Advertising Case Study

1. THE STORY SO FAR…

2. CRY Takes a Rights Turn
You’ve been around for years, everyone knows you, respects you, and even
lauds you.
For nearly 30 years now, CRY has been working in India to change children’s
lives for the better, forever.
CRY changed its name from ‘Child Relief and You’ to ‘Child Rights and You’ in
2006 to reflect their ideology that is concerned with getting children what is
rightfully theirs as opposed to a benevolent act of charity.
This means that CRY will not work directly for children by running
orphanages, building schools, supporting educational programs etc.
Collecting funds, CRY works with NGO’s by funding them, monitoring their
programs and by helping them use their resources efficiently and effectively.
CRY’s approach demands accountability from the state. It will work to ensure
that the state recognizes and fulfills all its duties towards the children of
India, as enshrined in our constitution.

3. So, What’s the Problem
The key issue - audience was not aware of the process by which CRY achieves
this agenda.
In the years preceding the change of name (from ‘Relief’ to ‘Rights’), CRY’s on-
ground action, their local development partners and their communication,
pointed to a ‘relief’ or a ‘charity’ function.
This has led to the audience perceiving CRY to be a charitable organization that
works for the ‘welfare’ of children.
Developing the communication approach
Audience research data and interviews with key stakeholders of CRY, and the
local development partners threw up certain perspectives on the audience
expectations.
Hence, it was clear from the outset that the most important objective of the
communication will be to achieve a switch in audience perception and
behavior, by educating them about Child Rights and getting them to realize
the need for permanent solutions rather than focusing on short-term
interventions.

4. The Challenge
Synapse, an Information agency based out of Goa, was brought into the
picture to advise CRY on tackling this challenge.
Very quickly, they realized that the biggest challenge lay in not following the
conventional route, i.e, communication with pictures of sad, hungry
underprivileged children seeking ‘help’ from the kind hearted donors/
volunteers/ supporters.
At CRY, the solution lay elsewhere. It lies in the fighting the real inequities
on the ground. Governments over the years have bought in a slew of
measures (e.g: mandatory Free and Equal education for children,
employment schemes etc), however, the implementation of these schemes at
the grass roots has been a stumbling block.
Hence the challenge lay in ‘seeing’ the obvious and fighting to correct the
situation rather than inventing and maintaining a bottomless ‘charity bowl’.

5. The approach
The ‘Rights’ based approach used by CRY was perceived to be difficult to
understand and seemingly complicated to the entire audience, who was
always willing to give (time/money/skills), because they wanted to do good,
but was now wondering what does this ‘rights’ based approach mean?
Hence the need was to explain the ‘Rights-approach’ in a manner that was
understandable to most people and helped them become clearer about what
CRY does and also insulates against any misperception. Give people the
feeling that CRY has visible, real-world impact and their participation or
donation will have tangible results.
Keeping in mind CRY’s inclusive nature of operations, Synapse proposed a
communication platform to articulate that ‘CRY works with you to transform
the lives of India’s underprivileged children’.
The ‘You’ encompasses all of CRY’s stakeholders – donors, volunteers,
program partners, media, bureaucracy etc.

6. Addressing the challenges through communication
Synapse began by creating a set of communication directives that best manifest
CRY’s brand personality.
The 3 most important directives laid out were:
• Use sensible, sensitive tone that rings true with reason.
• Leave behind a feeling of being inclusive.
• Language should be simple, set in the ethos of popular Indian society.
The directives also outlined strict no –nos
• No using social development jargon
• No dramatic, exaggerated representation
• No use of indigent children in close up unless in an identifiable real life
context and unless relevant.
Next, information gaps were identified, such as ‘What is Child Rights?’ and
‘How does CRY fight for it?’ and specific tools were developed to address them.

7. The Communication Campaign
The peg for the central campaign to reposition CRY was based on two premises.
• One was that in India emotion overrides content and so a way to an Indian’s
head is through the heart.
• Two was that India lives in its villages (And the villages are mostly where CRY
works)
And so was born a simple, scalable, campaign able thought
‘Ek Din Aayega…aayega zaroor’.
This campaign thought encompasses lasting hope and optimism that is so
central to Indians as well as to CRY’s work. More importantly, this campaign
provided a peg that didn’t use guilt to prod the audience. Rather than present
the grim, grave reality of ‘what is’, it represents ‘what it can be, with your
help’.
It also gave CRY the opportunity to reflect its work, case studies and results to
the audience with a great sense of unabashed pride.

8. The Communication Campaign
The next challenge was to find the media muscle to showcase it. CRY being an
NGO, advertising and communication funds are perennially short and justifiably
so, as each rupee spent on communication is a rupee lost for development.
It is here that CRY’s goodwill came handy as long-term CRY supporters and
media houses sprung up to CRY’s aid by offering FOC media or at incredibly low
costs. Infact, this intervention ensured that the campaign went twice the
distance than it would have gone without the help.
The Communication Impact
From mid-Feb to mid-April
• SMS – approx 100 responses
• e-banners on yahoo.com & sify.com as well as on other partner sites
generated approx 13000 click throughs to the CRY website.
• Visibility across outdoor media in 4 cities (Mum, Blr, Del, Chn) – hoardings,
panels at metro stations, cinema slides
The campaign is by no means over, it has been continuing post April 09 through
our existing communication to the external audience as well as media support
from time to time.

9. COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN

13. A Time Will Come.swf

14. Viral video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOO29AdPLis
For more information:
CRY Synapse
Sharmila Subramaniam Ravishankar
Sharmila.subramaniam@crymail.org ravi@informationmatters.in

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Disclaimer: This case study is for informational purpose only and for any details contact sumita.mehta@crymail.org