Maxus and Tata Tea tap the power of 49, pre-General Elections

Cause-related communication created a waves last year, when majority of the work awarded at Cannes was cause-related communication – with The Times of India campaigns to Dumb Ways to Die. Tata Tea as a brand has been investing in this form of communication for a while now. The brand started its ‘Jaago Re’ initiative in 2008. The core of the Jaago Re campaign remains cause-related to the General Elections, the facets that the campaign chooses to emphasise may vary as may the medium chosen to do it.

The initial phase included the launch of the website Jaago re, and the subsequent campaign encouraged people to participate in making the future of the nation instead of blaming the government for things that were not right.

The second series showcased combating bribery through ‘Khilana Bandh, Pilana Shuru’ through its ‘Soch Badlo’ campaign launched in 2011. ‘Jaago re Jaago Re’ encouraged citizens to look at the positive side of the country and share these positive stories.

Last year, Tata Tea encouraged Indian men to make their own small beginning to put women first with Chennai Express through its communication campaign ‘Choti Shuruaat’.

This year being extremely critical and the election year,the brand has taken a different route, along with its media partner Maxus Tata Global Beverages and Tata Sons, which has seen the launch of one of India’s biggest content initiatives for Tata Tea Jaago Re – the ‘Power of 49’ campaign ahead of the General Elections 2014.

Power of 49, a Jaago Re initiative for women, was launched in August 2013 with an objective to awaken women, inspiring them to cast an informed and independent vote and exercise the power they have to make or break a government in the forthcoming elections. The campaign was born out of the insight that women do not get their due from the establishment because they don’t participate fully in the electoral process.

Tata Tea realised that the true change will happen only with participation from women. To realise the vision of 100 million informed women voters, Maxus realised that this was not possible with a one-way communication. Taking learnings from IIFA Cause Partnership, where the collective power of Bollywood celebrities helped women realise their power of 49 per cent, Maxus, led by its content division Maxus ESP, created a never-before-done initiative to bring in participation.

Vikram Grover, Vice-President Marketing - South Asia, Tata Global Beverages elaborated, “The ‘Power of 49’ campaign’s journey began in August last year with Tata Tea Gold. With the excellent response to this phase of the campaign, we realised that we were sitting on an opportunity to make a real change in the society. With Tata Sons extending support to the campaign, we set ourselves for a very challenging vision to ‘awaken 100 million informed women voters’. We needed a medium that was very powerful and impactful; Maxus, our media agency, has played a critical role in doing this. It is believed that television soaps play a major role in shaping society. Hence, together Tata Tea and Maxus have devised a never-before media integration to bring popular soap protagonists together. called ‘Bahu nahin bahumat’. These ‘bahus’ in their reel avatar will urge women to raise issues that concern them, take these issues to political leaders and educate women to cast an informed vote. Apart from the bahus, opinion leaders, news anchors and Bollywood celebrities, along with the newly-launched TV commercial, are championing the cause. With all this, we believe that we are taking steps in the direction of giving Indian women an opportunity to have their voice heard in the political discourse of our country.”

Maxus brought in some of the biggest influencers on Indian television and entertainment industry under one roof. For the first time, five of India’s most popular TV celebrities – Kamala and Gunjan from Zee TV, Sandya and Akshara from Star Plus, and Anandi from Colors – joined hands for this initiative.

In addition to this, well-known news anchors and journalists such as Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Suhasini Haider, Sandeep Chaudhary and Richa Anirudh from the TV18 Group will be championing the initiative in urban India, enabling debates and discussions with politicians.

Bearing in the mind the power of influence of the Bollywood industry, the initiative is supported by an increasing list of Bollywood stars, social activists and other celebrities such as Shahrukh Khan, Shabana Azmi, Nafisa Ali, Nandita Das, Parineeti Chopra, Priety Zinta, Dia Mirza, Divya Dutta, Sonu Nigam, Boman Irani, Arjun Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Anurag Kashyap, Abhishek Bachchan and others.

“Power of 49 addresses the most immediate need of an angry nation. While conceiving this campaign, staying true to Maxus’ philosophy of ‘Leaning Into Change’, we looked at the changing nature of communication planning and leveraging the power of content and digital thereby bringing the TV advertising to life.Through this, we are using the collective power of influencers beyond mere endorsements in bringing women issues to the forefront, facilitating their debates with politicians, creating a Power of 49 manifesto thereby creating an informed female electorate. We hope with all these efforts, we could make 100 million informed women voters change the fate of this country,” said Sanchayeeta Verma, Managing Partner, Maxus, while elaborating on the campaign.

Being a campaign that is entirely driven by results, the campaign has been very well received, with a tremendous response from women on issues faced by them, even resulting into jammed IVR lines, wherein in the bandwidth had to be increased.

Maxus is optimistic that this campaign will set a new record of sorts and make a true difference, and hopes that politicians too will join this Jaago Re movement and play a pivotal role in realising the vision of a 100 million informed female voters.

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