Objective
Visit Bengal during the 10-day Puja period and the sheer vibrancy, fervour and joie de vivre in the environment will stun you. And such an experience begs to be broadcast to a larger number of people who can enjoy it from their armchairs. The motive behind launching such a website was to portray online the daily rituals, color, excitement and vibrancy of the Durga Puja festival; to provide a platform which would enable visitors from all around the world to relate to the events happening somewhere in West Bengal; and to allow for contributions from and interactions between visitors worldwide. ABP also wanted to keep the site ‘alive’ and updated on a minute-by-minute basis. It sought to eventually convert a time-bound micro-site into a revenue generator.

Solution
Extensive use of Flash allowed iridium Interactive (ii) to generate clips of actual activities and daily rituals during the Puja period. Visitors from anywhere in the world could post pictures of Puja pandals on the site. Various images of the rituals were updated on a daily basis for the entire period of the puja.
The site did not stop at just visuals. In a bid to be interactive and creative, it also innovatively incorporated Puja-inspired games, greeting cards, Puja songs, and recipes by the chefs of some of Kolkata’s famous hotels and restaurants. To reinforce the Bengali feel and aura, even the screen savers and wallpapers have been designed and created by Bengal’s finest artists, all downloadable onto a mobile phone.
A complete section has been devoted to the legend of Durga. It talks about the Goddess’s triumph in a unique and non-conventional way that would appeal to the young.

Results
iridium has created a forceful platform for the worldwide online broadcast of the Durga Puja celebrations. The site initially started out as a short-term one that would run for 3 months. However, because of strong demand and interest in the site, it is now live around the year. The sheer liveliness, color and up-to-date persona of the site attracted over 10 million hits in a 15-day period! These high volumes have transformed the site into a value-added and cost-effective advertising channel. Consequently, there is now a high demand and competition for advertising space and marketing messages on the site.
ii designed and created this site that transcends geographical boundaries, to bring the cultural phenomenon of Kolkata to the world, and to unite the worldwide Bengali Diaspora. Ananda Utsav is now a global brand allowing ABP to reach a wider audience.
“Perhaps anandautsav.com helped the global Bengali community to get the truest feel of the Pujas. The fact that this true-blue essence of the Puja could be accessible from the comfort of their homes must have added to the site’s popularity,” an ABP source remarked.

About ii
iridium Interactive Limited (ii) specializes in providing online business solutions. With a presence across three continents, it has been at the forefront in integrating strategy, design and technology to build unique and robust user-centric e-business solutions. At ii, a holistic approach is adopted towards complex business problems to arrive at a complete solution. ii’s talented team has worked on a variety of disciplines for a multitude of clients drawn from various industries, and has a number of award-winning works to its credit. ii offers it services in the areas of interactive marketing, web marketing, e-learning, enterprise consulting and web accessibility initiatives.

Anandabazar Patrika Puja website, www.anandautsav.com, which has been conceptualized and designed by iridium Interactive has been a major hit with the Bengali community; the website pocketed a cool 10 million hits in only 15 days.

Between October 15 and October 25, about 1 lakh Internet users from across the world had visited this website. This year’s innovative attractions and exciting features attributed to the good show put up by the website. “Perhaps, anandautsav.com helped the global Bengali community to get the truest feel of the Pujas. The fact that this true-blue essence of the Puja could be accessible from the comfort of their homes must have added to the site’s popularity,” an ABP source said.

The website is a unique presentation from the ABP group – one of the largest media publishing groups in India and a quintessentially Bengali institution. The site, launched in 2003, had received a large number of hits especially from non-resident Bengalis in the US and Europe even last year. This year, however, all previous records have been broken. The hits poured in from all over the world, which included a huge number of visitors from various parts of India, including Kolkata. This is the second year in a row that iridium Interactive has designed this website.

So, what was the secret of the website’s success? ABP sources said, it had to do with the group’s understanding of what Puja means to a Bengali. “Puja is not just a crazy Bengali religious thing. It’s a festival that transcends all boundaries of religion, affluence, creed or class. It’s a festival that touches everyone in Bengal with its unique fervor and spirit. It’s a time of the year when every Bengali, wherever in the world s/he is, thinks of home and wants to be a part of the celebrations,” executives associated with the website said.

The website has photographs of Durga Pujas from across the world. So, just the way a Bengali Parisian can see the celebrations at Ekdalia or Mohammed Ali Park – localities in Calcutta famous for their pandals and idols, someone from Siliguri can enjoy the Pujas at San Francisco.

The website has other attractions as well. For example, a section called Pujor Paanch Din (five days of Pujas) has an audiovisual on the Puja mass-frenzy from all over Calcutta. Visitors can get a first-hand feel of the sights, sounds and colours of the festival from Shashthi (the first day of the Durga Puja, as practiced in Bengal) to Dashami (the last day). One can also browse through Puja news collected by ABP’s journalists from other parts of the world.

For Bengali patrons interested in downloading goodies from the Internet, anandautsav.com has catchy ringtones and logos for mobile phones; and images, screensavers and wallpapers for desktops. To bring the Puja flavour into the Bengali kitchen, the website offers authentic traditional (and arguably mouth-watering too) Bengali recipes. For children, it has a special section called Majaroo where kids can enjoy animated movies and take part in fun games.

The Bijoya greetings section has greetings cards featuring artworks designed by renowned artists from Kolkata. In short, the website has almost everything that a Bengali needs to be part of the festivities.

The 2004 version of the site was launched just after the Mahalaya around mid-October. Unlike last year, the ABP group has decided to extend the tenure of the website beyond the usual three months and make it a permanent feature. “We felt it’s a great idea to keep the Durga Puja revelry alive till the next season. Now, which Bengali isn’t going to love that?” the source quipped.