Background

• Indian women’s hair oil Nihar Shanti Amla established ‘education as a purpose’ at the heart of its brand, and partnered with Child Rights and You (CRY) NGO across 19 projects in India

• The brand contributes 2% of all sales proceeds towards children’s education.

The brand provides women with a platform to contribute to society by simply buying a bottle of the oil

Challenges

• In this cluttered space of multiple brands associating with educational causes, how we do not get lost, establish credibility and stand out in what we do?

• The main challenge: to establish genuine credibility for Nihar Shanti Amla as a brand working towards the cause of children’s education

Objective

• To establish Nihar Shanti Amla’s credibility for its association with the cause of education

PR Strategy

• Bring alive the brand thought by involving key stakeholders - consumers, Brand Ambassador and media, to communicate messaging to consumers.

Execution

• Transformed an entire village into a sanctuary of learning with elements like alphabet/number wind chimes, and wall paintings with simple Hindi to English translations, making education apart of their lives

• Nihar Shanti Amla and CRY launched a mobile-based teaching module for children to learn English. This was unveiled an event by brand ambassador actress Vidya Balan enacting the module's in front of the entire village

Outcome

• Brand trials increase (North market), PR was identified as critical factor to this increase (Nielsen Brand Track)

• Effective message delivery across print and electronic media

• After a reccee of about 5 villages in interior UP , Thanapur which is a current project village, was identified for the PR event

• The entire village donned the look of a school on the event day with different elements like

o The village walls converted to paintings with images illustrating some commonly used English words with their Hindi meaning and phonetic English, Different fun games for kids across the village helping them learn English words

• A larger-than-life pencil stand that could act as a symbol for education in the village and continue to inspire children post the event as well.

• Nihar Shanti Amla along with CRY had launched a mobile based teaching module for children to learn English words in an engaging manner. This was unveiled at the PR event by Vidya Balan enacting a script of the module in front of children and parents.

• The news travelled through geographies like Mumbai, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, MP, UP, Punjab, Gujarat & Bihar though the event was in a small village in UP. Garnered a total of 245 clips reaching more than 50 million people in Print, Electronic, Radio and online

• PR Value worth INR 115 Million including national television media giving an extensive coverage for 10 minutes in prime time and Radio Mirchi all UP stations talking about the event

• The brand Trialists & ever used increase in North post the event. From 73.7% brand trials of the oil in Mar-May’13 vs. June-Aug ’13 to Jun-Aug’13 vs. Sep-Nov’13 (source: Brandtrack, by Nielsen)

• A household panel survey (by Indian Market Research Bureau) of Top of the Time and Spontaneous recall between Q1’2013 and Sep-Oct’2013 revealed the following increase:

o 5% increase in Tom Of The Mind and spontaneous recall

o Trials: 12%

o Trials to Spontaneous recall ratio: 20%