Celebrities, domain experts help content reach wider audiences, says Sameer Satpathy of ITC

When a FMCG giant like ITC picks up social causes, it becomes inevitable for it to scale it up and have a real impact on the society in the longrun. Other than the usual advertising, content becomes a major route for brands to fulfil its social objectives. Associating with celebrities and social influencers is part of the brands’ content strategies and help meet the needs of scale and effectiveness.

Seconding the thought, Sameer Satpathy, Chief Executive, Personal Care Products Business, ITC, said, “In India, the biggest influencers of popular culture are personalities either from the world of cricket or from Bollywood along with few other renowned domain experts. For an initiative like #AbSamjhautaNahin, it is important to make the conversation mainstream and more widespread. The support of celebrities and various other domain experts has helped in reaching wider audiences and has inspired many to make their voices heard.”

Recently, as part of ITC Vivel’s larger integrated campaign ‘AbSamjhautaNahin’, the brand launched www.absamjhautanahin.com, a website designed for a simplified understanding of laws around women’s rights. Compiled in an FAQ format and available in English and Hindi language, Vivel seeks to empower women and enable self-action.

#AbSamjhautaNahin undertakes activities around knowledge of rights and supports organisations that fight trafficking or create feminist leaders at the grassroots. Through the campaign, the brand hopes to challenge stereotypes and help enable self-action for a more gender-equal India. As part of the initiative, the brand associates itself with various influencers and celebrities to talk about the cause and raise awareness among people.

Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy and Vivel have collaborated to create simple educational videos and designing a series of interactive workshops at colleges across India. Vivel with its ‘Know Your Rights’ initiative and Nundy believe that legal knowledge of the civil and criminal law will help transform women’s personal power in relationships and with institutions, police and courts.

The Preamble to the Indian Constitution lays down Equality as an integral part. The first video in this series elaborates on equality at work and at home.

The endeavour is to simplify the nuances of basic rights that women should be aware of and Nundy’s expertise helps conceive an innovative easy-to-comprehend approach.

The brand philosophy #AbSamjhautaNahin is integrated with its product campaigns also. Explaining the rationale behind it, Satpathy said, “#AbSamjhautaNahin is an integrated initiative. The philosophy is at the core of Vivel’s functional and the emotional promise that encourages women to not compromise; be it in their choices or in their approach.”

On social media, various collaborative opportunities have helped strengthen the #AbSamjhautaNahin initiative. From engaging powerful voices in collaboration with Culture Machine to provoke realisation, inspiring women through a reinterpretation of Rabindranath Tagore’s iconic poem ‘Where the mind is without fear’ with leading journalists and authors as part of the Kolkata Literary meet or renowned faces from the corporate world in the #BossWomen series sharing their stories to empowering women with access to sanitary napkins in a crowd sourced initiative with Culture Machine, a lot of brands are increasingly latching on to content now.But most of them end up doing branded content that usually dilutes the brand’s purpose.

But ITC has a bigger objective attached with the brand. Satpathy said, “#AbSamjhautaNahin is a philosophy rooted in today’s reality. Vivel undertakes initiatives with a strong purpose to encourage positive action that inspire, educate and empower women. Indeed, it is a thin line, but with #AbSamjhautaNahin, the brand’s purpose is to inspire a stronger commitment to add value in the lives of its consumers.”