The Campaign

Clean & Clear was looking at engaging college students with a social cause that excites them. The brand was looking at starting a conversation with the key message being "confidence in one self". Clean & Clear wanted to mobilize the youth to take part in the 2014 general elections as well as redefine the format of political discourse so that it appeals to the TG. The campaign was amplified as students from across college campuses were interviewed, we got celebrities to play the role of 'Cause Ambassadors' of the likes of Vishal Dadlani, Purab Kohli, Aditi Mittal, Jose Covaco, Monica Dogra, Vasuda Sharma. We received a positive response from various publications and the campaign was organically covered in print and digital media.

The Brief

Everybody tries to get college students to vote which results in a lot sales on election day where this demographic is assaulted by sales from every direction. The trouble with this approach is that it only rewards those that have already decided to vote and ignores those that sit on the fence. We were looking at grassroots level interventions that would change the way a younger demographic looked at politics as a whole. Our goal was to make politics easy, engaging and fun and enable students to register for their voters ID and eventually caste an informed vote.

Results

The campaign enabled 40,000 first time voters to get registered who previously saw no merit in voting. There was a community of 100 plus student volunteers who created awareness about politics and enabled the overall process. It was covered by Times Now, Midday, Hindustan Times, DNA, Times of India, Free Press Journal, Campus Diaries and AFAQs. In a few weeks, there were 5000 plus organic FB likes and conversation on every post shared. Cause Ambassadors with an average of 1lac twitter followers, tweeted about every on ground event and other current affairs. More and more students applied to become OBD Fellows through the website.

Execution

Registration booths were set up for 3 days in 60 college campuses across the city. Students were informed about the essential documents followed by filling the form using a software developed for the same. Once registered we broke down political discourse in a format that would appeal them by OBD Hangouts, Ride to Vote, Voters Party and other events that took place in an informal setting. We supplemented these hangouts with regular updates from our Facebook page on election related issues to spark debates amongst our fans and allow them to share our posts with their own peer groups. A webisode series called the Undecided Voter touched on electoral issues and current affairs in a tonality that would appeal to college students. As a finale post the election, students were invited to ‘celebrate democracy’ at India’s first ever voters’ party at Hard Rock Café. Vishal Dadlani, Anushka Manchanda, Purab Kohli, RJ Jose and Aditi Mittal had the role of cause ambassadors.

The Situation

Over the past few years, there has been a clear trend of an increasing number of teenagers and youth becoming sensitive towards current affairs and the socio-political scenario in India. However, there is still a large chunk of youngsters who view politics as a complicated boring subject they wouldn’t like to get involved with. They often talk about how frustrating the system is and want to do something but are not sure how to go about it. They also view the process of registering themselves as voters to be cumbersome.

The Strategy

To beginning with, we recruited a youth MP with 5 MLAs in each college. We chose students that were passionate for the cause and that had large twitter and Facebook followers base. This was our core team which served as Operation Black Dot’s eyes and ears on the ground. Operation Black Dot broke down political discourse in a format that would appeal to our demographic and mobilized the first time voters to actively participate in the 2014 elections. The idea was to reach the youth through their colleges and take the movement forward through an array of interventions like OBD hangouts, webisode series (The Undecided Voter) social media updates, the 18+ walk. These initiatives were conceptualized to build up the momentum and interest about the entire political process leading up to the election.