Nominees Category: 2019

The Mahindra Group has been championing the cause of girl child education through its CSR project, Nanhi Kali for decades. In early 2018, the Group decided to create greater awareness for the cause. In its primary research to understand societal attitude towards girls, well-meaning but obviously misguided neighbours/ family members warning liberal parents about giving too much freedom to the girl child emerged as a common occurrence. The Group decided to create a campaign around this but gave it a positive spin. A short film was subsequently created to sensitise the public. The PR firm organised a film preview for journalists from Advertising & Media and CSR beats. The film was then released on YouTube and Mahindra’s social media channels. The firm also shared real-life stories of Nanhi Kali beneficiaries with media. The campaign on social media received 47 million+ views, while media outreach generated 38 stories (OTS: 13 lakhs).

Viacom18 launched its CSR program Chakachak Mumbai (Clean Mumbai) with its heart in the right place. While in our maiden year, at an on-ground level, we built 213 toilets and 15 toilet blocks in over 4 slum areas over a period of 3 months and did our bit for behavioral change at the slums, we didn’t want to stop there! We wanted to take our message to a wider audience. The audience that did not live in the slums. Year 1 we created a property called #GetAngry that provoked people to get angry about issues plaguing the society. It created quite a stir digitally. Year 2, the challenge was not only to reach that mass audience but also to connect with them on an individual and personal level, give them something to channelize their anger, and trigger a mindset and behavioral change.

This case is about how a soft drink brand reconciles a nation’s feuds and catapults its brand into unprecedented growth.
2018 was splashed with bad blood for all Vietnamese: from heated political rivalry (e.g. China – Vietnam Territorial Disputes) to media-crazed celebrity feuds (e.g. Huong Tram – Chi Pu feud, similar to Mariah Carey – Nicki Minaj’s); from rampant online aggression between Vietnamese social media users to offline grudges between neighbors over the little things.
Empowered by a powerful cultural insight (i.e. all Vietnamese are ruled by one belief that a new year must be kicked off with laughter for a joyful year ahead), Mirinda – standing for laughter – was able to quench this social issue through the power of story-telling and the effectiveness of tailored content.