Tata Tea aims for one billion votes

Last year, Tata Tea launched the Jaago Re campaign, which aimed at awakening the masses and alerting them to their responsibilities as citizens, one of which was to question the political leaders. Now, the company has announced a new initiative, One Billion Votes, which will encourage people, especially the youth, to cast their votes and make a difference to the political leadership of India.

The initiative has been launched in association with the nonprofit, Janaagraha, and the integrated media agency, Arc Worldwide. The focal point of the campaign is a website, www.jaagore.com, which has been developed by the latter.

Speaking to afaqs!, Sushant Dash, head of marketing, Tata Tea, says, "During the last campaign, we created awareness among the youth to wake up. But we realised that a brand needs to do more than that and facilitate the awakening process."

Most important, the site allows people to fill a voter registration form online and informs them about their constituencies. MapMyIndia has pooled in for this part, with an interactive map displaying the constituencies and polling booths in 35 cities. Since the Government of India does not accept online registrations, visitors can take a printout of the filled form and submit it at the nearest Election Commission office.

CVS Sharma, senior vice-president and director, Arc Worldwide, tells afaqs! about the site, "With the help of Janaagraha, we have created the site to be clutter free and easy to navigate and answer queries on voting. We have developed a demo of the registration process. We have also developed groups on Facebook and Orkut to spread awareness."

Apart from providing inputs on the site, Janaagraha also played a role in getting recognition from the Election Commission of India.

Sharma promises that more interactive features will be added to the website as elections draw near.

With the 'One billion Votes' slogan, Tata Tea aims to have as many people register online as possible. "Even if 5 per cent more people vote, it can bring about a change," says Dash.

The campaign has kicked off on television as well, with a TV commercial that shows a young man distributing tea to people who are supposedly “sleeping”. When questioned by them, he says that people who don’t vote in the elections are actually sleeping.

The TVC has been created by Lowe India.

Apart from the TVC, Tata Tea is planning an Internet campaign, including virals, social networking sites and online ads. An outreach programme is also on the cards, for on-ground activities in college campuses and offices, especially in the BPO sector.