Being socially relevant is also a way of selling. Thankfully, after spending a decade in the industry, I have found that more and more marketers are willing to be socially relevant and do all it takes to make a brand stand out.
Few days back, I was fortunate to launch a campaign for Roca. With #CleanYourHeart, Roca and We Are Water Foundation India has made a powerful point on a unique facet of open defecation. The digital film brings to forefront a prominent issue faced by millions of domestic helps every day, i.e. ‘access to toilet’.
The digital film addresses the stigma that many domestic helps in India continue to face i.e. the lack of access to household toilets in households/families they work for. Even the most progressive Indian households are hypocritical when it comes to the domestic helps using their toilets.
After handling Roca for close to two years, I realized this is something no one was focusing on. I felt it was important to create communication around this topic. We, from the so-called modern homes of India are often not even aware if our maids have access to toilets throughout the day. Most of these domestic helps work for long hours, going up to 8-9 hours without using a toilet. At times, there’s access to a servants toilet, at times not. Even when a servant’s toilet is available it might not be in the same block, or conveniently located. As a result, they end up relieving themselves on the way to work; exposing themselves to a lot of health hazards and safety issues.
This is arguably the first time any brand has done any communication on this topic. That’s the reason why, we kept the communication simple and to the point.
Anindita is a Creative Director with Dentsu Impact.
According to the latest UN report, 80.000 women are intentionally killed every year.
Out of them, 50% are killed by someone close to them and 35% are killed by their current or former partner. To put these numbers into perspective, that’s 137 women killed worldwide every day. A growth of 11% in just 6 years. And yet no one really cares.
In Israel, 40% of women aged 16-48 report having been a victim of domestic abuse. In fact, 2 women were killed in Israel over the last 24 hours and over 20 women have been murdered since the onset of 2018. Yet in spite of this the government still torpedoed just last week a proposal to establish a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the murder of women.
So to mark the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women” and raise public awareness and sensitivity to the issue, together with the “No2 Violence Against Women” organization we initiated a social media campaign.
Using Facebook’s Live Photo feature and some of the country’s most vocal women as influencers, we created posts in which these women asked people to lend them a hand. What ensued was a surprising mobile experience as the act of pressing and holding their hand activates a video that has them calling out for the surfer to stop as he is hurting them. Our surfers who unwittingly took part in a virtual act of brutality were then faced with our message:
“1 in 4 women in Israel suffers domestic abuse & violence,
so please don’t lend violence a hand and report all abuse”.
Client: No2 Violence Against Women – NPO
CEO: Ben Muskal
CCO: Idan Regev
COO Publicis: Dorit Gvili
Creative: Itamar Paradny
Agency Producer: Maya Palmon
Account Supervisor: Shirley Konka
Media Strategy: Ronit Shekel
Editor: Alon Shmoelof
Publicis Media: Eliran Or and Ava Cohen
Marcom: Eva Hasson
Now, what are the chhola bhaturas and puchkas saying this Diwali?
After a successful Durga Puja campaign, East India Pharmaceutical Works Ltd releases 2 new quirky digital films as the brand takes its #NonstopPetPuja campaign about ‘responsible eating’ to Diwali.
This time, it’s the chhola bhaturas and puchkas who are upset, for being blamed for stomach upsets after festive eat-outs! Listen to their agony as we see the foods speak their heart out in these unusually uncanny films created by Kolkata’s new-age brand communication agency YUWEUS.
The first 4 films of the series were released during Durga Puja by East India Pharmaceutical, one of the leading pharma companies in Eastern India. The entire weirdness of rolls, chows, biryanis talking made the campaign gather over 1.25 lakh views during the nine days of Durga Puja. The films were also converted into interesting comic strips that were also widely shared during the festivities.
Speaking on the campaign, Debarshi Duttagupta, Managing Director, East India Pharmaceutical Works Ltd said, “We are amongst the most experienced pharma companies in the country with over 8 decades into manufacturing some of the longest running and widely prescribed medicinal products. This campaign is an effort to reinforce our responsibility towards the society. The films are a soft reminder to people about ‘responsible eating’ during festivities in a fun and friendly tone. The audience today is smart and evolved; hence we have taken a conscious decision to absolutely abstain from every element of preaching.”
Studies reveal that the key reason for stomach upsets and indigestion during the festive season has been ‘irresponsible eating’. But strangely, the food has always bore the blame. Smartly leveraging the insight, the campaign dramatizes the grief of the food items in a quirky manner to send across a humble message to everyone of ‘enjoying the festive treats responsibly’.
While the first 4 films were created in Bengali to target the food-loving Bengal audience, the 2 new films have been made in Hindi to reach out to the Diwali celebrating audience. Each film features a popular dish like Chhola Bhatura and Puchka (which people relish during Diwali), narrating its story of grief and humiliation for being continuously blamed for indigestion. The films end with East India Pharmaceutical asking people to eat with a little care to enjoy #NonstopPetPuja in the festive season.
The films have also been converted into interesting storyboard style comic strips called the #NonstopPetPuja Tales.
Sharing their views on the creative thought process behind the films, Sanjeev Dassani and Aanton Mookherjee, the guys behind YUWEUS said, “This was the first visible campaign by the company in so many years and the need was also to establish the progressive ideology of the leaders. The challenge therefore was immense. We chose to use humour. We chose to make the food items talk. The idea was not just to break away from the regular feel-good festive communication but more of a strategic effort to announce the personality that the company is evolving to adorn. And we believe that the campaign holds that essence. After being ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ by thousands during the Durga Puja, we are sure the new films will leave a wider impact during Diwali.”
CREDITS - Client: East India Pharmaceutical Works Limited Creative Agency: YUWEUS Agency Heads: Sanjeev Dassani & Aanton Mookherjee Scripts: Sanjeev Dassani & Abhishu Rakshit
Client Servicing: Ritwik Bhattacharya Production House: Post Production Director: Debajyoti Ghosh
Voice: RJ Deep
Dentsu Impact launches Max Healthcare’s new campaign #MoreToHealthcare and sheds light on what happens behind the scene in a healthcare employee’s life.
The Indian healthcare industry is currently going through a rough phase, jolted by a lot of unfortunate incidents. This has caused a serious dent in the image of the overall healthcare industry and shook people’s belief in hospitals. With people usually knowing only one side of the story due to lack of information or understanding, it is very easy to jump on this bandwagon of negativity against private hospitals.
Speaking about the films, Amit Wadhwa, President Dentsu Impact said, “Changing a hospital’s image is a challenging task and to do that our strategy was not to tell the story from the hospital’s point of view but rather through its people.”
The people who work in hospitals, be it doctors, or someone sitting at the front desk, have their own set of challenges and are trained to follow strict processes. So, what appears to be unnecessary and cumbersome to the patients and their attendants, might have a scientific reason to it. For instance, shoe covers are not recommended inside ICUs because that’s not how germs spread. Germs spread through touch.
The campaign was kickstarted with four films depicting the struggles of doctors, nurses, surgeons and guards. Anindita Das, Creative Director, Dentsu Impact spoke about the creative concept behind these films and said, “This is a fresh new way of looking at healthcare advertising and aims to evoke the respect and empathy that the healthcare professionals deserve.”
The story does not end there. In the second phase of the campaign, #MoreToHealthcare is all set to solve common problems faced by patients and explain the reasons behind them. For instance, if a bill is more than the estimate shared then under what circumstances can that happen.
Production House – Rainsong Films
Produce r- Manish Bhatt
Director – Vivek Dubey
DOP – Anurag Solanki
Agency – Dentsu
National Creative Director – Anupama Ramaswamy
Creative Director – Anindita Das
Advertised Brand: Nordusk LED
Synopsis: Durga Puja is a major festival of Bengal, India, celebrating the homecoming of Goddess Durga who is known to be the embodiment of light. The festival signifies the victory of light over darkness. Brand Nordusk, a LED Light Company decided to literally depict this very essence by bringing light to the dark this year.
While we are busy with the revelries of Durga Puja and the fanfare associated with the festival, the makers of the idols of Goddess Durga struggle for months – in the dark – to bring us the light of happiness that only appears as clay and hay to the commoners.
Through a CSR activity, Nordusk installed functional LED lights in many such workshops where these idol-makers continued to carve the perfect shape of Maa Durga. Thus, Nordusk literally brought these gifted artisans out of a low productivity environment/darkness and empowered them with a better environment that is well-lit and bright, thus aiding them to minimise the health hazards otherwise associated with CFL bulbs and kerosene lamps that these artisans use in their workshops.
Advert title: Pokémon Gone
Campaign name: Pokémon Gone
Agency: Miami Ad School, New York, USA
Brand: Respect for Animals
Copywriter: Emily Kaufman
Short Description:
Within the last year Pokémon Go has been downloaded 500 million times. On average, Pokémon Go users spent more time within the app than any other social platform. In an age when people spend so much time looking at a fake world, how do we highlight the problems in the real one?
On National Anti-Fur Day, we partnered with Pokémon Go to create an update to the game with one major catch: the Pokémon underwent the torments of the fur industry, leaving them skinless, just like the millions of animals killed yearly for their furs.
Because if this bothers you in a fake world, why shouldn’t it bother you in the real one?
We wanted to prove the younger crowd that we are the only home of flame-grilled burgers by secretly promoting a fake flamed grilled burger on April Fools’ in the name of McDonald’s.
Everybody who’s watching this year’s FIFA World Cup is talking about just one thing: the “VAR” or for those of you who are not football fans: the “Video Assistant Referee”. The system is the ultimate tool to help on-field referees make the right call on any given shot, using video replay technology – and so doing stop them from making a howler that could cost a side the game.
But it’s also the new universal icon for a TV screen!
So to drive fans to Azrieli’s new ecommerce website, we used the season’s hottest icon to steal the show. During the final, set to take place on Sunday July 15th, where France will attempt to take home the World Cup for the second time in history, every time the referee will signal for the VAR, we’ll give the first 5 viewers who text us a free large screen TV.
So what can we say? Keep your fingers crossed and your mobiles ready.
Agency Credits: Leo Burnett
CEO: Adam Polachek
Chief Creative Officer: Ami Alush
Chief Account Officer: Idit Zukerman
Chief strategy Officer: Shai Nissenboim
Art Director: Olga Vorobieva
Copywriter: Elad Gaizler
Agency Producer: Simi Ben-Zikri
Eva Hasson: Marcom Director
Account Supervisor: Shiran Feldman
Account manager: Danielle Elmor
Traffic manager: Maya Varochik
Advert title: True Country Icon
Advertising School: Miami Ad School, Miami, USA
Art Director: Ksenia Gaman
Copywriter: Brenda Fernandez
Description: Dixie Cup’s “True Country Icon” aims to take back the spotlight from Red Solo Cup, and restore its rightful place as the #1 disposable cup brand for Country Music lovers. By hijacking Country’s most-recognizable symbol: the Spotify genre icon, and replacing it with a Country legend: the Dixie Cup logo, we’ll remind Country aficionados of our 100-year influence on Country Music history. Not to mention, we also have an epic playlist that highlights the 24 times our brand has been mixed up with Country.
