Social media marketing is a common trend these days with companies paying "ïnfluencers" to tweet with their hashtag. But when it comes to one of India's biggest industrial houses, nothing short of having everyone tweet about their 4G network soft launch would do. And they did.
Last night, Reliance Industries Limited did an employee-only launch event of their 4G network Jio. The event, which was attended by 35,000 employees and their families, had performances by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and music composer AR Rahman. But what made it really big was the "excitement" displayed by celebrities on Twitter, who all sent out tweets congratulating the company for the launch.
There was one problem -- almost all the tweets had the exact same text. The celebrities included some of India's biggest Bollywood stars, including Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Karan Johar, as well as sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar and Sania Mirza.
Ready for the JIO ride.Starting with Isha Akash & Anant. We will all be connected intelligently now.#CelebratingJio pic.twitter.com/xDMMYED9Da— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) December 27, 2015
T 2094 - Congratulations to Team Jio .. this is truly the beginning of Digital India .. #celebratingjio .. pic.twitter.com/0k5qZ5YAAc— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) December 27, 2015
Congratulations to the Jio family on this important day! Wishing Jio all the very best in enabling a Digital India #CelebratingJio— Aamir Khan (@aamir_khan) December 27, 2015
Congratulations to Akash and isha and the entire JIO family.The digital age of India is here #CelebratingJio.— Varun Veer Dhawan (@Varun_dvn) December 27, 2015
Celebration time !! Congrats to the Jio family on this landmark day! This truly seems like the beginning of a Digital India #CelebratingJio— Sania Mirza (@MirzaSania) December 27, 2015
Congratulations to the Jio family on this landmark day! This truly seems like the beginning of a Digital India #CelebratingJio— Sonakshi Sinha (@sonakshisinha) December 27, 2015
Congratulations to the Jio family on this landmark day! This truly seems like the beginning of a Digital India #CelebratingJio— Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) December 27, 2015
Jio was the top trend on Twitter yesterday and today. This publicity blitz didn't go unnoticed. Several Twitter users highlighted why the social media trend was so strange.
Maybe Reliance Jio is so amazing that every celeb had the same reaction to it. Or they are just trolling Mukeshbhai pic.twitter.com/Foy1ZU0e5h— IndiaExplained (@IndiaExplained) December 28, 2015
When Real Celebs tweets like Bots to trend #CelebratingJio pic.twitter.com/wgqoKpz2oY— Dhaval Patel (@dhaval241086) December 28, 2015
Wow! 1,000 twitter celebs have come out of hibernation to tweet about 4G & all suck at not being obvious. Congratulations! #CelebratingJio— Tanvi (@sinpulsive) December 27, 2015