Mobile service provider Idea Cellular launched its new campaign — “Kyunki bolne ke liye bhasha ki zarurat nahi hoti” (break the language barrier) — towards the end of August. The television commercial is under its popular “What an Idea, Sirji!” series that demonstrates the power of telephony, but this time it’s taken the language route. Besides, it’s also started a national inter-school skills fest, “Kaho what’s your idea”, where it aims to reach out to over 200,000 children across 3,000 schools across 100 Indian cities. The initiative is designed by Derek O’Brien, and is aimed at an all-round personality development of school children.
The latest campaign from Idea builds on the mobile service provider’s strategy that conveys progressive thoughts in a simple way. Idea Cellular Senior Vice-president (marketing) Anupama Ahluwalia says: “The communication strategy demonstrates the ‘power of an idea’ in a fresh and imaginative way. Our challenge is always to create a story around ‘why Idea’ at every single step.” The brief to Lowe, according to Ahluwalia, was to come up with a subject which is topical as well as relevant, and resonates with a diverse target group. “The creative had to appeal to the youth in particular. Almost every Indian has gone through a situation where one has struggled to communicate with another fellow Indian just because of the language. It’s about how a simple phone call can help in building bridges among people, speaking different languages,” she adds.
The TVC was initially aired for 90 seconds, and now it is being aired for 60 seconds and a few 30-second commercials have also gone on air recently. The TVC is directed by Amit Sharma and Chrome Pictures is the production house. R Balki, Arun Iyer, Ashwin Varkey and Suraja Kishore at Lowe have conceptualised the campaign. The film is shot in Mumbai, Kolkata, Haryana and Kerala.
Besides a new campaign, Idea’s “Kaho what’s your idea” programme comprises various innovative techniques to promote thinking logically, weaving a story, application of memory skills and real-life skills apart from the general knowledge factor. It kick-started on September 1 and will be run till the end of this academic season. The first round of inter-school contest is already underway across many schools in cities such as Nainital, Varanasi, Moradabad, Siliguri and Jabalpur.
However, the country’s largest mobile service provider Airtel has tied up with Fox International’s National Geographic channel for an initiative for school kids, Airtel-Nat Geo Young Explorer, recently. While the Young Explorer spans across four cities and covers 400 schools, “Kaho what’s your Idea” has high intensity (will cover 3,000 schools and 100 cities). “Derek O’Brien and his team have developed the content, and they are involved in shortlisting schools, questionnaires, conducting programmes across schools, and also for the assessment, evaluation and selection process. Idea has conceptualised the entire concept for the contest, and is doing the promotion for the campaign,” adds Ahluwalia.