It?s election season and a politician, accompanied by his slogan-shouting supporters, is canvassing door-to-door. He stops at the house of a young man. As he eases himself into a chair, the young man throws a volley of questions at him?about his qualifications, work experience etc. The politician is flummoxed. Our man explains that since the politician has applied for such an important post, it was incumbent on people to find out his antecedents. The politician simply doesn?t get it. ?What job are you talking about?,? he asks. Without batting an eyelid, our man responds, ?That of running the country.?
This commercial from Tata Tea, launched in October, 2007, did make people sit up and take notice. The message was simple?Har subah sirf utho mat, jaago re (don?t simply wake up every morning, come alive, awaken).
It was an audacious move, no doubt. Instead of tiptoeing around consumer needs with predictable messages about rejuvenation of the mind and body or of quality and value, Tata Tea laid it all out on the table: ?Election ke din, agar aap vote nahin de rahein hain, to aap so rahein hain.? (Translated literally, it means, if you are not voting on election day, you are sleeping.) Says Sushant Dash, head of marketing, Tata Tea, ?We wanted to do something different? create an umbrella brand so to speak.?
Till then, Tata Tea did focused advertising for each of its key brands. For the record, the company has seven brands?three south-centric, namely, Gemini, Chakra Gold and Kanan Devan, besides Premium, Gold, Agni and Life, which are national brands.
The south-centric brands have a strong regional base. Gemini, for instance, is strong in Andhra Pradesh. Chakra Gold sells the most in Tamil Nadu and Kanan Devan sells predominantly in Kerala and Karnataka.
These were not the target for the new campaign, it were the national brands instead that the company wanted to leverage in its communication. Says Dash, ?Each of these brands has a distinct identity and target audience. Gold is targeted at the upscale consumer; Premium operates in the popular segment; Agni in the economy segment and Life in the health and wellness space.? There was need to bring all of these brands on one platform.
The company wasted no time in doing that with help from its agency, Lowe. Product-specific advertising made way for a more subliminal form of communication. From waking up and feeling fresh, the slant now was on a social awakening. Hence the tagline, Jaago Re.
The first commercial, dubbed the ?politician film?, was all about this social awakening: What kind of politicians are we electing? Do they have the wherewithal to run the country? The idea was not to stop just there. ?Apart from the politician film, we had five other short commercials, each focusing on a specific issue such as bad roads, corruption et al. We needed to move to the next level,? says Dash.
The second phase of the Jaago Re campaign, launched in September, 2008, is still on. Here the company has attempted something even more ambitious?it has tied up with a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Janagraha, to launch the Jaago Re One Billion Votes initiative aimed at encouraging the urban youth to vote.
Says Sharat Potharaju, head of marketing and communication for the campaign at Janagraha, ?There are 300 million people in the age-group of 18-30 years in the country. This is the potential young voting class. But only 15-20% of them land up for voting,? he says.
The Jaago Re One Billion Votes campaign has a two-pronged approach?not simply urging the youth to vote but also showing them the way forward. For this, a dedicated website (www.jaagore.com) has been launched where interested people can register to vote. ?Many people don?t even have their names on the electoral list. We help them in the process,? says Potharaju. For residents of the top 37 cities in the country, the NGO has mapped out the various constituencies giving details about the candidates, the location and contact details of the electoral officers in those regions, where and how can voter registration forms can be submitted, even providing driving details to get to those places.
The campaign has also tried to engage the youth in other ways?via rock concerts, television and radio commercials. While the current campaign will come to an end in May this year, following the General Elections, Potharaju says the NGO is putting together a blueprint to target a wider audience. ?Why should we restrict ourselves to urban India?,? he asks. ?We would like to move to rural India as well.?
Tata Tea is also clear that it would not like to restrict itself to the youth as a target group. Which is why alongside the Jaago Re campaign, it kicked off an all-India, inter-school soccer tournament in 2007. To maintain consistency with the overall brand message, the tournament is called Jaago Re Soccer Stars.
A series of city-level and zonal matches are conducted culminating in the national finals.
Here 16 of the best players are selected for a three-week training camp with the British club Arsenal in the UK. Coaches from the club, says Dash, are involved in the selection of the candidates.?They also come down for the national finals,? he says.
The tournament, says Dash, is into its second year, and participation has increased over time. ?We had 4,147 children from 377 schools in the inaugural year. This has now gone up to 5,000 children from 480 schools, he points out,? says Dash. The finals of the tournament will be held at the end of the month.
Tata Tea has the goods ready. While the company seems to be keeping its next set of moves close to the vest, it is clearly moving toward billing itself as a more socially conscious brand.