ibibo, the company with deep pockets has been trying interesting ways to go viral. The first attempt was Rs. 1.5 crore blogging challenge, which was a major disaster and resulted in nothing more than spam (though ibibo got it’s seed user base from this campaign) .

Then, ibibo went ahead and bought tons of Google adwords and used cheesy advertising techniques, like ‘funny adult non-veg jokes’.

And now, the attempt is to attract the non-geeky users and seed viral adoption of the service with their newly launched “balti” TV commercials.
What has balti (i.e. bucket) to do with ibibo?

Typically, a person is usually labeled balti when he/she doesn’t respond to others and doesn’t have much to share (i.e. the boring/introvert ones). In short, balti is actually an anti-thesis of what ibibo is trying to promote, i.e. social networking.

ibibo balti

Each ibibo TVC ends with “Kuch log balti hote hain, aur balti nahin bolti, bolta hai India ibibo.com par” punchline, i.e. if you wanna meet non-baltis, hop to ibibo!

Well, so far so good - but let me ask you - Did you know the balti funda prior to this ad? I didn’t and none of my friends (even the ones from North) were aware of this - which essentially means that the seed of this viral campaign has basic flaws.

I actually logged onto ibibo’s site to find out the idea behind “balti gyaan” (which probably means more ‘baltis’ like me will add to ibibo’s traffic, which anyway is heading south!!)

What’s your take on ibibo’s balti ads? Did you discuss the ad (whether it’s good/bad/ugly) with somebody else (i.e. added to the viral campaign)?

I’d love to know.

Watch the ads here.