TERI was about to lauch its programme ''Lighting a billion lives" in India. For this they required people to donate atleast Rs.3000/- which is the cost of one solar lantern. TERI was planning to give these solar lanterns to atleast 1 billion village families in India.
The work: To make people come forward and donate, TERI decided to go for an all India competition among the ad agencies. They called for ideas from all the major agencies of India. My agency was one.
The Ads: Since this programme required people to donate money, I thought of involving them emotionally. I worked on many concepts among which three got selected by my seniors and were executed. The ads are given below:
Ad 1.
Concept: People often go to dimly lit restaurants for a ''candle light dinner''. There they 'buy' darkness. For them going away from the light and glamour of a urban lifestyle is a pleasure. They prefer the quite silence of darkness. But for 400 million Indians the same darkness is pain, because they have no choice. They live without electricity year after year and have 'candle light dinner' everyday. The ad precisely talks about that.
Ad 2.
Concept: 'Tamso Ma Jyotirgyamaya', is a part of a popular shloka in India which means 'lead me onto light'. There is hardly anyone in India who hasn't prayed this shloka in school. The moment one leaves school the prayer becomes just that, a redundant prayer. But for 400 million Indians it's not a prayer. It's their deepest wish and they want it to come true. They wish for some light every day, year after year.
Ad 3.
Concept: This is a poster. It is a copy ad. The poster simply says '40% of Indians don't pay electricity bill' so as to make people think that this is some sort of a campaign to make people pay their electricity bills. But the later part says 'because they don't have electricity' which answers the previous part. The poster is created first to confuse people then to make them realise how a big chunk of Indian population live without electricity.
P.S. Click on the picture to get an enlarged view.
