The Mahindra Mojo Striptease Continues

A few days ago I got an email from a digital advertising agency representing Mahindra asking if I was willing to take part in a marketing campaign promoting a video featuring the Mojo, a motorcycle that’s been delayed so long that people are wondering whether it will ever be launched. They spoke about a Twitter engagement where I would need to tweet three times on a particular day promoting the video. In return they offered to pay me for the tweets. They even sent me sample tweets that I could tweak to my satisfaction.

I found it a little weird because firstly, why would I want to tweet the link to the same video three times on the same day to all my 3,600+ Twitter followers? If they had three videos then yes, three tweets would make sense. And more importantly, I don’t appreciate people telling me what to tweet.

I know how PR and marketing companies work. In an earlier life I was part of the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software media and have been flown around the world, put up in fancy hotels, wined and dined with senior executives and interviewed them for my blog at www.deelip.com. I remember one of the PR folks paying me a compliment when he said, “When I start read your blog post, I never know which way you are going to go. Whether you are going to praise our product or trash it.” I used to review CAD software back then and I firmly believed in giving the devil his due. I mean, just because someone is paying for your flight ticket, visa, hotel, meals and taking you to fancy places for entertainment, it doesn’t mean you write what they want. You should write what you want because as media, you have a responsibility towards your readers. They are most probably going to make buying decisions and form opinions of a product depending on what you write about it.

Anyways, coming back to the Mojo video, today was the day of the marketing campaign and this is what I tweeted. Just once. 🙂

You can see the video here

The video is more about the logo and less about the motorcycle. That’s because Mahindra is launching just the logo today and not the motorcycle. Maybe in a week they will publish another video to launch the key or some other part of the motorcycle. Pointless, in my opinion. Whichever marketing genius has crafted this campaign should be wise enough to know that after waiting for years, people are really not interested in this striptease. Just launch the damn motorcycle and be done with it.

Mahindra’s digital advertising agency isn’t pleased with my tweet. I know this because I got a call from the agency letting me know that. I politely told them to bother me only when the Mojo, the motorcycle and not some insignificant part of it, is actually launched. Something tells me they are never going to bother me ever again. 🙂