Yahoo! India Answers in association with Hindustan Unilever Limited has made rapid strides in the area of Social Media. Even as user-generated content on the Internet continues to grow in popularity, both companies have extended the model of Yahoo! Answers to an offline format. Yahoo! India joined hands with HUL’s Dove to launch the Dove Haircare Range in May 2007. Yahoo! India Answers was chosen as the property that would be the launch pad of this initiative and both companies created the world’s first Branded Knowledge Video Search.

The Yahoo! India camera crew went across 3 cities – Mumbai, Delhi & Bangalore – asking women questions on hair care. In a span of 9 days, over 250 women were interviewed and 1,000 minutes of footage recorded. The results of this initiative have been staggering. Launched on May 16, 2007, users spent over 830,000 minutes on the dove promo site of which close to 69,000 minutes were spent only on viewing videos. Over 2000 answers were posted by Yahoo! users, making this the largest ever branded campaign on Yahoo! India Answers.

Commenting on the success of this campaign as well as getting brands to leverage on Social Media, Pearl Uppal, Director Sales, Yahoo! India said “The success of this campaign is a result of not only Yahoo!’s endeavour to deliver the best of the digital world to our clients, but also the faith that advertisers like HUL place in us. While the medium holds great potential and we will continue our role as evangelizer, advertisers remain the key in actually converting our belief into campaign performance.”

Rahul Welde, General Manager Media, HUL, said “The Dove campaign is a fine example ofwhatinternetcan deliverto the brand.Theexclusiveinitiative with Yahoo! India also shows how the power of the internet medium can be harnessed. Yahoo! India developed and executed a compellingsolution in responseto what was a very open ended brief.We are very excited with the idea and the results and arelooking forwardto manyinitiatives withYahoo! India”

Created and hosted by Yahoo! India, it was the first time a destination for a brand was created within an existing property.

While the responses were hosted on the Dove Promo site http://in.promos.yahoo.com/answers/dove/index.html, questions on hair care were posted on Yahoo! India Answers in addition to the video answers. Users could not only view the videos, but post their answers to the Dove questions as well.

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About Yahoo! India

Yahoo! India (www.yahoo.co.in), launched in June 2000, has established itself as the pioneering and leading Internet portal providing value added services for Web users in India and users abroad with special interest in India.

Yahoo! India seeks to provide online products and services essential to users' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users globally. It presents a deep array of communications, commerce and content services that include Yahoo! India Mail, Yahoo! India Search, Yahoo! India Messenger, Yahoo! India Finance, Yahoo! India Chat, Yahoo! India Photos, Yahoo! India Answers, Yahoo! India News and Yahoo! India Search Marketing.

About Hindustan Unilever Ltd

HUL is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians. HUL's mission is to "add vitality to life" through its presence in over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. The company meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care, with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life.