Adopt-a-pothole is a project by Apollo Tyres for the road safety, to engage and empower people to fix their roads, one pot hole at a time.

Potholes were projected as lovable stray pets who needed someone to care for them. Through the adopt-a-pothole website, citizens could upload, adopt and share their pet potholes and if they could get the requisite number of tweets or posts from friends on social media, Apollo would fix the pothole for them and the fixed pothole would always bear the name of the adopter.

Apollo through this activity managed to create goodwill among consumers and showed them how committed they were to their YOU-FIRST Philosophy.

The response in social media has been phenomenal, given that the conversation spread across India for an initiative in Gurgaon. Uninitiated inquiries from journos who took the effort to cover the campaign has been remarkable, with almost all major dailies covering it. For a campaign only two months old the feedback has been huge. What’s more, all of this response has been generated through a media spend of less than Rs. 50,000 (around 700 Euros only)

Apollo one of India’s premier tyre manufacturers wanted to do something that would engage the youth, promote the safety of the people and strengthen their image of being a Consumer-First company, an attitude that is encompassed in their YOU-FIRST Philosophy.

We saw an opportunity in the condition of the roads, namely the Potholes as a problem that needed a voice.

In just the first 3 weeks of the campaign, it gathered 3.9 million impressions, received 6000 likes and achieved a click to conversion ratio of 61.5%. The roads in Gurgaon, one of urban India’s cities are looking a little more pothole free. And adopt-a-pothole is ready to spread across India.

Soon social media was abuzz with conversations about how a friend had adopted a pothole and was calling out for 25 supporters to get it fixed. Potholes that got fixed, got posted on social media with proud doting parents next to their little piece of road.

The graffiti themselves spread the word acting as non-traditional media for people to get attention and this generated more traffic to the adopt-a-pothole website.

The roads in Gurgaon, one of urban India’s bustling cities are looking a little more pothole free and have some bright patches that you can smoothly drive over.

We have till date fixed 21 potholes, more are awaiting supports but what is amazing is that against this number, an unprecedented response has been generated with newspaper articles, social media conversations and more than 6600 likes on Facebook already.

The response in social media has been phenomenal, given that the conversation spread across India for an initiative in Gurgaon. Uninitiated inquiries from journos who took the effort to cover the campaign has been remarkable, with almost all major dailies covering it. For a campaign only two months old the feedback has been huge. What’s more, all of this response has been generated through a media spend of less than Rs. 50,000 (around 700 Euros only)

Adopt a pothole is an activity that projects these potholes as stray pets that need love and care and invites people to adopt them and pay for their upkeep in digital currency.

So a few Facebook posts and tweets from 25 friends would get Apollo to fix the pothole and leave a little message on your fixed pet. Making sure your name and your deed were immortalized for the days to come.

If every citizen could adopt one pothole and get people talking, we were pretty sure we would fix all the potholes in the city.

The Great Indian Pothole is one of the most glaring and obvious problems of urban India. While citizens fret and fume as they ‘off-road’ through them and grumble at authorities, nobody seems to find a way to repair these roads

The strategy was to Engage and Empower the youth to fix their roads, one pot hole at a time and not wait for civic authorities to do it.

It was something that was relevant to the category and would also take up an issue that has been nagging Indians for ages.

Here was a chance to take all the frustration of driving bumpy dusty Indian roads and channelize it into something positive.