Water Consulting helps to Light a Billion Lives

In January this year, Water Consulting, Mudra Group's design arm, had won the Creative Lantern Award. The Creative Lantern Awards are given by the India chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA), in collaboration with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

The agencies that wanted to be part of this initiative were asked to create a campaign for 'Lighting a Billion Lives'. This initiative aims to donate solar lanterns to villages in India that have no access to electricity. The thought behind the initiative is that there are still 78 million households in India that are in the dark. Therefore, the ad campaign aims to raise funds for the solar lanterns.

The work done by Water Consulting was selected as the winner from among the 113 entries submitted. For the campaign, Water Consulting has been working closely with the IAA.

Ashish Mishra, chief strategist, Water Consulting tells afaqs! that they had a choice to either highlight the negative impact of the lack of electricity, or the positive effect of having electricity. They decided to focus on the latter.

Mishra says that they decided to use children in the ad as they are the future of the country -- if their villages are lit up, they will have a better chance of improving their future, which, in turn, will improve the country's future.

A television commercial and six print ads will be released, on channels and publications that are supporting the cause.