This is arguably my best work till date. As part of the ‘Responsible Traveler’ initiative for MakeMyTrip we created a website where users can scribble their love on famous Indian monuments without destroying their beauty. The insight was simple. When honeymooners and lovers go sightseeing they often feel the need to immortalize their love by scribbling on the monuments. So we thought, why not give them a chance to vandalize the online avatars of these monuments…
CLICK TO VIEW THE WEBSITE
Creative Brief
India’s leading travel portal MakeMyTrip.com was keen to build on its Responsible Traveler http://www.responsibletraveler.in/ initiative and generate awareness for ‘travelling with a conscience’ through an interactive execution online
Strategy/Concept
When Indian honeymooners, couples and lovers go traveling & sightseeing, they often feel the need to ‘immortalize’ their love on the walls of historic/ heritage monuments. Instead of preaching to them or punishing them, we ideated a unique concept to offer these lovelorn couples a better, more responsible alternative.
The Amar Prem website was created as a place where couples/users could immortalize their love on historic Indian monuments without leaving their seats or destroying an actual heritage site. It’s a call to all the eternal lovers and ‘Aashiques’ of the worlds to come engrave their love on famous monuments across India. No renovation work would ever erase their love doodles on these virtual monuments, so the real ones could be spared.
Our strategy was to educate and urge people not to damage historical monuments, but instead take these urges out on virtual incarnations.
Execution
Upon landing on the microsite, users are prompted to make a selection from a choice of three famous heritage sites – the Taj Mahal, Humayun’s Tomb and Charminar. With a stunning life-like image of the monument, users can then choose an appropriate spot by zooming in and out of the frontal view, and start doodling their message picking from a palette of colors, brush styles and other usual suspects such as heart-shapes, cupid’s arrow, flower and butterfly imprints to embellish their designs.
Once finished, users are prompted to save their beautiful creations, and are reminded to preserve the beauty of heritage properties by not defacing them.
Impact
Amar Prem has received immense traction and visibility not only on the microsite itself but also through other social channels such as Facebook, Orkut, Twitter etc. There are already several thousand visitors to the website and over a few hundred scribbles recorded. Due to its high user-engagement value, the site is bound to go viral and attract millions of views as it gains more popularity.