Vedanta Group launches its first ever national corporate campaign

The Vedanta group is a globally diversified natural resources company that believes in sustainable development into all aspects of what they do. The company that believes in Responsible Stewardship, Stakeholder Engagement and the Creation of Value, support communities where they operate to improve their quality of life and create self-sustaining communities.

The Vedanta group yesterday launched its first ever national corporate campaign under the platform of "Creating Happiness'. As a part of the campaign, Vedanta has released a 90 second TVC created by Ogilvy & Mather along with 38 other three minute films made by student film makers from across the country.

According to Vedanta Chairman, Anil Agarwal, "The core part of the business, that is the vision of contributing to building sustainable communities and integrating sustainability is at the heart of this campaign."

The face of the campaign is "Binno', a little girl who was chosen from one of Vedanta's community initiatives in rural Rajasthan. The television ad film, which has been conceived and scripted by veteran adman Piyush Pandey, shows a real story of Binno's life, with her parents, friends, doctors and school teachers playing the part. It shows how her life is different from that of her earlier generations, explaining that now the things have been changed the way it was over the years in her village.

About the campaign, Senjam Raj Sekhar, director, communications and brand, Vedanta Group, said, "Vedanta has several compelling stories to tell about the work that is being done in community and sustainability. The work that we are doing in the area of community and sustainability is creating happiness for the communities around us. Our aim is to tell the world the Vedanta story under the platform of "Creating Happiness' and also inspire others to create happiness for their communities."

He further added, "When we decided to open up our community projects, we felt that youth and student community will bring in fresh perspective and new ideas. We chose the future journalists, the future film makers and the future communicators to reach out to and went to film, media and mass communication colleges across the country. We have got a wide variety of creative treatment in the films, but all of them share the passion, energy and enthusiasm of the youth filmmakers."

A one hundred and fourteen students from top media and film schools in the country including FTII, Whistling Woods, Symbiosis, School of Convergence, JIMMC, MGR FTI, IIMC, Assam University, Xavier's, Christ University, AAFT, ZIMA, Tezpur University, IP College and Ravenshaw have produced 38 short films that tell the stories of the people and communities whose lives have been changed by Vedanta's community initiatives, creating happiness in the process. Each film was made by a group of three students.

The film has been shot on location in Rajasthan by award-winning director Shivendra Dungarpur of Dungarpur Films and the music has been composed by Rajat Dholakia, who has won two national awards as best music director for "Dharavi' and "Sunday'.

"The campaign has got tremendous feedback. Several people have written to us offering to volunteer or work in our community programmes. People absolutely adore Binno and her infectious smile. Our YouTube channel has close to 50, 000 channel views and 6000 "likes' since we started few days back. We believe that this is creating a new category of socially meaningful films on YouTube in India." Said, Senjam Raj Sekhar.

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman, Ogilvy & Mather, stated that, "The Vedanta "Creating Happiness' campaign is extremely close to my heart for it's all about enabling India. I have worked on this campaign along with my team as an excited young copywriter and I look forward to the people of India not just appreciating the Vedanta efforts, but getting inspired to do something on their own to make India a happier place."

The students travelled to the interiors in Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Chahattisgarh to meet with an India that is full of inspiring stories and came back with experiences and films. The films will also be judged by the jury that includes Piyush Pandey, Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag. The films are open for public voting on YouTube till 20 March 2012.

This would be a complete 360 campaign that involves traditional media like television and social media (Youtube, facebook and twitter). All these 39 films are available on Vedanta's YouTube Channel- www.youtube.com/vedantagroup

To follow them on Twitter ' www.twitter.com/planethappiness

The most interesting part of the campaign is, the initiative taken up by them in the form of first-of-its-kind film competition for India's next-gen filmmakers along with social media and traditional media outreach. The Creating Happiness Film Competition invited film students across the country to visit any of the 550 villages where we have a presence, and find their own Binno. The result has been overwhelming. Every film entered shares two common things - a real story well told, and the passion of budding film-makers who will go on to tell many a beautiful story.