Snapdeal is one of India’s largest online marketplaces with 7 million daily visits and 70+ million app downloads, with 63% of their audience belonging to 25+ age group (potential parents). They wanted to develop a CSR initiative and hence decided to leverage their platform to bring to light the problem of child trafficking. They partnered with Save the Children, India's leading independent child rights NGO, to create awareness about this growing problem in India.

Child trafficking is the third largest crime in India. An estimated 7 children go missing every hour. Half of them, are never able to return home. Between 2016 and 2017, nearly 1 lakh children went missing.

We created a first-of-its-kind ‘Ecommerce sale’ that tried to ‘stop a sale’. Just like a typical sale, we announced an amazing "Sale for Kids" through fun banners which later switched to stark banners highlighting the "Sale of Kids". The sale microsite resembled an ecommerce website and highlighted stories of how children, both boys and girls, are trafficked and on many occasions even forced to give up their organs or fight in conflict zones thus leading to exploitation. On the microsite was a call to action asking the audience to sign a petition for early passage of the Anti-trafficking bill.

We deployed a Bait and Switch Strategy to draw attention to the campaign. The campaign started with Snapdeal releasing a fun banner highlighting an ‘Amazing Kids Sale’ and to save the date. As anticipated, the announcement led the audience to subscribe to the upcoming sale. On the day of launch, when people came on Snapdeal to shop the sale, these appealing banners flipped to reveal the dark web of child trafficking, creating shock and outrage among those who were exposed to the banners. Audience was redirected to a microsite (www.snapdeal.com/offers/kidsnotforsale), launched along with the campaign, exposing the state of child trafficking in our country. The visitors (including Snapdeal’s large customer base) were then encouraged to come forward and sign a petition for early passage of the Anti-trafficking bill, introduced in 2016 but pending in parliament.

A week before the campaign launch, we kickstarted a teaser with attractive pre-sale banners mentioning “Amazing Kids Sale,” on Snapdeal. Social Media Communication via Snapdeal handles promoted the sale and was integrated into Snapdeal’s app environment as well. Promotions were extended to Snapdeal’s large customer base through emailers, notifications and banner marketing.

On D-day, banners led to a microsite (created with Snapdeal’s interface) showcasing the dark reality of child trafficking. Accordingly, communication across Snapdeal’s social handles changed to the message - #KidsNotForSale, this was further cross-promoted by Save the Children on their social profiles.

The website encouraged people to donate towards protecting children and to sign a petition for the Anti-trafficking bill. Parents who were involved in the conversation were taken aback with the actual message and took to Twitter and video messages to express their outrage and created social pressure on the Government to pass the Anti-trafficking Bill.

The Government of India passed the Anti-Trafficking bill after 2 years of it being proposed in the parliament.

154 Million overall organic impressions (including media coverage, nationally and internationally) were received due to celebrities, influential members of parliament & millions of Indians coming together to create social pressure to put a stop on ‘Child Trafficking’.

Snapdeal received an increase of 59% in terms of unique visitors due to the campaign in the month of July. 6277 petitions were signed on the microsite

The hashtag KidsNotForSale trended nationally with over 68.9 million impressions.