BITTU, THE 75-YEAR-OLD STUDENT

Short List
TitleBITTU, THE 75-YEAR-OLD STUDENT
BrandPROCTER AND GAMBLE
Product / ServiceP&G SHIKSHA
CategoryA01. Fiction & Non-Fiction Film: Up to 5 minutes
EntrantLEO BURNETT INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Idea Creation LEO BURNETT INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Production RED ICE FILMS Mumbai, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Rajdeepak Das Leo Burnett India Chief Creative Officer and Managing Director
Saurabh Varma Leo Burnett India Chief Executive Officer
Rakesh Hinduja Leo Burnett Mumbai Chief Operating Officer
Dheeraj Sinha Leo Burnett India Chief Strategy Officer & Managing Director
Manasvi Abrol Leo Burnett India Creative Director
Himanish Ashar Leo Burnett India Creative Director
Srishti Bansal Leo Burnett India Copywriter
Rohan Mirgal Leo Burnett India Editor
Mayurakshi Banerjee Leo Burnett India Art Director
Vinod Perumbidi Leo Burnett India Art Director
Sachin Talekar Freelance Editor
Ashish Sharma Leo Burnett India Creative Director
Amit Mitkar Leo Burnett India Art Director
Abhimanyu Khedkar Leo Burnett India VP & Business Head
Deepak Bulchandani Leo Burnett India Brand Partner
Ananya Pachauri Leo Burnett India Brand Servicing Associate
Sneha Sadani Leo Burnett India Brand Strategy Associate
Robbie Grewal Red Ice Productions Director
Gary Grewal Red Ice Productions Executive Producer
Vandana Singh Red Ice Productions Senior Producer
Karishma Kapoor Red Ice Productions Associate Producer
Tapas Roy - Musician
Bonnie Chakraborty - Music Director

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

The intent was to tell an emotional story through this story of Bittu, a 75 year old student who goes to school for the first time. Having grown up in a village without schools, he had to wait all his life to attend one. While the story brings about the story of Bittu, the lyrics whisper the heart of an old man, and tell how he’s happy returning to his childhood again. We even selected a genre of music that represented the voice of neglected communities - baul music. This music dates all the way back to the 15th century.

Background

P&G India’s CSR programme, P&G Shiksha has helped build and support 1800 schools which will impact the lives of 1.4 million children. But even with all that progress, there are still 13,500 Indian villages* without a school, and 84 million* children still dreaming for an education. So the challenge was to communicate to consumers about the importance of acting now and helping these millions of children with no access to education. Giving these consumers a chance to change lives with a simple P&G purchase. As when they choose P&G products, proceeds from every sale go towards building and supporting schools in villages that don’t have one. Source* (http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2018/sep/16/13500-villages-in-india-dont-have-schools-1872440.html) Source* https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/still-too-many-children-out-of-school/article24857149.ece

Describe the creative idea

We feature the story of ‘Bittu’, a true story of a 75 year old man who waited all his life to go to a school. We see a part of our own childhood in the film, when we see the old man jumping, playing and doing all kinds of tricks and mischief that we used to do as students. The films has been written in a way that keeps the audience gripped till the very end when the man discloses how he’s been waiting for 75 years to become a student. To bring light to the country of 1.2 billion Indians, we chose an age old medium - baul (Indian Foik music) to help drive the message. Since as early as the 15th century, baul was the music that gave voice to the neglected, and the story of Bittu now represents a modern day folklore for the 84 million children.

Describe the strategy

Our campaign aims to talk to the Tier 1 of India, inspiring them to add intent to their everyday purchase as when they buy P&G products, they support P&G Shiksha in making education accessible for millions of children. We do this with a heart-warming story of a 75 year old man attending a school, which reflects the reality of millions of children in remote corners of India - who keep dreaming to get quality education all their life. The campaign takes the emotional message of #DontLetDreamsWait to the people in the cities, to communicate the impact their everyday purchase can and has made in the lives of millions of children. Keeping the TIER 1 audience in mind, the film was launched on YouTube, Hotstar-one of the largest OTT platforms in India , along with other social media channels of Shiksha and WhatsApp, with the approach to gain maximum visibility.

Describe the execution

Shiksha is an annual campaign for P&G and it was live for two months – May and June. The campaign was planned for a 360-degree implementation with touch points across trade, media, influencers, trials and employee engagement. P&G Shiksha was the first CSR campaign to execute across the two largest e-commerce players – Flipkart and Amazon with 25 lakh worth free visibility gained for e-commerce media. Visibility for P&G Shiksha executed across 5500 general trade stores, 500 modern retail outlets and 400 defence canteens. In addition to this, a week long employee engagement activity was executed for all P&G employees.

Describe the outcome

The campaign garnered a reach of 150MM with 105MM views. 99% of the engagement for the campaign was positive with 71% conversation being around the campaigns core message -education access for all. P&G Shiksha's brand awareness reached 70% with this campaign and purchase intent uplift for the P&G brands averaged at 13% across brands. Brand association went up from 3 brands being recalled to 5 brands being recalled in the campaign. The video also saw a 2x completion rate vs. average long format videos. 50+ celebrities posted for P&G Shiksha pro-bono, with 3+ A list celebrities featuring in this list. 30MM impressions garnered through PR for P&G Shiksha.

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