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Nanhi Kali prefers social media to traditional advertising
Nanhi Kali, which supports underprivileged girls in India, has stopped using traditional media and begun using social media to spread awareness about itself
Nanhi Kali, a non-profit project managed jointly by the KC Mahindra Education Trust and the Naandi Foundation to help underprivileged girls in India complete their primary education, has shifted its advertising focus from traditional to social media.
It has stopped using print, posters and cinema advertising and instead developed an innovative site called www.GirlSmiles.org to create awareness about Nanhi Kali and build a community of individuals who want to be affiliated with the project.
Strawberry Frog, a US based advertising agency, has designed the site – this is their first assignment in India.
A screenshot of Girlsmiles.org site |
Sheetal Mehta, executive director, Nanhi Kali, says, “The Strawberry Frog team has developed the concept and the idea is to integrate the existing information about the project and help people to easily extract information from a single point. Since the site directs the browser to various links on social media sites, which are updated continuously, he or she will get the latest information.”
Mehta adds, “We opted for online media because we want to create awareness about the project in a cost-effective manner and we will continue to use web over traditional media.”
The site opens on a Wikipedia page, which carries information about the project and also displays an image of a girl named Shreya, which is actually a virtual cloud navigator and has links to various social media sites.
A link called Community allows users to join a Nanhi Kali Facebook group or write their views about the project on a forum. The Facebook group has more than 200 members at present. One of the links directs users to YouTube.com, which shows various documentaries related to the project. Users can also check various photographs uploaded on Flickr and contribute any information through social news websites such as Digg.com. A link called Donations is also available, which guides individuals to a website called www.ChangeThePresent.org, where users can donate money.
In an official communiqué, Scott Goodson, founder and chief creative officer, Strawberry Frog, says, “Instead of a complex, expensive website, we spent our time using the technology that already exists on the web and spent our money on developing ‘Shreya’ as a human evolution of the Internet.”
Strawberry Frog has collaborated with a Sweden based digital communications agency called Albert Ken to build the navigation system.
A traditional site called www.NanhiKali.org, developed by BCWebwise, already exists. But a separate site has been launched to catch people where they are available.
Various public and private organisations such as Microsoft, HDFC Bank, HSBC, NTPC, ONGC, ICICI and Barclays sponsor the Nanhi Kali project.
Nanhi Kali supports 38,000 girls in different parts of India and it is targeting raising this figure to 1,00,000 girls by the end of the current financial year.