THE NOMINATE ME SELFIE

Short List
TitleTHE NOMINATE ME SELFIE
BrandPOLITICAL SHAKTI / THE TIMES OF INDIA
Product / ServiceGOVERMENT REPRESENTATION
CategoryC02. Messaging Campaign
EntrantFCB INDIA Delhi, INDIA
Idea Creation FCB INDIA Delhi, INDIA
Media Placement THE TIMES OF INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
PR THE TIMES OF INDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Production BASTA FILMS Mumbai, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Swati Bhattacharya FCB India idea, script
Anusheela Saha FCB India Art, Idea
Vishakha Khattri FCBIndia Advertising LLP Account Management
Kizie Basu FCB India Strategy
Kshitij Chandel FCB India Art
Arun Rawat FCB India Editor for Case AV
John Bleeden FCB Chicago creative Guidance
John Fiebke FCB Chicago Creative Guidance
Andres Ordonez FCB Chicago Creative Guidance
Tim Schoenmaeckers FCB Chicago Creative Guidance
Niels Sieneart FCB Chicago Creative Guidance
Danilo Boer FCB Global Creative Guidance

Background

“Women hold up half the Sky” - But not in India The world’s largest Democracy, India, is failing to represent 50% of its population - Only less than 10% of its lawmakers in Parliament are women. Shakti, Shakti a non partisan women's collective passionate about female leaders in politics has been fighting to get political parties to correct this imbalance. Women form over 50% grassroots workers and leaders below state level, working tirelessly in the field, but are overlooked when it comes to getting tickets to contest elections. The obstacle faced when holding largely male dominated political parties accountable for equal representation? The question - “Where are the women?”. The Brief: Drive greater representation of women in Indian politics, by influencing political parties to give more tickets to women to contest State level elections. The Objective: Make it impossible for political parties to turn a blind eye towards women’s representation.

Describe the creative idea

We needed a multi-pronged campaign that was simple accessible an easy to implement for women given we were starting in India’s toughest state Bihar with high poverty, illiteracy, and gender disparity, that too among the COVID lockdown. Shakti partnered with The Times of India, India’s premier daily, to create a movement called - The Nominate-Me Selfie. We took a simple, accessible, universal phenomenon - the SELFIE, and turned it into a CV for women’s grassroots leaders. We teamed up with NGO’s at grassroots levels who spread the word and urged women leaders to send their Selfie-CV’s to their local leader in parliament, asking to be nominated. Our screens , newspapers and public consciousness became flooded with the faces of women leaders , and their significant development achievements, igniting a grassroots women’s movement, that is shaking the pillars of Indian power centers.

Describe the strategy

Flip the Perception, Flip the Camera. Women working hard in the trenches of the political movement are invisible in terms of their presence and their achievements. This systemic unfairness has stopped them from asking for their due. Therefore, our strategy was to flip what is considered the norm, used as a metaphor for flipping the camera. Flip the Bias: From homemakers to community leaders. Women make excellent leaders because they understand what homes and communities really need. Flip the Narrative: From the fiction of women can’t lead and are not available to the facts of their presence and achievements. Primary Audience Parliamentarians, a majority of whom are male and are instrumental in giving tickets to female candidates. Secondary Audience The women of India – As victims of patriarchy for so long, they are looking for ways to bring sustainable change to society by being heard and given their due.

Describe the execution

We started with Bihar – the country’s poorest, most illiterate state with least representation of women in parliament. Be Seen Shakti collaborated with 140 organizations to simultaneously reach 126 elected representatives in just 2.5 hours.This was instrumental in mobilizing women leaders below state level to take selfies of themselves and their achievements and tag their community and political leaders, asking to be nominated.Young Bihari women started tagging their leaders demanding more candidates in the state elections. Be Heard As hundreds of selfies started to pour in it caught the media’s attention, who led by TOI amplified a state phenomenon into a national issue.Parallelly, we launched a film for parliamentarians questioning the 1:10 gender skew in state assemblies. Be Relentless This is not a flash in the pan – but a movement that is on-going state to state before state elections, ensuring that we don’t stop till we get our half!

List the results

The groundswell that this campaign created could not be ignored – In Bihar fielded candidates went up, across political parties, to a highest ever 10% ( up from 8%) The ruling party gave an unprecedented 19% of tickets to women. We then rolled out the movement everywhere a new election would come up. Bengal state elections saw ruling party women candidates up to a never before seen 17%. With state level involvement led by women – voter turnout has risen faster and has been higher than men’s turnout for state elections. This movement is ongoing, state by state elections we are clear - We will not stop until half is us, half is ours.

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