Changes in Indian Ad Sphere- Tata Tea, CondomCondom and Anil Ambani Group's Media Campaign

Typically one sees the role of advertisements in persuading the consumer to buy a product or a service, but this, though a dominant view is in many ways a limited view also, because the advertisements is a form of communication which can be used to even to promote an idea or just inform people and we can see many examples of this in the Indian market today.

Most of what we see on TV sets today falls into the pure-selling end of the spectrum and the obvious is not what would interest people, but here are the exceptions ....

In the recent past we have seen ads being used to promote ideas and inducing change in habits like the one on usage of condom , by BBC world service trust . I had written earlier about the campaign too (link) and the website also shares the impact of the ads, quite an interesting read, link . Similarly there is the Bell Bajao Campaign against domestic violence.

The recent campaigns of Tata tea "Jaagoo Re Campaign" falls somewhere in between the pure-selling and 100% philanthropy. They have a series of ads, which started with issue of increasing awareness among youth towards voting, to the latest one against corruption in the country. Now though these campaigns are not directly about the tea, but the product also makes an entry into the ad, though at a later stage.

The third category of ads, like the one being used by the Anil Ambani Group, where they have made use of large press ads to question the issue of costs involved in developing Krishna Godawari (KG) gas basin by RIL. Through these ads they are trying to share their side of the story with the common man and somehow also bring him into the equation. These kinds of campaigns have been done in the past , when companies have felt the need to share their perspective with common man, as was done by the Private Airline operators in the country some time back.

Though these kind of ads form a very small part of the ad world but I think they show the versatility of the purpose of advertisements.....

Tata Tea and Jaago Re Initiative

I have been trying to document cases wherein marketing principles have been applied to non-typical contexts in India. One of the more recent cases which I had observed and documented was the promotion of the usage of condom . The campaign is is very well designed with website , games, mobile ring tones and a mass media campaign all revolving round the concept. link to my earlier post.

In today's post I would try to document two more similar on-going initiatives. The first is the Jaago Re campaign in which they are promoting voter registration across the country and targeting the younger generation of first time voters. The campaign revolves around their website http://www.jaagore.com/ which facilities the process of voter registration by enabling voter registration online for the first time in the country. The website claims to be a 'one-stop-solution to all your voting needs'. And they have managed to get 320,000 youngsters registered through the website.

This campaign is also unique as it is being promoted jointly by an NGO 'Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, and a corporate 'Tata Tea". Tata tea is providing the funding needed to run the mass media campaign and leveraging the concept Jagoo Re to differentiate their tea brands. According to the company the campaign is a good fit to their attempt to umbrella brand all their tea brands. It seems like a win-win situation , with the brand leveraging a social cause for promoting its brand and the cause getting the funding it needs.

Link to the two TV being in the initiative 1st ad & 2nd ad

The second campaign which I have noticed in the Bell Bajao Campaign , which is a campaign which urges people to take a stand against domestic violence. This TV and radio campaign has a strong back up with the website, http://www.bellbajao.org/. The links to various TV ads used,

Testimonial Ad, link

More in the series, Ball ad, Milk ad

It is good see the wider application of marketing in areas of social and societal concern, hopefully this would just be the beginning .................