80% of consumers say they are more loyal to purpose-driven brands: Girish Kalyanaraman

Since 2005, Procter & Gamble India (P&G India) has been on a mission to create access to holistic education for underprivileged children in the country through P&G Shiksha - the Company’s flagship CSR program, impacting over 35 lakh children. P&G India has just launched a nationwide movement to bring to light a hidden issue. Often, school students can fall behind in keeping pace with their classes. When the child falls behind and the current learning level is not in line with the expected learning level as per the defined curriculum, it leads to an invisible learning gap. In a first-of-its-kind thought-provoking film, P&G Shiksha aims to make this #InvisibleGap visible, by creating awareness and urging meaningful action to bridge the invisible gap.

Conceptualised and created by Leo Burnett, the film is a compelling story of Bindiya, who is impacted by the invisible gap and struggles to cope in the classroom. Through various instances in school, the teacher notices that Bindiya is either missing, or she slides out of sight, almost deliberately trying to mischievously hide. While evaluating the children’s answer sheets, the teacher spots Bindiya’s sheet where most questions remain unanswered. Thus continues a game of hide and seek between the teacher and Bindiya, until he finally spots her hiding beneath a desk and confronts her calmly on why she is hiding. Bindiya reveals that she is afraid of questions, and if she is not visible in the class, the teacher will not be able to ask her any questions.

Watch the film here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPeplc9PukE

Speaking about the new film, Girish Kalyanaraman, Vice President – Marketing Operations, P&G India, said, “This #InvisibleGap arises when children fall behind and the current learning level is not in line with the expected learning level. To bridge this gap, P&G has been working with its partners through various programs – from leveraging advanced Machine-learning based tools to community-level learning camps. With the campaign, we aim to make the #InvisibleGap visible by driving nationwide awareness about this issue which is often misunderstood as the child being mischievous or disinterested in learning. I hope this film will inspire the audience in identifying this gap in children around them and taking necessary corrective measures to bridge it.”

In this interaction with Adgully, Girish Kalyanraman speaks at length about key milestones in P&G Shiksha’s journey, consumer loyalty and purpose-driven brands, the #InvisibleGap campaign, P&G’s long-standing #KeepGirlsInSchool movement on menstrual health of girl students, and much more.

P&G launched the Shiksha initiative eighteen years back. How has the brand’s focus or mission evolved over the years, did you see any specific changes post the pandemic?

We launched our flagship CSR program ‘P&G Shiksha’ in 2005 with the vision of providing means to education for underprivileged children in the country. We started with constructing school infrastructure including classrooms, toilet blocks, playgrounds and more, to create a conducive learning environment for children at schools so that more and more children are encouraged to attend school. Increasing enrolment was the need of the hour then. As the country evolved, and enrolment at schools drastically improved, P&G Shiksha evolved into a 360-degree, holistic education initiative targeting communities across the country, aiming to improve children's learning outcomes by strengthening educational infrastructure, remediating learning gaps, and empowering marginalized groups through education. This is in line with the Government’s Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Education Policy which stresses on equitable learning for all.

The pandemic posed significant barriers for us to continue the usual way of running our programs:

• India witnessed the 2nd longest school closures in the world. This meant we could not reach students in the most natural ecosystem
• Movement restrictions meant our volunteers could not reach and engage with the communities as per usual
• While the world moved to online classes, the students enrolled in our programs come from households where this luxury was not affordable. This meant they got cut off from regular means of education
• Education was no longer the most important thing in the parents’ minds, it was all about health and safety, and rightfully so

In this context, the teams on ground had to not just ensure the child stays interested in education, but also continue their learning journey. This meant mobilising communities, teaching them how to use mobile phones, creating online connections, bringing in volunteers from within the communities, and getting children onboarded onto digital / hybrid mediums.

It has been inspiring to see how all our partners and their teams came together to help the communities navigate the pandemic, while ensuring the children continue to learn, albeit in different ways. We got very creative as well. Stairs in the house or the spokes of a cycle tyre became means for counting exercises, household materials like peas, beads, clay, and lentils became learning tools. Textual content took the form of SMS, WhatsApp videos, exercises to make it accessible. Parents got involved unlike ever before. And we came out stronger with a much better understanding and more solutions up our sleeves to help children in a way that works for them.

You have been associated with P&G for over 15 years now. What are some of the major changes that you have observed over the years in terms of strategy?

Over the last 18 years, generations of great leaders in P&G have worked tirelessly to make P&G Shiksha what it is today. It is a matter of great pride for me to be able to take this work forward and contribute to the impact that the Program has been creating on ground.

While we started P&G Shiksha in 2005 as a Force For Good to give back to the communities we operate in, it soon transformed into our flagship CSR program when CSR became a legal mandate for businesses in India. As I mentioned earlier, when we started back in 2005, the need of the hour was creating educational infrastructure to provide a conducive learning environment for children. Over the years, Shiksha transformed into a holistic education program aiming to improve children's learning outcomes by strengthening educational infrastructure, remediating learning gaps, and empowering marginalized groups through education.

How much social transformation has P&G managed to bring forth in this nation eventually through its category-led purpose-led approach? What truly stuck out to you and provided a problem for the brand?

At P&G, we’ve made a choice to step up and use our voice in advertising as a force for good and a force for growth. We are producing thousands of new ads every year. An average consumer is subject to up to 5,000 ads every day. We believe that the best way to break through the clutter is to step-up and use our voice as a force for good. Have conversations on the world stage that bust myths and break biases and stereotypes while we build our brands.

People want to know the values behind the brands they buy. Nearly 80% of consumers say they are more loyal to purpose-driven brands, and 64% choose, switch, or avoid brands based on their stand on societal issues. Focusing on purpose-led advertising is not just the right thing to do for society, but also the right business choice. Because consumers today have a strong point of view and expect their brands to do the same. 9/10 consumers feel better about a brand that supports a social cause.

While we have the best products to delight our consumers with the benefits they seek from the category, purpose helps us connect with consumers on shared values and beliefs.

We supplement our efforts as a force for good by driving meaningful action on ground through the programs that P&G Shiksha drives. Our journey of transformation has been meaningful in several ways, impacting over 35 lakh children across the country. But what is more unique is the personal stories of transformation that we have witnessed over the years. For instance, last year we brought the story of Sushila to life, who studied in P&G Shiksha supported school and dreamt of becoming a teacher someday. With access to school and education, she could study and today is teaching hundreds of students, like herself, and helping them realize their dreams.

Let me talk about some of our initiatives that we are driving on ground as part of P&G Shiksha:

• Community Remedial Learning: P&G Shiksha is implementing innovative methods to minimize learning gaps and improve learning outcomes through on-ground remedial learning interventions in partnership with Pratham Education Foundation, by using a community based and an ‘in-school’ model, together with the support of trained volunteers from within the community and teachers at school. Through our remedial learning programs, we are working towards bridging learning gaps in children with a two-fold objective: a) to set them up for fast-paced growth in school; and b) to strengthen their conceptual understanding of essential subjects. Last year, at the end of the intervention, more than 70% of students were able to read as per their expected learning levels compared to less than 25% at the beginning of the intervention.
• Digital Remedial Learning: We are also leveraging technology to improve learning outcomes in children. We are partnering with Educational Initiatives and are implementing ‘Mindspark’, a computer-based adaptive learning tool to remediate learning gaps in students. The tool integrates pedagogy, teacher instruction and a learning management system to assess a student’s learning level and develop a customized learning path for each one of them.
• Early Childhood Education program: In partnership with Pratham Education Foundation, we are focusing on developing motor, cognitive, social-emotional, language and creative skills in children, thereby setting them up for a strong start as they begin their education journey.
• STEM Scholarships: Additionally, we are also proactively working towards enabling STEM careers for girls via ‘P&G Shiksha Betiyan Scholarship Program’, in partnership with Centre For Civil Society (CCS). As per reports, women only make up 14% of the STEM workforce in India. We aim to bridge this gap by empowering girls seeking to pursue STEM education, through essential financial aid and mentorship, with the end goal of supporting the entry of skilled women professionals into manufacturing and production industries.

What was the primary insight that led to the conceptualisation of #InvisibleGap ad campaign for P&G Shiksha? What is the agency behind the same?

P&G Shiksha started as a program to build schools across the country in line with the government’s mission. It has today evolved into a holistic program that addresses some critical barriers to achieving quality education.

Many times, children struggle to keep up with what is taught in class. One concept, one subject, one class, can give way to a larger issue where the child develops a gap in the fundamentals of education. When the child falls behind and the current learning level is not in line with the expected learning level as per the defined curriculum, it gives rise to Learning Gap.

This year, by bringing forth an inspiring story of Bindiya, a young girl who is impacted by this invisible gap and struggles to cope in the classroom, P&G Shiksha is shining a spotlight on this pertinent issue and the different ways in which it manifests. This invisible learning gap is often misunderstood as the child not being serious, or silly naughtiness, or fear. If not addressed, this gap widens and eventually leads to many children either dropping out of school or facing challenges in the later stages of life.

Like Bindiya, 6 crore children feel left behind in class and experience a learning gap. This has led to a ‘learning crisis’ in India, where access to education has drastically improved, but learning outcomes have not. From loss of confidence and excuses to skip school, to lack of participation and fear of expression – this gap manifests differently in children. In fact, some children even get distracted and hide when probed, like you saw with Bindiya’s story. These indicators are often misunderstood as the child being naughty, undisciplined, disinterested, etc. Leading to the symptoms only widening due to lack of understanding and support. The misconceptions often stem from lack of awareness and understanding of the invisible gap.

Our aim this year is to make this #InvisibleGap visible, by creating awareness and urging meaningful action. P&G is working with its partners to bridge this #InvisibleGap. With this thought-provoking film, we seek to highlight the need for collective action to ensure that every child in India receives an education that empowers them to build a better future for themselves and their communities.

Kudos to our partners at Leo Burnett for conceptualising this film and helping us bring this conversation to the forefront. A big shoutout to our other agency partners – Mediacom, GroupM, Sociowash, Madison.

In the era of advertisement explosion, every brand is trying to reach the right consumer with the right product at the right time therefore being a brand builder what does it take to be out of the box?

At P&G, everything we do, we start with the consumer. For instance, through the story of Bindiya, we want to reach parents and guardians to make the invisible gap visible by driving awareness and urging collective meaningful action.

I believe that it all comes down to narrowing down the consumer and the context, right at the stage where you put pen to paper and brainstorm on how to communicate a key message effectively, and in a manner that it is easy to absorb. Once the larger idea, the core of the issue being highlighted is in place, everything else falls into place. To really think out of the box, you must start by thinking about the consumer and decoding the best possible articulation to communicate a message.

Also, I believe, one must evolve with the changing context. For instance, like I said earlier, when we started P&G Shiksha in 2005, our objective was to construct schools considering the need of the hour. Over the years, with the changing context and landscape, P&G Shiksha also evolved to solve a new problem. I think this, along with the willingness to think outside the box, is the key to really thinking outside the box.

What other initiatives will we see from P&G that will help change and open up every consumer’s thoughts towards society?

At P&G, all our brands continue to leverage their voice through films, advertising, and programs to create a larger impact in the communities we operate as a force for good. This has truly been a long-standing commitment ever since we aired our very first advertisement.

For instance, recently, our feminine care brand Whisper unveiled a new film as part of the fourth edition of its long-standing #KeepGirlsInSchool movement. The film, titled ‘The Missing Chapter’, educates mothers about the biology behind periods so that they, in turn, can bring up aware, informed daughters who don't miss school during periods.

Studies indicate that 1 out of 5 girls in India drop out of school due to lack of period education and products. Mothers are a girl’s first teacher, but reports say 7 out of 10 mothers do not fully understand the science of periods and find it ‘dirty or impure’. So, to tackle the issue and drive awareness on menstrual hygiene in the larger society, the film aims to educate mothers on the biology of periods so that they, in turn, can educate their daughters on periods including menstrual hygiene and using sanitary pads during their monthly cycles.

Over the years, Whisper has provided free pads and menstrual education to 10 crore+ daughters and mothers. With every Whisper Ultra pack bought during this campaign, consumers can help support one girl’s free pads and menstrual education, helping keep her in school.