Responses received from close to 200 colleges across India
CNN-News18 announced the successful conclusion of its campaign ‘If I were FM Challenge’ that received overwhelming participation from viewers. The campaign also targeted students across the country who participated in the campaign in large numbers. Conceived as a platform to enable viewers to share their suggestions for this year’s Union Budget, the campaign’s success can be gauged by the fact that it received entries from close to 200 colleges.
The campaign was extensively promoted on-air as well as on social media. The promotion of the campaign on social / digital platforms drove 5.9 million impressions on Facebook. The campaign also involved outreach to colleges, both directly and through partners. The microsite developed for the campaign registered around 61,000 page views over a period of 5 days during which the campaign was live.
A rigorous process was set up to evaluate and judge the entries involving both a knowledge partner as well as the channel’s editorial team. Ms. Trisha Ghosh from BITS Mesra emerged as the winner in the ‘Students’ category’. Mr. Hemendra Varma from Mumbai was declared the winner in the ‘General Public’ category for his suggestion on Income Tax. Both winners got a chance to feature on the channel’s main Budget Day programming.
Speaking about her experience after winning the contest, Ms. Ghosh said, “I am very excited and feel privileged to come and share my thoughts with the people of my country.” Mr. Varma also expressed his views and said, “It’s a great feeling not only because I won but because budget is something I have been pursuing for more than 30 years now and I thank CNN-News18 for giving me a platform to share my thoughts on the same.”