The Campaign

Blow Up is a campaign that has been created to save public property worth millions of taxpayers' money. The Client: indiapicture.in, an image bank that is fighting the entry of global giants and established local players. The idea: To offer free images of public property to protesters with a history of destroying public property. With a message: burn the images and spare the public property. A website was launched on which images were offered. To popularize the offer virals were emailed and uploaded on facebook pages of political parties.

Success of the Campaign

The campaign started debates on the subject pushed under the carpet by vested interests. Political leaders from two locations known for violent protests promised never to burn public property and used images in their demonstrations. Political Leaders from Mumbai, Goa, and also the highly volatile Kashmir are keen to use images in future protests. NGO iCongo is working on a mechanism for peaceful protests. The direct audience of the image bank - the creative community suddenly acknowledged indiapicture and found new reasons to visit the website and explore images. Results: 29% increase in clicks on indiapicture.in within 1 week of the first event. Unprecedented publicity for an image bank. Coverage on news channels, advertising and other media industry websites. The CEO of the imagebank was on national TV. Potentially we've saved € 100,000 of tax payers' money. All at the cost of two life-size prints and dinner-cocktails for 200 people.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

We targeted communities which had recently destroyed public property. The message was spread through NGOs, word-of-mouth, emails, phonecalls, a facebook page and video letters. The first community that came forward was Gujjars - a backward class that's fighting for reservation of seats. At a public rally, their leader admitted to past mistakes, vowed never to burn public property and then burnt an image of a life-size bus. Then fire being fire spread to Bihar. A mob that was recently involved in protests used the idea to send a message to the government. We showcased these two 'demonstrations' at an Exhibition and a Panel Discussion on how to enjoy fundamental rights while fulfilling our fundamental duties. Leaders from the three of the biggest national parties, Congress, BJP and BSP discussed the issue along with senior civil servants and ex-Army chief. Advertising professionals (the primary target) were present in large nos.