Enterprises are equal partners with government and society in building a safer, inclusive community.
Digital brings in two-way communication in safe environments and the ability to engage and mobilize large populations. Ethnographic studies have proven the role content on popular media play in shaping opinions and mindsets. Creative usage of data tech, especially on mobile platforms, can help significantly increase the impact of social initiatives.
Proof of concept lies in the dedicated commitment of an F&B company to working towards societal change – in a step-by-step process over three years. The journey began before this period and continues after.
The role of skillfully weaving media, content, data, and technology in enabling the efforts.
Year 1: With the Indian Elections 2014 coming up and driven by the state of affairs women face, they launched a powerful initiative to awaken women to their power as the largest voting bloc and therefore mattering to politicians, who would then activate policies for women’s betterment. Participation was driven by harnessing the influential power of women role models on Indian TV and providing platforms for women to share their areas of concern and suggestions to address them. It resulted in a women’s manifesto with deep insights and new places to work upon for women (apart from what was already apparent).
Year 2: With participation from a massive number of women across almost all constituencies of India, the manifesto helped guide the following steps on the journey. The next step was directed at rural women and using content and technology to drive societal change, in an in-depth and sustained fashion, in parts of India where gender inequality was the highest.
Year 3: The next initiative was to drive pre-activism, addressing issues before they took root and reaching out to a broader section of society.
Each of these initiatives used different data-content-tech platforms to drive interactions and conversations between the people, government and key influencers leading to concrete actions taken in the focus areas.
Measuring impact, efficiency, course correction and expanding on what works.
Data capture across different stages and through various platforms helped understand media equivalency and effectiveness for the brands involved, notably on the causes they championed. Identifying the right partners and continuously monitoring, course correcting and building on what works is an integral part of this process.