Mumbai :India is home to 8 million blind people which is approximately one-fourth of the world’s blind population. While 75 per cent of this blindness is preventable and could have been avoided, awareness around eye health and sensitization around eye donations becomes imperative.
Sightsavers India, a leading global development organization working in over 30 countries to combat avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for visually impaired, decided to join hands with WATConsult, the digital and social media agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, to leverage biggest festival of lights in India.
Launched on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, the aim of the campaign was not only to reach out to the mass Indian audience and make them see the festival through the eyes of the visually-impaired, but also to emphasize on the importance of eye donations.
Link: https://www.facebook.com/134203406672696/posts/2026573647435653/
RN Mohanty, CEO, Sightsavers India said, “The #GiftOfSight campaign is a powerful digital communication medium to draw attention towards the often ignored humane, social and economic cause of preventing avoidable blindness. Over 75 per cent of blindness is preventable which is primarily caused due to factors like cataract and refractive errors. The #GiftOfSight video adequately highlights how one of the biggest festivals in India—Diwali— ‘LOOKS’ like to a visually impaired person. We seek to drown the noise with this campaign and make Diwali truly a festival of light for many millions in the country.”
Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO, WATConsult said, “#GiftOfSight is an urge to people to gift a life. With growing need of desired corneas and lack of awareness about eye health, #GiftOfSight is a step to raise adequate awareness via a simple video that showcased how a festival of Diwali is for the visually impaired.”
Standing out among tons of Diwali advertisements, #GiftOfSight is a disruptive black video that portrays the festival from a visually-impaired person’s perspective with a concoction of all kinds of sounds of noise and celebration that sums up Diwali for a blind person. The video urges the viewers to donate towards preventing blindness so that someday someone will be able to experience the festivities from their own eyes.
Comparing simple joys of witnessing colour, celebrations, fireworks and memories to what they would look like to blind people, the campaign focused on how giving a #GiftOfSight this year could bring light to someone’s Diwali. The agency maximized various social media platforms to the core, ensuring that the message is perceived and received by as many as possible. Released during Diwali, the video garnered 2.1 Million views in only two days along with some well-known personalities like Bollywood actors Kabir Bedi and Aparshakti Khurana, Padmashri award-winning filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda and noted photographer Amit Pasricha creating a buzz about it on their social media pages.
Within few days of launch, on Twitter, around 6102 tweets, 62 Mn Impressions and 2.12 Mn reach was recorded while on Facebook the campaign garnered 4,100,557 reach, 5,621,392 impressions and 2.1 million views. Content Marketing agency Social Catalyzers came on board as ‘Supporting Partners’ for the campaign.
Do you know, more than 2.5 lakh blind people in India could regain eyesight if majority of the Indian hospitals start conducting eye transplants, showed statistics recently released by AIIMS. According to Delhi-based ophthalmologists, nearly 60% of the eye donations go futile in India. So let’s stand together and make a difference by giving a #GiftOfSight this Diwali.
