Tata Tea's Jaago Re campaign says 'Ab Se Khilana Bandh, Pilana Shuru'

Sumedha Srivastav - Televisionpoint.com | Mumbai
Tata Tea, with the help of its advertising and marketing initiative Jaago Re, now takes up the issue of corruption. In its third year, the Jaago Re campaign revolving around the issue of corruption has the tag line, 'Ab Se Khilana Bandh, Pilana Shuru'.

Sangeeta Talwar, executive director, marketing, Tata Tea, says corruption has eaten into more than 50 per cent of India's population. "Corruption is a malaise that is endemic to our everyday life and is the largest tax on India's future. It extracts cost on entrepreneurial activity, opportunity and prosperity." she says.

A new television commercial (TVC) has been launched, which is a montage of real-life situations of bribes been given and taken. In the TVC, a clerk cleans food from his mouth with his fingers and says "Khaenge nahin, toh kaam kaise hoga? Haan?" (If we won't eat, how will we work?).

He then pushes an empty container from his lunch box towards a man with a briefcase sitting opposite to him and asks, "Toh laiye, kya hai?" (So what is that you have?), obviously hinting that he wants a bribe to do the work. Two young boys who've been watching the clerk come to him and one of them says: "Haan haan khaiye, ungli chaat kar khaiye" (Eat and lick your finger too).

The shot changes to several other instances showing corruption at work - a clerk counting rupee notes, a ticket inspector on a train accepting bribe from a passenger and so on - along with a narrative that says "Koi chhup ke khaata hai, koi jhuk ke khaata hai...koi bhagwan ke naam par khata hai" (Some hide while they accept it, some bend...some even accept it the name of god).

Next, the shot gets back to the two boys who now ask, "But do you realise, why do people accept bribes? That's because we offer them one." One of them puts a cup of tea in front of the corrupt clerk and says, "Aaj se khilana bandh, pilana shuru - Tata Tea peeyo aur kaam karo" (Drink Tata Tea and do your work).

The one-minute TVC will run across a variety of channels - general entertainment, news, youth-focused - for over 45 days. There is also a 45-second version that will be interspersed with the longer one after a while. The current commercial will be followed by another one on the same theme.

The TVC has been created by Lowe Lintas, Mumbai; the media duties are handled by Madison Media. The creative agency also creates campaigns along similar lines for the telecom brand, Idea Cellular.

The new campaign will be a 360 degree integrated initiative, which will connect equally with consumers across the retail network of Tata Tea, as also through online and mobile touch points. Tata Tea will also promote December 9, which is celebrated as Anti-Corruption Day, with an objective to make it into a national activity.

The campaign will be supported by several ground-level activities. For example, across 70,000 trade outlets throughout the country, the company will have drop boxes where people can drop their pledge that they will not bribe. These booklets will then be collected and the retailer with the highest number of coupons in the area will be rewarded.

Communications relating to tea had so far been mostly about physical and mental rejuvenation. "It is a boring category. Tea is sold as a waking-up product. You wake up in the morning and have a cup of tea. We wanted to break out of that mould," says Tarun Chauhan, executive director, Lowe Lintas.

The brief to Lowe was to come up with an idea that linked to the "mega" nature of the country, its people and the fact that tea is its largest beverage, as also to make the brand younger, more contemporary and exciting.

"Tea has been the single largest consumption beverage in India with 91 per cent penetration. It is embedded in the DNA of an average Indian and cuts across various earning groups, age groups and both urban and rural populations. So we were looking for an idea that can embed itself into the heart, mind and soul of the average Indian citizen," says Talwar.

Lowe then came up with the idea of Jaago Re - the thought being not just wake up with a cup of tea but awaken to what's happening around you and the big issues you face everyday. The agency then looked into ideas that related to some of the issues facing the people of the country and found the one questioning the political system most appealing.

In 2007, Tata Tea came up with its first Jaago Re campaign where a politician was questioned about his qualifications. In 2008, 2009 being an election year, the company took the idea forward with a campaign which urged the youth to vote, to select better leaders for a better democracy.

The campaign was supported by several enablement initiatives: The Jaago Re website was built to help voters register themselves in 35 cities. Tata Tea says about 3 million people visited the site, of which about 600,000 registered for voting.

In 2009, Tata Tea did a consumer study through IMRB on how the Jaago Re concept has been accepted by the consumer and how did the campaign do. The sample size was over 3,500 consumers across urban and rural India. While 85 per cent of the consumers from urban parts recalled the campaign and related it to the Tata Tea brand, the figure was 70 per cent for rural consumers.

Post-elections, Tata Tea looked into the next big issue facing the country. "After the politician issue, the big issue staring on our face is corruption. To come up with the thought was a no-brainer. The task for us was how to convert it effectively into our brand idea (Jaago Re)." says Chauhan.