The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2013–2015
HUL's Kan Khajura Tesan turns missed calls into free rural radio — 8M subscribers
HUL turns the missed call into a free mobile radio channel for media-dark rural India — 12M listeners, Spikes 2015 Grand Prix.
Hindustan Unilever
What it had to solve
Traditional media reached only 20% of Bihar and Jharkhand, power cuts made TV useless, but 86% of the target community owned mobiles and used missed calls to save talk time. HUL needed share of voice for Wheel, Close Up and Pond's.
How it works
In Bihar and Jharkhand, home to more than 137 million people, traditional media reached only about 20% of the population: daily power cuts made TV useless and few households had sets. But 86% of the target community owned a mobile phone, and the dominant local habit was saving talk time by giving 'missed calls' — dialling and hanging up.
Hindustan Unilever made that habit its media channel. Kan Khajura Tesan ('the earworm channel') was a toll-free dial-in radio station: users gave a missed call, got an instant call-back, and received 15-minute capsules of Bollywood music, jokes and movie news woven around ads for Wheel, Close Up and Pond's — up to 60 free minutes a month.
Within six months the channel passed eight million subscribers and became the biggest entertainment platform in the two states; by March 2014 it had 12 million subscribers, 103 million ad impressions and 125 million listening minutes, at a cost per contact under four cents. Spontaneous awareness rose 56% for Pond's, 39% for Close Up and 20% for Wheel.
The idea also travelled through the award books: three Gold Lions at Cannes 2014, the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2015, and first place in WARC's 2015 ranking of the world's best marketing campaigns.
Why it lands
- It used an existing, free behaviour — the missed call — instead of asking rural consumers to learn new technology or pay for content.
- The 'radio' format met a real entertainment need (music), making HUL's ads the programming rather than an interruption.
- By building its own channel with operators and content partners, Unilever owned a medium it could not buy, at under $0.04 per contact.
- The 15-minute capsule and call-back mechanic created repeat usage, giving the brands 125 million minutes of listening in under a year.
What it did
Eight million subscribers in six months, 12 million in under ten months, 103M+ ad impressions by March 2014; spontaneous awareness up 56% (Pond's), 39% (Close Up), 20% (Wheel) at under $0.04 per contact. It also won three Cannes 2014 Gold Lions, the Spikes Asia 2015 Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix and WARC's 2015 world's best campaign ranking.
What you can take
When the media environment can't reach your audience, don't buy more of it — build a channel out of a behaviour they already have, and make the ad the content they came for.
Since then
HUL scaled KKT from Bihar and Jharkhand into Uttar Pradesh, and the platform later claimed more than 700 million minutes of entertainment and 425 million brand-message plays. It became the reference case for 'media-dark' marketing, ranked the world's best campaign of 2015 by WARC, and helped make the missed call a standard marketing mechanic across India — from payments to public campaigns. It also showed that a consumer-goods company could operate like a media owner, a lesson Unilever carried into later mobile-first work across emerging markets.
Sources
- MMA Case Study Hub — Hindustan Unilever: Kan Khajura Tesan
- Spikes Asia 2015 Winners List
- PHD Scoops 24 Awards at Cannes Lions
- WARC 100: Unilever campaign crowned 'world's best'
- Kaan Khajura Teshan — Innovative Use of Technology
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