Paul Writer Launches Innovative Marketer Dialogue
Video interview series with CMOs highlighting marketing best practices
Rahul Kansal
Executive President
Bennett Coleman & Co
On use of Innovative Technology & Marketing at Bennett Coleman
We are a pretty active marketing company and there are some 25 editions of Times of India alone. We do a lot of local campaigns from trying to clean up a river to holding local civil authorities accountable etc but one campaign that really gladdened our heart is about ‘Organ Donation Day’ which we finished just about a fortnight ago is part of a much larger, year long campaign called “I Lead India”, which we launched around June as part of out 175 year celebrations.
The premise of this innovative marketing campaign was that our Indian society has been over taken skepticism and cynicism. Today, no institution is above board, no aspect of society is free from guilt, the authorities blame civil society for the mess out there, for the crimes against women and the increasing erosion of ethics in our society. Similarly, we the people blame the government. “I lead India” was born from the idea: what can we do for the society? And one of the important interventions was ‘Organ Donation day’, addressing the problem which plagues our society unlike in many other cultures because of the Indian culture specially Hindu’s who don’t want to offer their body after death believing it to be bad karma or something that might come in the way of the smooth transition of the soul to heaven. As a result, there is a huge amount of illegal trade of organ.
We launched this innovative marketing campaign in a heartfelt way and I am happy to tell you that on the day that the campaign was launched, we generated more than 5 to 6 times the total number of registration that happen in the whole year in the country. The best estimates are that about 8 to 10 thousand people pledge their organs in a year but this campaign alone generated over 60,000 such registrations. Although it was our idea, we promoted it, far more credit must be given to the people on social media who took it up on their own, NGO’s, ordinary citizens with their sensitive and rational view of the world came forward to support this idea and we finally had 60,000 people come support us.
“on the day that the campaign was launched, we generated more than 5 to 6 times the total number of registrationS that happen in the whole year in the country. ” – Rahul Kansal
Read more interviews with innovative marketers at the Innovative Marketer Dialogue Series