Public CompanyDilliwalas hear it from Delhi ki Beti
Apart from the cityscapes, the Commonwealth Games provide the opportunity to improve the mindscapes of the people of Delhi. The Delhi Government has embarked on a civility campaign, Come on Delhi, to make the city a good host for the upcoming event.
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The government has awarded the account to Citizen Dentsu, the Dentsu India arm for social communications. It defeated 10 agencies from the 15 empanelled with the Delhi Government to bag the account. According to industry sources, the campaign could be worth Rs 100 crore. While huge sums of money have been spent to make Delhi a world-class city with cutting-edge infrastructure, post-modern transport, round-the-clock security and uninterrupted power, the Come on Delhi campaign will address softer issues — how to instill a sense of hospitality, pride, care and concern for Delhi amongst its citizens .
The Come on Delhi campaign will run in three phases from mid-December 2009 till the Commonwealth Games in October 2010. The first phase will be “inform and inspire”, followed by the “involve” phase and finally the “ hospitality” phase. The campaign draws attention to civic concerns affecting Delhi, like traffic sense, environment and pollution, women’s safety, good maintenance of public services, infrastructure and heritage structures.
Citizen Dentsu has created a mascot , Delhi ki Beti (Delhi’s daughter), for the campaign. Delhi ki Beti is a seven-year old girl, born and brought up in Delhi, who loves her city. She wants to see everyone come together and look after Delhi with love and care.
It will be a 360 - degree campaign. The agency has already put the campaign on bus shelters and billboards in the city. Later, it will break it in the print media, radio, and TV closer to the Games. “Currently, it is important that the mascot registers with the people and they get familiar with it. As we get closer to the Commonwealth Games, this campaign will intensify and be visible on other mediums as well,” says Dentsu India Executive Vice-chairman and Chief Creative Officer Gullu Sen.
While some government-run civility campaigns have celebrity endorsements, like the one where Aamir Khan hits on misbehaviour towards foreign travellers, Citizen Dentsu chose to have a girl as the mascot because it believes that only the innocence of a child can make grown-ups introspect.
“As we get closer to the Games, the campaign will encourage Delhiites to be at their best behaviour, be good hosts and show concern for the city and its guests. Thus, the campaign seeks to bring about basic behavioural changes in Delhiites. We needed to convey all these complex messages without being too harsh on the people of Delhi. To do this effectively, we chose a little girl child as our campaign mascot,” Sen elaborates further.
Besides Sen, Rajesh Aggarwal, Harish Arora, Manavjit Mohil, Gaurav Luthra and Atul Kharbanda are behind the concept of Delhi ki Beti. While the money spent on cityscapes will certainly pay back the government, it’s to be seen if the Rs 100-crore campaign will help Delhi’s people change their stripes in less than a year.