Percept/H to handle creative duties for 'Bharat Nirman'

Percept/H has won the creative duties of Bharat Nirman, the set of flagship programs initiated by the Government of India for the development of rural India, in a multi-agency pitch held this July.

Bharat Nirman was launched six years ago. While the communication has always projected the schemes as an opportunity to improve and empower the lives of people, the focus this year is to project the change that people have experienced in their lives through these schemes, said a Percept/H statement.

 

The brief to the agency was to project the Bharat Nirman programs as the 'right' or 'haq' of people, which the Government of India is providing and fulfilling. The agency has come up with a campaign straddling TV, print and radio.

Rajiv Agrawal, executive creative director, Percept/H said, “Till now, over the last few years, the Bharat Nirman campaign has really been from the point of view of the Government, and not from the point of view of the people. In the sense it has tried to highlight the achievements of the Government rather than communicating a sense of empowerment to the people which is the core of these programmes. This is what we corrected. It’s a people’s campaign this time around. Exhorting them to claim their right. It’s classic storytelling which attempts to engage the audience in the  warm, aggressive campaign. Also, the look and feel is deliberately different, non-sarkaari. I believe that social campaigns should not be any different in look and feel from brand campaigns. The principle remains the same: you are trying to engage your audience by providing them a sound reason-to-believe”.

He elaborated,”The campaign is being executed through a complete 360 degrees approach with print, TVCs and radio.The logistical challenges of executing the TVCs were immense: seven program TVCs and one overarching jingle TVC, four language masters for each, making it a total of 32 master films and dubs in seven languages of each film, making it 56 dubs. So in all a total of mind boggling 88 films!”.

Amitava Mitra, COO (North), Percept H, said, "Bharat Nirman has always been an extremely prestigious project for us since its launch, and this year too, it was a matter of great pride for us to win it. The complexities involved in the execution of the campaign were extremely challenging with multiple programs, languages etc. But at the end of it is a hugely gratifying and satisfying experience”.

The print and radio campaigns are on currently. The television leg of the campaign is expected to break in the next few days, though an exact date of release could not be ascertained.