The Campaign

The film is created in light of the brutal discrimination against people from Northeast and touches upon their lives and the need for the rest of the country to embrace them as our own. The campaign throws light on the issue and calls for action to eradicate this discrimination. People from the North Eastern part of India have oriental facial feature, unlike the rest of the country. This often leads to them facing racial discrimination when they travel to metropolitan cities of the country to make a living. According to a report published by The Indian express, over two-lakh persons from Northeastern states migrated to New Delhi between 2005-2013 and nearly 86% of them have faced some sort of racial discrimination.

The Brief

1) Get people at large to feel toward the cause of racial discrimination against the north-eastern community and get media to focus on the problem. 2) Drive public opinion, put pressure on the politicians and the policy-makers to address the issue and curb the crimes against north-eastern community. 3) Thus, re-purpose brand Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) into a one that stands for not just transforming individual lives, but that of society at large.

Results

With more than 800 thousand views, the KBC 'Kohima' ad garnered a huge popularity. It became a talking point and was discussed on social media via more than 20,000 tweets and posts across various platforms. We managed to generated over 1 million dollars worth of free media impressions, in the form of debates, discussions and coverage. We drove public opinion to pressurise the political system and caused a debate in the Indian Parliament. The eight season of Kaun Banega Crorepati opened with a TRP of 4.5, a 21% increase from the last year and was the number 1 show on Indian television in it's time slot. But more importantly, the north-eastern community found support in their struggle against racism. The policy-makers were pressurised to give the issue of racism its due importance and treat crimes against North-eastern way more strictly.

Execution

The Uncomfortable Question The 'Kohima' television commercial of Kaun Banega Crorepati showed a girl from the north-eastern part of the country and the gameshow host, Superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Her first question in the game is a simple one - Which country does 'Kohima' (a prominent city in north-east India) belong to? To everyone's surprise, she opts for 'public poll', a lifeline in the game show. She gets a unanimous answer as 'India', to which she poses the uncomfortable question - Everyone knows the answer, but how many acknowledge it? The ad got everyone to rethink their behaviour towards the north-eastern community and got the social media buzzing. We fuelled the conversation further with a social media influencer program consisting of various celebrities, including Superstar Amitabh Bachchan. We arranged for on-air debates, guest articles and as a fitting finale, got North-eastern community's Shillong Chamber Choir to perform on national television.

The Situation

The Indian adaptation of Who Wants To Be A millionaire - KBC, is known to change the fortunes of the person on the Hot Seat. The show also provides an opportunity to be heard by all. Idea: KBC provides an opportunity to win much more than just money and change many more lives. People from the Northeast India have been facing racial discrimination. Crimes reached a new low with murders, rapes and public humiliations. Neither the political system nor the media was willing to address it. In this scenario, Sony Entertainment Television's KBC campaign became the mouthpiece for social change.

The Strategy

To put a stop against the racial discrimination and crimes inflicted upon the north-eastern community, we had to get people to be more sensitive about the issue and policy-makers to drive stricter action against such crimes. The strategy was to kick-start conversation around this much neglected issue on national television and fuel the conversation further on social media. Once we we would have the nation talking about it and media guys debating it, we could exert pressure onto the policy-makers to drive stricter action. The positive rub-off of it would help Sony Entertainment Television re-purpose brand Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).