The Economic Times reports that Unilever is planning to port the Sunsilk Gang of Girls concept internationally after its success in India. Apparently, the site has 2,50,000 registrations and 25,000 gangs, with around 200 million hits and gets 12-13 million page views every month. Apparently, the concept is also going to be ported to the rural areas (no clue on whether online or offline) as Sunsilk Sahelian.
The Gang of Girls initiative concept has been promoted using out-of-home, is also being pushed online and via TV and print, and it seems a lot of marketing muscle has been put behind it. Since it’s an example of a “successful branded space”, it invariably gets mentioned in the media. It seems to me that the site primarily targets the younger lot, who have very few spaces to call their own online, since most social networking spaces are inhabited by young adults. Just a thought - how is HLL monitoring content and interaction on the site, since even MySpace has had issues related to paedophilia.