When ad agencies become agents of change without advertiser backing
exchange4media spoke to four agency leaders who went the extra mile to spread awareness in public interest through ads and innovative platforms
In the past four months of the lockdown, we have seen a barrage of ads from responsible brands selling a wide range of products like Paints, FMCG, Mobiles, electronics etc, who have come out with campaigns in the public interest. But of late, we have also seen the big network agencies going the extra mile to come up with such awareness creating ads and innovative platforms to serve the needy, using multiple media vehicles to reach out to the mass audiences without any funding from any client. Some of these ads are playing on TV, Radio along with Digital channels. Exchange4media spoke to four such agency leaders to find out how distinctively are they going about spreading these messages in public interest.
Ogilvy’s Kaano Par Zimmedari
Ogilvy recently came up with three sets of videos which appear to be addressing the Hindi heartland in its tonality but intends to target the entire country with a basic message that says – Wear masks to be safe. With colourful caricatures and very catchy lyrics like Gorakhpur ka gattu banaye mrs ke gown se, kannauj wali panditayan Mr ki Pant se, kaano par jo zimmedari hai who log bakhubi nibha rahe hai, toh aap mask kyu nahi laga rahe, Ogilvy drives the point home and leaves you with a smile. Talking about why Ogilvy decided to shoulder the responsibility of spreading the message alone without any outside advertiser/ brand’s funding, Piyush Pandey, Worldwide CCO, Ogilvy says, “You forgot that Ogilvy is also a brand. We are as much a part of the country. We may not have millions of dollars to put in but we have people who have ideas, who have talent, we have our pens and can make it happen. We wanted to contribute and this was our duty to try and do something alone.”
Talking about how they went about promoting it, Pandey says, “We are very fortunate that Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgn launched and shared our videos on their social media handles. As far as mass media is concerned, we are very grateful to Zee Entertainment and to ABP who ran it free of cost on their channels. And both have run it quite nicely, not at 2 o'clock at night just to please us. They have shared with us the charts on how many times and at what time they have aired the video to give it visibility and I'm indebted to them for supporting this. Just imagine how many millions of people in smaller cities have been able to see this. If anyone wants to take forward the idea, I would say go ahead. It is not about ownership of an idea, the more the merrier.”
Lowe Lintas’ Kaam Wapasi
Another very innovative idea came from Lowe Lintas which took two months from inception to launch and sought to address the problem of livelihood of the migrant workers who were forced to leave the cities owing to the pandemic. With unlock happening in stages, the agency thought it may become difficult for the businesses to re-open if these workers didn’t get back to their jobs. This is when Prateek Bhardwaj, CCO-Lowe Lintas came up with the idea of creating an online platform to bring migrant workers and employers together and help match skills to jobs. The agency scouted around to see if there was any existing platform and when they found there wasn’t, they decided to make it themselves.
Elaborating on it further, Virat Tandon, Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group says, “When Prateek shared the idea with me, it instinctively felt that this was a very important need for the society as well as for businesses. It’s not the kind of work we usually do and so there was no specific client brief here. We also felt that this was not something affecting just a single client. But, we knew that if we joined hands with a few like-minded corporates, we could not just help the migrant workers get the livelihood back, but also help businesses get back on their feet faster.”
The agency is using an integrated approach to promote the platform--from PR to influencers to TVC, digital videos, OBD and text messages on mobile, radio and social media—they have prepared assets for all platforms. Tandon adds, “So, between Amer, Prateek, Shantanu and I, we shared this idea with a few corporates and we got great response. A few of them, such as Zee Network, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Radio City and Razorpod hopped on board immediately and are helping with resources such as airtime, mobile marketing, providing access to their MSME customers and managing the platform. So, we are not at all alone in this venture. It’s a beautiful co-operative of like-minded corporates, with the Lowe Lintas team at the centre playing the role of governing it. Since launch we are getting encouragement and support from many more corporates and NGOs. One big area where more corporates can contribute is to put up their job listing on kaamwapasi.com. By the way, Kaamwapasi is just one of the several proactive initiatives we are driving this year. All emanating from the thinking that we should do whatever we can as a strategy and creative community in order to help the economy get back on its feet faster.”
FCB Ulka’s Kranti Lockdown #2020
For FCB Ulka, the idea was to create an impact and bring about a tangible difference in the lives of Sex Workers. During Lockdown people spoke about the health care workers, migrants, labourers… almost everyone. But they ignored one section of society, the existence of the section that people rarely want to admit to—The Sex Workers.
But for them it was not always the plan to go alone with the campaign. Surjo Dutt, NCD, FCB Ulka whose brainchild it was explains, “Initially the plans were to partner with a brand. But the brand had to back out because speaking about Sex Workers is still taboo. The clock was ticking, it was literally a life or death situation. The NGO we partnered with required funds to help these women, and so, we decided to release the campaign independently so that these women, these families, they could get all the help they needed at the time.”
Surjo Dutt put together a team of four, with Surjo in the lead, partnered by Moumita Pal (Creative Director), Arun Rawat (Associate Creative Director) and Shreya Shah (Sr. Copywriter) Despite all the challenges, the agency went on to promote the campaign independently, Dutt explains, “That’s the best bit - we had no investment! When it comes to a fund raising campaign, money is of utmost importance. If our client, Kranti, had the money, they wouldn’t be in need of a fundraising campaign. We asked Ketto to get us on board, published an article or two, shared the campaign on our social media pages and that’s about it. And Trina Talukdar, the co-founder of Kranti was very instrumental in helping this film see the light of the day.”
The team raised enough money to successfully serve 17,500 fresh meals and also supplied 3000 families with groceries and medical supplies for a month! That’s roughly 18,000 people. All with no monetary investment… just the time and effort of four people from one agency.
Wunderman Thompson’s The Hidden Truth
An entirely unexpected side-effect of the lockdown that had not really come to light was a silent struggle waged inside the home against an all too familiar enemy- domestic abuse. Priya Shivakumar, National Creative Director, Wunderman Thompson, India explains why she picked the subject, “I think while domestic abuse is a sensitive subject when it is the reality faced by a woman, whoever she may be, wherever she lives, whatever strata of society she may come from, it needs to be voiced and it needs to be heard. That’s what makes this a powerful subject and an important one. And we delivered this in a real and sensitive portrayal of the times, with a strong yet vulnerable character, and a narrative that was strong, honest and cinematic.”
The film The Hidden Truth conceived and written by her counted on the power of the idea to have people share and forward it so that it reached as many as possible. The film was shared with media, promoted across Wunderman Thompson’s social channels, and forwarded on WhatsApp thereby garnering a good deal of earned media coverage.
Shivakumar elaborates, “This was a passion project for us with the idea leading the way every step of the way. We felt like we had something important to say and we wanted women everywhere to hear it and benefit from it. That’s why we took the decision to do it ourselves. Good Morning Films partnered us in making the film for this worthy cause, with Shashanka Chaturvedi or Bob as he is fondly called, directing it. So, for everyone involved this was an idea we invested a lot of heart in, as a way to do something for a cause we believed in during these testing times.”
