Raj Nayak of Viacom18 talks about sensitizing people to how hard all women work at home and office and on all days with #SundayIsHerHoliday. Suresh Balakrishna of Kinetic, talks about how the soon-to-be-launched Aureus could be one of the most sophisticated planning tools for OOH.
#SUNDAYISHERHOLIDAY IS A SMALL STEP TOWARDS A BIG CHANGE: RAJ NAYAK
Colors has launched a people’s movement called #SundayIsHerHoliday, aimed at sensitizing people to the fact that a woman slogs through the week - be it at her workplace or at home - and never gets any time for herself. The goal of the campaign is to inspire and help men take over the Sunday chores of women, to give them much-needed time off. The campaign starts by kicking off a conversation around #SundayIsHerHoliday. The next step is enabling action by offering tips to men and hand-holding them through some Sunday chores. The final step will be showcasing what actually happens when women get 24 hours of their own time, every week. Raj Nayak, CEO, Hindi Mass Entertainment, Viacom18, tells us more:
What is the insight behind the campaign? How did the idea materialize?
There is only one job that never gets a day off. It’s the job of being a woman. Mothers, wives and sisters everywhere work all seven days of the week, while working men get the weekend off. We thought it’s time everyone got together and changed that.
My friend Bobby Pawar and I were casually discussing how being a housewife and raising kids in itself is a full-time job. It doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. Moreover, working women also end up doing household chores on weekends. It was his idea, saying why don’t we come up with a digital campaign to raise awareness and change attitudes. This is how the idea of the #SundayIsHerHoliday movement was born. I discussed this with my Marketing Head, Sapangeet, who is a working mother, and she felt we should go ahead and do it.
How does it tie in with the channel’s philosophy and what is it expected to achieve?
We are a women-oriented channel. We try and associate with issues related to women. There is a lot of stereotyping of women even in our own field of advertising and media. This is our small little initiative to nudge and sensitize people on this issue.
Can you give us an idea of the budget allocated for the campaign?
We haven’t formalized any specific budget for this. This is not a brand campaign, it’s our CSR initiative and we will do whatever is necessary from our end to push this message to as many people as we can. Just within a few hours of launch, we saw a lot of re-tweets, shares and likes on social media and the fact that it is growing organically tells me that the message is resonating well with both men and women.
What are your other plans/initiatives in the effort to break gender stereotypes?
Within the channel, we keep producing shows that in their own way address social issues on various subjects. This is something we will continue to pursue.
Will you take over Sunday duties?
Of course, I will :)
Finally, Star Plus just launched a brand campaign Nayi Soch... has this roll-out got anything to do with that?
Wasn’t planned overnight just like that, but having said that, they said Nayi Soch and I must confess we take them seriously:)
(As told to Srabana Lahiri)
AUREUS IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR OOH: SURESH BALAKRISHNA
Suresh Balakrishna, CEO, South Asia & Middle-East, of WPP’s Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising agency Kinetic, is looking forward to the launch of “one of the most sophisticated planning tools for the OOH industry” called ‘Aureus’. While the tool is already up and running at Kinetic in the rest of the world, he says that it cannot be used in India just now as planning needs a lot more of local data.
Elaborating on the importance of such a tool from the Indian context, Balakrishna says, “Aureus is a planning tool that will help us do media-planning for OOH in the regular conventional manner. It will drive efficiency and science in the selection of sites and locations. The software is also useful in optimizing costs. Once complete, it will give me optional plans by optimizing costs and actually give me reach frequency numbers.”
On his expectations from the tool, Balakrishna says, “I hope it will help us significantly increase efficiencies for our clients. By improving planning efficiencies, it will help improve buying efficiencies, and therefore make the buck work that much harder.” Work on Aureus is in progress currently, and Balakrishna is hopeful that the agency will be able to launch it by the end of the year.
(As told to Samarpita Banerjee)
