Mumbai: Initiative India, one of the leading media agencies of media agency network IPG Mediabrands, has won Gold at Festival of Media Global 2018, for Harpic ‘No Toilet, No Wedding’ campaign.
India is a nation of contradictions. It is a thriving economy but 53% of its population don’t have access to toilets which makes India the world leader in open defecation. Atleast 636 million Indians lack toilets. The need of the hour was to educate women about hygienic practices whist driving behavioral change.
In India, arranged marriages still remain the majorly preferred way for Indians to enter into matrimony. Around 85% Indians prefer to marry the boy or girl chosen by their families, rather than choosing their life partners themselves. For the brides, it is a bigger challenge as they have to adapt to the culture, rituals and environment of the grooms household.
Harpic has been taking the message of hygiene and sanitation to millions of homes and it saw a great opportunity to tap into the problem by using the route of arranged marriage to educate families. To take the idea forward, Harpic partnered with Dainik Jagran, one of the leading Hindi newspaper in India, with a huge readership base in the heartland of the country including markets like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Bihar. Arranged marriages are predominant in these markets and the families usually goes take the route of weekly matrimonial section of the newspaper in search of bride and groom.
Harpic intended to strike a chord with families of prospective brides who often list down their priorities in matrimonial classified ads filled with status connotations. Harpic reached out to these families, urging them to include 5 more words as a part of their matrimonial ad – ‘Ghar mein saaf shauchalay zaroori’ (It is important to have a clean toilet in the house) to emphasize the need for securing a woman’s privacy. In order to encourage more people to come on board, Harpic also paid for the cost of the matrimonial ad for the families who agreed to incorporate these 5 words. In line of the theme message, Harpic also participated in Hindi feature film ‘Toilet – A love story” with an emphasis on the eradication of open defecation, especially in rural areas.
Commenting on the win, Arun Sharma, Managing Partner, IPG Mediabrands, said, “It’s a great honour and needless to say we are delighted. It’s an acknowledgement of Initiative’s unique consumer insight and innovative thinking approach to deliver sustainable business results for our clients.”
He further added, “During our 4.5 years of relationship with Reckitt Benckiser, we have helped all brands in the bouquet to grow at a higher rate. We created category redefining initiatives like Banega Swachh India and won many global and local awards.Winning Gold at a prestigious global platform is a reassurance that we are on the correctpath and it’s a big motivation for us to do more.”
