The Big Idea : DON’T BE A BAD PENNY AND SAY NO TO DOWRY

India is the land of “arranged” marriages where parents finalize weddings of their children. The bride and the groom have very little say other than just giving a tacit acceptance to their parent’s choices of partners. The ‘task” of dowry “negotiations” is the parents’ prerogative. Unwittingly, in these negotiations, parents of the groom end up putting a “price point” for their son.

This is what we wanted to break. Our strategy hinged on getting the prospective groom to stand up and say “No More”, and that he would not get married for dowry. We told the groom, to not be a Bad Penny and say No to dowry.

We challenged established social norms, questioned the dowry system, and spoke directly to the groom on whose head a price (in the name of dowry) was being fixed.

CREATED THE ANTI-DOWRY TORCH RALLY: This was flagged off by the Chief Minister expressing hope that post campaign, not giving dowry will become a status symbol. The rally traveled through 38 districts in its 3000 km journey. Over 15 mn people were directly participated.

AGENDA SETTING: With 800 pages of editorial content published, we brought the issue into public sphere. Highlights:

- Letters of Courage: 20 letters were published - Sons telling fathers they won’t take dowry, and daughters telling fathers they wouldn’t marry a “bad penny”.

- Celebrating “Good Pennies”: 20 Stories of people who married without dowry

- 17 Celebrity appeals saying no to dowry

- Celebrating champions of change : Profiled 20 groups crusading against the dowry system

MESSAGE AMPLIFICATION:

- 115 Bike rallies

- 1672 Street theatres

- Print, Radio and outdoor campaign

- 6000 children created themed paintings

- 2,25,000 signatures supporting the campaign

IMPACT ON BRAND

- Market Leadership : Dainik Jagran overtook the market leader and became the No.1 newspaper in Patna with a Total Readership of 5,95,000.

- Readership Gains : We recorded our highest ever readership figure of 12.6mn in Bihar

- Brand Awareness : Total awareness at par with the market leader

- Increase in Time spent on the newspaper : + 10% vs last year

- Perception score : “This newspaper makes me a better citizen” : +3% over last track

Source : Brand Track, Dec 2017, Indian Readership Survey 2017

PEOPLE ADOPTED THE CAMPAIGN: 42 Civil society organizations, 14 government departments and several associations echoed our message. People created videos, films, anthems and paintings in support.