Ankit Ajmera
Advertising

Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation

Tata Power, BEST and Reliance Energy have jointly launched an electricity conservation initiative in Mumbai. The campaign has been ideated by Marching Ants

Switch off those lights. In another instance of citizen activation in Mumbai, Tata Power, Brihan Mumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) and Reliance Energy have jointly launched an electricity conservation initiative in that city. The initiative aims to engage every Mumbaikar at the individual level to conserve power.

Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation
Dhritish Ghoshal
The campaign was launched at the end of last week and has been ideated by Marching Ants. According to one of the electricity companies, Mumbai is currently facing a power shortage of 400-500MW and, every year, electricity consumption is going up by 7-8 per cent. The objective of the campaign is to bring about an attitude change and sensitise the citizens of Mumbai to take action to control, and reduce, power usage.

The brief to the agency was to make the initiative an individual movement, rather than a mass one. Dhritish Ghoshal, director, business and marketing, Marching Ants, explains, “The challenge here is to invoke positive and collective action on the part of each citizen of Mumbai. In the campaign, we have given the audience simple points of action, which are very handy and which, if executed by each of them, will make an enormous amount of difference in conserving power.”

Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation
Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation
Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation
Keeping Mumbai ‘powerfull’: Citizen activation
A collection of ads from the campaign.
Ghoshal argues that the campaign is very different from the regular run-of-the-mill, save energy operations, which usually just target the masses but fail to evoke action. “To bring about this ‘I’ attitude and enforce a further connect, we have given a sense of representation to the local people by showcasing regular Mumbai citizens doing the talking in the ads.”

The idea was launched with an outdoor teaser campaign, which showed the reflections of an individual on two sides of the frame. One side portrayed messages such as ‘On’ or ‘Wrong’, while the other side said ‘Off’ or ‘Right’. This eventually led to revealing the actual campaign by showcasing the individuals.

The main highlight of the campaign is the three points of action that will help reduce energy consumption enormously. These are: keeping air conditioners in corporate offices at nominal temperatures, avoiding the use of common home electrical appliances in the peak consumption hours of 10am-8pm, and switching off appliances when not in use instead of keeping them in stand-by mode.

The idea has been executed using eight outdoor and press ads. Simple, thought-provoking action messages such as ‘I choose to keep all my ACs at 24 degree Celsius’, ‘I will choose to run the building pump after 8 pm’ and ‘I choose to shut down my computer during breaks’ are scrawled across the posters and each message is followed by a note which says, ‘I will keep Mumbai powerfull’, followed by an individual holding a placard saying, ‘I will, Mumbai will’, in a distinctive red and black colour scheme.

The campaign has been segregated across the city as per area specifications. Areas with more corporate offices will have more outdoor hoardings of the ‘AC temperature’ ad, while residential areas will have more of the ‘avoiding the use of common electrical appliances in peak hours’ ads.

The initiative will run till mid May 2007 and will also involve other media such as films, radio spots, below-the-line activities and direct mailers. To create a mass connect, the films will run only in cinema halls and multiplexes.

The direct mailers will be sent out as an energy conservation package to CEOs and other high-ranking officials in corporate houses, hotel chains, restaurants and shopping malls. There will also be on-ground activities to promote the idea in schools, colleges and shopping malls.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com