The entrepreneurial bug began nearly 2 decades ago when Hetin Sakhuja started IMT – a technology company to develop software, mobile solutions, and web related products. A few years thereafter, he got into the advertising agency business, offering creative, media planning and buying for traditional media and later for the digital space too.
The expertise built in previous business placed Hetin in a good stead, to pool in the talent and resources, and innovate this app called Lucky Stars.
Lucky Stars app is a contest-based gaming app and an e-commerce platform under development. With over more than 80,000 users this startup set to gain the initial traction within 3 months of launch.
It has already declared over 1400 winners who have won valuable, branded gifts like smart televisions, smart phones, smart and lifestyle watches, gold coin, two-wheeler, and cameras, among other equally interesting products.
Lucky Stars app is an apt ‘advertising & promotional platform’ for marketers to showcase their products to their target audiences, in a highly engaging manner, across geographies.
The brand has multiple contest platforms within the same app, depending upon the value of the ‘prize product’ and duration of the contest.
Lucky Stars app is based on a Q&A framework of one or more questions related to the prize product or a G K trivia, with a Yes/No and multiple choice option answers. This simplicity of usage and the valuable gifts as prize products has been one of the main reasons for the success of the Lucky Stars app.
India is a youth driven country with nearly 65% of the growing population below the age of 35 years. There are over 204 million active smart phone users and by 2020, this number is estimated to grow to over 700 million active users. At present, nearly, 78% of the total internet users in India have access to the internet on their mobile phones.
As per gaming data for India, the youth between the age group of 25 – 34 years, lead the brigade with nearly 35% amongst other age bands. For nearly 85% of all gamers, the average age is 44 years.
Mobile advertising in India is also on an exponential growth path with an estimated expenditure of close to $242.6 mn in 2016, marking a 100% growth compared to the previous year and is expected to reach $1.2 bn by 2020 and this rise can be attributed to many parameters like increased mobile penetration across the nation, low data prices, affordable smart phones, 4G services and availability of all services in the form of apps.
The growth of m-commerce in India has led many marketers to adopt a ‘mobile-only- strategy’ for brand promotions.
The smartphone has changed the way we live. The youth, today, is well aware and informed about events across the globe. Traditional practices are falling short of audiences, and marketers are continuously looking for newer options that are informative, interesting, measurable and engaging with the youth. Mobile driven campaigns have been far more effective than traditional practices.
Every new venture has its own challenges and it’s fine as long as they are addressed and we don’t lose sight of the goal. However, Lucky Stars is in a relatively new category – ‘Contest-driven Mobile Apps’, that is still nascent and yet to be fully defined and developed. And that’s where the big challenge lies because there are no established benchmarks or learnings one can follow. So, in a way, they’re actually taking a leadership position in shaping the category.
The Lucky Stars app has been able to maintain a high degree of simplicity of use while delivering an enjoyable user experience. There’s a fair amount of variety in the types of lucky draws, not to mention the high-end gifts offered as prizes, which is the clincher that is drawing huge numbers to get on to the app.
Being still in phase-1, there are big plans afloat, which will heighten brand engagement, both, from users and marketers alike.
Lucky Stars will soon launch its e-commerce platform. At present, the app charges a small fee along with the displayed product from the Brand, for the usage of its platform, depending upon the contest duration.
Once the e-commerce platform is launched, contestants will get an opportunity to purchase the displayed products at a lower retail cost on the Lucky Stars platform, besides of course the chance to win it through the contest.
Simultaneously, Hetin will also launch a Loyalty program for instant user gratification based on user interaction with the Lucky Stars app and every action on the app, from logging on to entering a contest, allows the user to accumulate points which are redeemable against the product/s on the e-commerce platform.
This will allow winners to earn points against product gifts won, if they are not interested in claiming the gifts. These points too can be redeemed for products on the e-commerce platform.
“Creating and building a business from scratch is all fine, but when my vision is shared and enjoyed by the team and all those in the company, it gives me a deep sense of achievement and drives me forward,” says Hetin.
Hetin Sakhuja, Director – Interactive Max Tech Private Limited said “Lucky Stars is a simple platform that allows its users to win expensive & branded gifts without any riders or conditions. The app has generated a tremendous and encouraging response from across India and we will soon be launching additional features that will make the application more interesting for the registered users,”
The Lucky Stars app is designed as an advertising platform for brand owners to promote their products through sponsorship.
The app provides brand owners with live audience participation from across the nation, higher brand recall factor due to the duration of the contest &in-app communications along with audience metrics to understand the promotional effectiveness and reach.
“Lucky Stars app is a highly effective brand-consumer interaction platform as it engages the brand with the audience through information based contest. With over 90% daily user participation and audience metrics for campaign effectiveness, brands will not get a more organic platform to connect with their audience as users are keenly participating and expecting to win them on the app” added Mr. Sakhuja.
