Explore your intellectual capability: The Hindu's 'Stay Ahead of The Times" campaign

The Hindu has long been a touchstone of Indian journalism and has consistently upheld the values and ethics of the media industry. It is considered recommended reading in many places of learning due to its impeccable standards and balanced reportage. As such, there are few, if any, journalistic institutions in the country with the history and credibility to raise this issue.

The new advertising campaign "Stay ahead of the times' is expected to generate conversations about the state of affairs and move people to act in their own interest. It is intended as an eye-opener to get people to re-evaluate their media choices, to demand a smarter newspaper.

On the thought behind the new campaign, Suresh Srinivasan, Vice President, Advertising, The Hindu Group, said, "This thought originated sometime in mid-2011 when The Hindu was going through the process of contemporization and professionalization. At this time one of the leading publications launched a campaign in Chennai taking pot-shot at us. However, at that point we never reacted, we thought of coming up with an appropriate communication at the right time to reach out to our readers."

Suresh Srinivasan further stated, "We started working on a way forward, by which we could create an impression on our readers. We used the help of Mckinsey and we understood that there has been a tendency of Bollywoodization of content and youth is getting swayed. It was a wakeup call. The Hindu group could take the stance of advocacy of reading good content. Larger core objective is to build awareness in this era when technology and information is in power and youth is being fed junk food asking the youth of today to make a smart choice of what the youth is consuming."

Now, The Hindu is rolling out a new advertising campaign that takes a hard look at the consequences of this celebrity-driven, sensation-seeking journalism. Through its 360 degree campaign, The Hindu shows how we may be creating a country that is fully conversant with gossip and Page 3 culture but clueless about current affairs and world events.

Joono Simon, Executive creative director, Ogilvy south, shared his experience with us in context to this campaign, he said, "A simple yet disruptive idea is your best antidote to clutter. Vox-pop as a format is not so widely used in films; therefore it brings in that element of freshness. We found this sort of candid camera approach an interesting way to deviate from the tried and tested existing storytelling formats. This also gave the films an important viral quality to it that made it a huge success on several social media platforms."

Social media has been abuzz with comments on The Hindus campaign, and taken it to a different level all together. It has given it desired multiplier and viral effect and evoked strong emotions from some media followers on the social media platform.

"For the film we did some bit of street casting and none of the answers the participants gave in the film were prompted as they candidly responded to all our questions. Actually we were astonished by the level of ignorance among people about the country and the general affairs." added, Jonno Simon.

The campaign will be on TV, radio, cinema, print, outdoor and digital. It will be supported by on-ground activities in malls, cafes and other locations. | By Ranjana Gupta [ranjana(at)adgully.com]