A solid act

CAMPAIGN LOGIC

A generic campaign on the steel industry shines through.

Its omnipresence has been its worst enemy. Steel is virtually everywhere "" buildings and bridges, cars, your fridge and microwave, even cooking vessels "" but how much thought do you actually give the metal? Very little probably, if at all.

The fallout: taking it for granted and looking at it only as something that is tough, and little else. While avant-garde furniture, home decor and even home furnishing using steel is being experimented with, the efforts are yet to show a considerable change.

Which is probably why in spite of its huge population, steel usage in India is still pitifully low even as exports of the metal have increased manifold. Consider this: the per capita consumption of steel in India is just 38 kg, compared to a world average of 150 kg, while the average per capita steel usage in the developed world is 350 kg.

Not surprisingly, steel manufacturers and the government aren't happy. The idea for a nation-wide campaign was suggested to the steel ministry by one of the directors of a top steel company. The ministry heeded the advice and came up with an additional agenda "" the campaign should not only enhance the image of the industry, but also have a strong rural bias.

"Our target audience is everyone "" from the President of India to a farmer. We want people to see steel in a different light and think of newer applications of the metal," says R K P Singh, director-general, Institute for Steel Development and Growth (Insdag), the non-profit organisation that has become the face of the Indian steel industry.

Insdag was set up in 1996 by the ministry of steel and seven major steel producers such as SAIL, Tisco, JVSL, Essar and Ispat, to promote the use of steel in various sectors.

In end-December 2006, Insdag called for pitches from the top six AC Neilsen-rated ad agencies; the account was finally bagged by JWT, Kolkata. But it was not an easy ride for either client or agency. "I am a technical person. Understanding the nuances of something creative like advertising was a big challenge," confesses Singh.

For JWT, it meant having to deal with people from seven companies as well as representatives from the ministry. "Still, questions only help in making your arguments stronger," says Raji Ramaswamy, senior VP and general manager, JWT, Kolkata.

Before working on the ad, JWT asked its five offices across the country to conduct dipstick surveys among the industry stakeholders "" builders and contractors, architects, urban and rural people, consumers of steel and so on.

"The results were revealing," says Ramaswamy, "Although people knew about the strength of the metal, they did not think that it can be used in a lot more different ways and that it can last virtually forever."

Thus, with the brief in mind "" to change the mindsets of people about the metal and create awareness of its uses "" and with the aim of showing the relevance of the line "Steel for life", the agency got busy with the storyboards.

JWT is no stranger to the steel industry: it has handled the Tata Steel account for several years now and was the agency behind the memorable "We also make steel" campaign of the 1980s. Still, says Ramaswamy, "This was a totally different take on steel. You couldn't be clever and you couldn't be smart. The most important thing here was being relevant."

That meant not only talking about the strengths of the metal, but also opening up peoples' minds to its uses in more innovative ways than just girders and dinner sets.

The final campaign comprises two distinct sets of ads, two rural and two urban, separately targeting rural and urban audiences. All of them have one thing in common, though "" a human touch with more awareness about the metal.

One of the rural TVCs "" a 40-second film with a 20-second edit "" features a man getting steel utensils etched for his little daughter's far-ahead-in-the-future wedding so that she remembers her family every time she uses them; the idea of giving gold is more or less dismissed, since it will just remain locked away.

Another film emphasises the importance of steel in buildings, which makes them less susceptible to harm during earthquakes, through school children feeling proud of their school that will stay steadfast during such a disaster, thanks to steel.

One of the urban campaigns has two young children with their grandfather in a car, who tells them how steel is the toughest metal known to man, has been used in the car they are in and the Howrah Bridge they are crossing, and with a smile, how it will survive an attack by "dinosaucers". The tagline: Steel for life.

The institute and its members are clearly committed to the cause. A budget of Rs 20 crore has been planned for the campaign and all members are adding their bit to the kitty.Manufacturers are contributing Rs 5 per tonne of saleable steel, Rs 7 crore has come from the steel ministry, while the member-associations have pledged Rs 1 crore each.

While the rural campaign kicked off in April on channels such as Doordarshan and Aaj Tak, it is the urban campaign, which has been on air from mid-May, that has caught viewers' attention, more because of its visibility on more channels "" Sony, Zee Cinema, NDTV, Aaj Tak and so on.

The rural films were directed by Milind Dhaimade of Equinox, and Manoj Pillai of ThinkPot directed the urban clips. The TVCs have been followed by print campaign in national dailies and vernacular newspapers, and radio spots.

Hoardings are being planned at places where steel is a major part of the infrastructure "" airports, metro trains and stations, bridges, malls and so on. An interactive website, steelforlife.net, has also designed by JWT, which features designers and their projects in steel, apart from the usual information and competitions.

The queries section appears to have been particularly effective. "We have already got three orders, one of them for as much as 700 tonnes of steel," says Singh excitedly. That's enough justification for Insdag's plan of letting the campaign run through the year. "We'll probably give it a new expression next year," says Ramaswamy.