bringing new elements into the series, the brand incorporated a special ‘Build Book’ segment showing celebrities browsing through a design guide with decor elements in their homes.

3. Bajaj Pulsar N160 inspires content creators to become #CreatorsOfThrill

Conceptualised by Ogilvy's Content Force, the #CreatorsOFThrill campaign introduced the Pulsar N160 through a unique take on genres like graffiti, photography, and music. 

The #CreatorsOfThrill campaign went beyond stunting and biking communities, it connected the next-gen Pulsar riders by engaging with non-auto creators to share their passion for the Pulsar legacy. 

Link to one of the content creators’ videos:

 

 

 

 

 

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4. Bingo! Comedy Adda Season 2

ITC launched season 2 of the TV show ‘Bingo! Comedy Adda in 2022. The show was broadcasted on Disney Star channels and streamed on Bingo! snacks YouTube page. Season 2 of the show was hosted by Varun Sharma who caught up with prominent names like Virender Sehwag, Mouni Roy, Shehnaaz Gill, Yashraj Mukhate, Guru Randhawa, Sharwari Wagh, Divyendu, Manushi Chillar, and stars of social media like Bhuvan Bam, Beyounick and Ashish Chanchlani. 

The show also had a special stand-up comedy segment ‘Original Style Stand Up Comedy’ with the who’s who of stand-up comedy like Devesh Dixit, Gaurav Kapoor, Ravi Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Gaurav Gupta, Nishant Tanwar and Abhijeet Ganguly. 

Bingo! Comedy Adda, since its inception in 2017, has received encouraging responses and has emerged as a well-recognised comedy show. The concept has been reworked and expanded into a full-fledged show, brimming with all-around entertainment, setting new industry benchmarks for creative partnerships, and engaging a wider audience.

5. Bumble’s Dating these nights

Dating and social networking app Bumble launched the third edition of its content series ‘Dating These Nights’. Featuring Zoya Akhtar, Mrunal Thakur, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Jim Sarbh, Vijay Varma and Srishti Dixit, ‘Dating These Nights’ aimed to help people discover and navigate deeper and more meaningful conversations around modern romance and dating in 2022. 

The first episode, ‘Romances and Bromances’ featured filmmaker Akhtar and actor Sarbh who spoke about “modern masculinity” discussing what healthy masculinity looks like and more. ‘Age of Love', the second episode of Bumble’s content series, saw actors Thakur and Pilgaonkar discuss dating in their 30s – an interesting experience when we date on our own terms and timelines. Ending the season, ‘Banking on Love’ featured the star of the recently released film Darlings, Varma and influencer Dixit who explored nuances related to financial intimacy in relationships in the last episode.

6. Coca-Cola gets it right with ‘Memu Aagamu’ 

Coca-Cola as a brand has always been big on using music for its branded content purposes. Coke Studio is one of the biggest and most successful branded IPs. While Coke Studio as an IP has a niche audience, ‘Memu Aagamu’ which the brand released in 2022 went viral and quickly found success with the masses. 

The song has 76 million views on YouTube (as of the time of writing this article) and is also available on every digital music streaming app. 

The song features Bollywood playback singer Arman Malik, the K-pop group TRI.BE, and actor Allu Arjun. The lyrics of the song are in multiple languages, such as Hindi, Korean, Telugu and English. According to the brand, the song’s philosophy is based on Coca-Cola’s purpose of collaboration. 

7. Cred kept the bizarreness alive with ‘The Art of Everything’ 

Cred’s advertising campaigns have always had ‘satire’, ‘bizarreness’ and ‘surprise’ factors. For example, Rahul Dravid getting into a road rage ad. 

The brand launched a content series for Instagram called ‘Art of Everything’ - produced by Supari Studios. The show is an 8-part series of masterclasses led by artists and celebrities like Gulshan Grover, Shreeja Chaturvedi, Supriya Joshi, Kusha Kapila, Baba Sehgal, Sunil Gavaskar, and Ravi Shastri. These personalities advise the viewers with satirical tips for succeeding in life. 

The brand launched another content IP in 2022 called, ‘The Long Game’. The show is another 6-episode masterclass series hosted by top sporting personalities in the country who recount special events, matches, lessons and big moments. 

8. Dell and Voot encouraged co-creation with Dell XPS Youniverse Creators'

Dell collaborated with OTT platform Voot to launch  ‘Dell XPS Youniverse Creators’ a web show focused on creators and their creative process. It revolves around 10 artists from different backgrounds to create ‘masterpieces’ by co-creating and merging their creative templates. 

It is a five-episode series with creators like Chef Amninder Sahu and documentary photographer Hashim Badani, Graffiti Artist Hanif Kureshi, spatial artist Asim Waqif,  content creator Kayaan Contractor, spoken word poet Priya Malik, Pianist Sahil Vasudeva, Animator Sidhant Gandhi, Actor Faria Abdullah and visual artist Vimal Chandran. The show was streamed on Voot. 

9. Lakme takes the chat-show road with Ankush Bahaguna

The brand launched a four-episode series with creator Ankush Bahaguna where he is seen chatting with guests while doing their makeup. The episodes are very much like the creator’s own Instagram series where he does make up for his close friends while having a fun time and chatting with them with subtle product integrations. 

The episodes were released on the realtor’s own YouTube page and featured celebrities like Kusha Kapila, Sheeba Chada, Jovita George and Anusha Dandekar.  

10. Scaler’s '30 Weds 21' season 2 and 'B.E Rojgaar' 

Tech upskilling start-up Scaler released two web series in 2022, in Telugu and Marathi languages, which garnered good response from the audience.

Scaler along with its digital agency Isobar collaborated with the content platform 'Girl Formula' for the web series '30 Weds 21' season 2. The seven-episode Telugu web series was released in February 2022. 

Scaler also collaborated with Bharatiya Digital Party, a regional digital entertainment company, to launch a Marathi web series 'B.E Rojgaar' in May 2022. It was an aspirational tale of three engineer friends who go on a journey from being 'Berojgaar' to creating employment by coming across a start-up idea. These web series were specifically written for Scaler. 

11. Spinny and Sixer

Last year, the streaming service Amazon miniTV announced its sports drama series - 'Sixer', created by TVF and directed by Chaitanya Kumbhakonum. The series, a sports drama, gives a glimpse into the life of Nikunj Shukla also known as ‘Nikku’, a young cricketer from Indore. 

Played by Shivankit, this character is a cricket enthusiast and wants to represent the sport in its right spirit. Spinny was the official brand on board for the series. The brand saw its subtle integration in the show. Spinny’s focus on the metro and urban cities made the story of the triumph of a local cricket team in Indore, playing against the odds of everyday life, making the brand’s association with the show quite a seamless match.

12. Skoda-Deccan Beats -  a caravan of Carnatic Music and soulful sojourns

In February 2022, Skoda Auto India launched a stage for aspiring musicians, with a focus on nurturing indigenous musical talent from the heartlands of South India, the 'Skoda Deccan Beats' -  a caravan of Carnatic Music and soulful sojourns. The series was slated in three distinct phases — Talent Hunt, On-Road, and Garage Series - featuring 16 rising talented artists from five Southern states. The series was felicitated by Omnicom Media Group.

• Stayfree’s attempt to encourage parents to talk to their sons about periods

With the message of including boys in the menstruation conversation, on Daughter’s Day in September 2022, Stayfree launched a campaign to encourage parents to talk to their sons about what is thought to be a taboo subject in the country. 

The socially-relevant evocative film by Stayfree - conceptualised by DDB Mudra, directed by Shobha Mohapatra and produced by Priyank Misra of Klture Studios – aimed to positively change the narrative of shame and silence around periods.

14. Swiggy Plate Date helped singles find ideal matches based on food preferences

Swiggy launched an episodic content piece titled ‘Plate Date’ in collaboration which OML Entertainment on YouTube to help singles find their ideal matches based on their food preferences in a blind-date setting featuring one protagonist and four contenders having a candid conversation about their eating habits be it in terms of mid- night cravings, revenge food, comfort food etc.

15. Tanishq Marriage Conversations 2.0 campaign

Tanishq, in collaboration with Talented and Little Giant Films, launched a campaign titled ‘Marriage Conversations 2.0’, which was the second leg of the campaign wherein the brand tried to urge couples to go beyond conversations about just the wedding,- the bride and groom’s entry, the decor, the guest list; and instead to focus equally if not more on the marriage- their life after the wedding, the real deal. 

16. Tinder Swipe Ride is all about what Indian women really want from their dating lives

Tinder rolled out new episodes of Swipe Ride which is a show featuring Kusha Kapila striking a conversation with celebrity guests including Alaya F, Pooja Bhatt, Sonam Bajwa and Tamannaah Bhatia. The show celebrates uninhibited, meaningful conversations about what Indian women really want from their dating lives. While the show was streaming on Voot, the first episode of this season premiered on Tinder India’s YouTube handle.

17. Seagram Imperial Blue’s ‘Because Men Will Be Men’

Seagram Imperial Blue in collaboration with Wavemaker and Colors have taken it upon themselves to make it easy for the audience to surprise their acquaintances and send them personalised new year wishes from Karan Kundra, Nishant Bhat and Pratik Sehajpal by registering on their website which further renders personalised videos with the help of AI-Driven technology.

18. Wakefit’s Ghar Set Hai

Wakefit launched a long-form dramedy web series titled ‘Ghar Set Hai’ on its YouTube channel named ‘Home Time’ in collaboration with brand marketing partner- Spring Marketing Capital featuring Aasif Khan and Anjali Barot in a next-door middle-class family where small things bring great joy.

19. W+K India and Jindal Shadeed Oman bring alive Oman's love for Football during FIFA 2022

Jindal Shadeed Oman and Wieden+Kennedy India collaborated to bring alive Oman’s love for Football during FIFA 2022 through the ‘The Steel Of Oman’ campaign. W+K, India came up with the brand proposition, ‘The Steel Of Oman’ which celebrates Omani culture, sportsmanship and the growth of the nation. It is an ode to the country’s love for football, its traditions and customs while embracing its vivid future. 

20. Whisper’s ‘The Missing Chapter’ 

Whisper, the feminine care brand, launched a film titled, 'The Missing Chapter' as a part of its #KeepGirlsInSchool movement, in March 2022. The campaign film by Whisper was primarily designed to illustrate how a girl's lack of period education contributes to her missing school days, a situation exacerbated by the glaring absence of period education in Indian textbooks. The film aimed at addressing the brand's commitment to its flagship programme #KeepGirlsInSchool.

21. Zomato’s ‘Table for two’ made celebrities participate in food challenges

Zomato launched the one-of-its-kind chat show, ‘Table for two’, which consists of ten episodes wherein Sahiba Bali has a face-off with various prominent figures like The Great Khali, Alan Walker, Harrdy Sandhu, Armaan Malik, Viraj Ghelani, Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi etc. participating in various out-of-the-box food challenges.