Tuesday, August 30, 2011

CASE STUDY: Blow Up Campaign To Save Public Property

Social Objective: In a democratic setup everyone has a right to protest. But in our country people often forget their fundamental duty to protect public property. Thus with the idea of promoting the cause of “save public property and abjure violence” IndiaPicture launched the campaign “Blow up” conceptualized and co created by Publicis Capital and supported by iCongo. The novel idea of campaign was to provide potential protestors with free images of public property to burn and vandalize instead of real public property thus using the power of images to convey the message.

Marketing Objective: The central idea of the campaign to use the power of images to safeguard loss of public property is conceptualized based on the core function of IndiaPictures, who are India’s leading photo stock company and come from family legacy of oldest photo studio in Kashmir- The Mahatta’s. If successful, the conceptualiser of this social campaign Publicis India also could utilize this campaign as their nomination in social campaign category to Cannes and other respected advertising fraternity awards. Communication Objective: To create awareness and generate interest about Blow up- an Indiapicture initiative to save public property during protests and agitation, promote the brain behind the campaign namely Dushyant Mehta, CEO IndiaPicture, Emmanuel Upputuru, National Creative Director, Publicis India and also Jeroninio "Jerry" Almeida, Chief Volunteer at ICONGO.

PR Strategy: Channel PR devised a strategy that brings out the central idea of the fundamental duty of saving the public property and using the power of images in providing a unique alternative to minimize the damage to the public property. The concept of ‘Power of Images’ was in-synch with the Brand IndiaPicture – India’s leading photo stock company and the PR campaign was focused to utilize this connection to create a brand value proposition for IndiaPicture.

PR Campaign: The PR campaign’s effort for “Blow Up” was to give it such proportions that set it as an example for an alternative way of protest and promote it so widely and strongly so as to fulfill its objective of spreading the message of saving public property. The idea was to not promote it as “just another social cause event” but a truly meaningful social initiative by people who have experienced and have deeply felt about the issue of damage to public property. The Valley background of the Mehta brothers, founders of IndiaPicture and their experience with protests and riots during their childhood there. Thus besides generating buzz and get the media for the main event of “Blow Up” in a wide array of media formats the one-on-one interaction of the key spokespersons behind the campaign pre, post and during the event was organized with some of the main publications to get in-depth coverage on all the aspects associated with it. The online news dissemination was also done so as to support the online visibility of the campaign which due to its use of website in providing pictures has a crucial role of webspace.

SWOT Analysis:

Strength:
  • A unique social initiative · The burning issue of loss to public property
  • Already successful at some areas with history of protests – Jat/Gujjar community and Bihar
  • Leaders associated with protests of Gujjar community associating with the even and endorsing its viewpoint
  • Brought together politicians, past protestors, social activists and administrators to channel a thought process in a right direction
  • The central idea of the campaign matched perfectly with the work area of IndiaPicture
  • The legacy of The Mahatta studio and the Kashmir background of IndiaPicture founders
Weakness:
  • The on-ground activities of burning the images by protestors had already happened at various places and hence the main event didn’t have a visual peg specially for electronic media
  • Burning images and effigies of the real object could also be misinterpreted as promoting violence
Opportunities:
  • Social campaigns and CSR initiatives are mostly received well by both people and media in India The Anna Hazarey’s fast-unto-death protest movement was at its peak during the time, and hence the issue of peaceful protest was a hot cake
  • The Gujjar/Jat protests had recently caused an ample amount of damage to both state government and Indian railways due to loss in public property
Threats:
  • The Anna Hazarey issue also was equally a threat with most journalists of the beat were busy covering his breaking of fast
  • The social campaign being seen as just another ad campaign with a CSR angle
Evaluation: The Public Relations campaign was successful in bringing the campaign to notice to a wide spectrum of audience through strategic communication and getting third party endorsement from both traditional and online media. Overall the focus of the campaign was successful in not just promoting the event but to translate the social value of the idea to a unique brand value proposition for IndiaPictures, Publicis India and ICONGO.

No comments:

Post a Comment