Mktg - Searching for adult content in India isn’t all 'jhingalala'

Kapil Ohri

And you thought that finally, here was something on the Internet for Indians who seek to relieve their sexual urges either through casual relationships or with soft porn. A newly set up website, AdultDost.com promises a basket of offerings for Indians seeking adult content on the Internet.

As was to be expected, the youth have already started sharing the website’s URL with friends through blogs and social networking sites. On the homepage of AdultDost.com, users can search for a partner or check the profiles of existing users, which are displayed as picture icons.

The appearance of AdultDost.com may lead regular pornography surfers on the Internet to draw parallels with AdultFriendFinder.com, an international website famous for helping its users find sex partners in their cities.


But in reality, AdultDost.com is not related to AdultFriendFinder.com at all and fails to meet the expectations of its users, especially when they try to use its services or click on any of the sexy pictures displayed on the homepage. A tongue in cheek effort, the website was developed by Tata Sky to create just such dissatisfaction and fool people and, in the process, also impart a lesson to youth who use the Internet for such purposes.

AdultDost.com is a part of a viral marketing campaign launched by Tata Sky, a direct-to-home service provider, to promote its value-added service called Actve Darshan, which enables live 'darshan' from various temples such as Shirdi Sai Baba, SiddhiVinayak, ISKCON and Kashi Vishwanath.

Whenever the user clicks to search for a partner or tries to check the profile of any of the existing users, a new webpage opens to show a young boy and a callout popup saying, “Yeh paap hai”. It then proceeds to deliver the brand message: “Ghar pe Tata Sky lao, achhe sanskaar pao”.

The campaign was conceptualised and executed by Media2Win, a Mumbai based interactive agency. Speaking to afaqs!, Krishna Kumar, chief executive officer, Media2Win, points out that the website is meant to fool people, cash in on the tendency of the youth to watch pornography on the Internet and then put forward the thought about the Actve Darshan service, rather than sell the service directly.

Kumar says, “Although watching porn is a popular activity on the Internet, Indian traditions consider watching pornography contrary to 'achhe sanskaar' (good moral values). It is generally believed that if a person follows a spiritual path, he will inculcate positive traits and attitudes. The idea is to teach people by example and the website has created a situation in which people are caught off guard. Then, the spiritual path is depicted by telling them that if they want to acquire 'achhe sanskaar', they should watch Active Darshan.”

In an email response to afaqs!, Vikram Mehra, chief marketing officer, Tata Sky, says, “We believe in using unconventional ways of showcasing the unique interactive applications on Tata Sky. Extending the success of our earlier campaigns across other media, we wanted to do something innovative and interesting online. The multidimensional nature of this campaign allows us to reach a wide audience and engage people in an entertaining manner.”

To spread the word about the website and Actve Darshan, Tata Sky has enabled users to email the URL or share it with their friends through social networking sites such as Facebook.com, Orkut.com and MySpace.com and through blogging platforms such as Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com.