Execution

The 2008 Mumbai Terrorist attacks, which lasted from 26th Nov to 29th Nov, left more than 170 people dead and an entire country in shock. An immediate outpouring of grief and rage followed, but surprisingly, the main source of this outburst was not political, but an outpouring of grief and anger by the general public. As a pre-independence era newspaper, Hindustan Times (HT) believed that the roots of its culture lay in reflecting the voice of the people. HT wanted to give people an opportunity to ‘Walk their talk’. It was decided that Delhi and Mumbai would be the two main focus cities where this plan could be executed. These two cities are known for having a multi-cultured as well as versatile thinking crowd. Delhi being the political and politically sensitive capital of the country seemed to have well informed citizens most of whom were not afraid to speak their mind. On the other hand Mumbai which has an even more diverse crowd where youth are as politically active as adults . Both these cities, being regular witnesses to major media publicity stunts, would give us a contrasting set of results. A basic campaign strategy was designed keeping the needs of the client as well as our own in mind. The campaign was based on three need factors: a) Maximize participation, b) Minimize inconvenience to the public, c) Do not influence the outcome of the poll(the media strategy had to not only be creative but also non intrusive). The following insights provided by our research team directed us to the Metro stations in Delhi and the local trains in Mumbai a) Most of the commuters in Delhi and Mumbai read their newspaper during their morning travel. During this time, they were more open to messages as they did not consider this an intrusion into their ‘own’ time. b) There is a massive rush of commuters at the entry and exit locations of these stations, as they have to queue up to pass through the metal detector gates at security checkpoints. This provided an ideal opportunity to talk to massive numbers of people in minimum time, without any additional inconvenience to them. Using these insights, we planned our campaign inside the Metro/Local stations, catching the attention of the commuters when they had their newspapers in hand. Keeping the above locations in mind, we created physical opinion polls, an entirely new concept in opinion polling. In answer to a posted question, readers could voice their opinion by simply walking through a poll gate placed just before the security gates. People had to answer a simple question-“Should India play cricket with Pakistan?”. As they walked through the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ gates, an infrared proximity detector triggered an LED counter on top of the respective gate, reflecting the count, and thus the opinion, of the people. Promoters placed at the poll clarified any doubts the target audience might have had as to the working of the poll. They were trained not to respond in any way that would affect the opinion of the person asking the question. We placed these physical opinion polls across 8 of the largest Delhi Metro stations. While the original plan was to also place the opinion poll at Mumbai stations, in view of the heightened security following the terrorist attacks, the entire execution had to be shifted to Delhi. Placement just before the security points ensured that people had to pass through the poll gates before the security check. An interesting aspect of the execution was the number of people who would walk up to the poll gates while reading the question, and change their path at the last minute. During rush hours, the opinion poll also acted as a discussion generator. Quite a few heated discussions could be heard amongst the groups well before they passed the opinion poll gates, with people splitting up to voice their individual opinions. During the duration of the campaign, more than 0.98 million people participated in the opinion poll. Almost 61% people vo