MARKETING

A brand new awakening

Jaago Re (wake up), the iconic Tata Tea marketing campaign aimed at Indias youth, has evolved to highlight different kinds of socially critical issues

or around five years now, Indians have been awakened by a hard-hitting media campaign that says, Har subah sirf utho mat. Jaago Re! (Dont just wake up every morning. Awaken!) This wildly successful campaign from Tata Tea the tea brand from Tata Global Beverages has caused a revolution of sorts in the country by prodding and provoking an entire generation of Indians with its messages of empowerment and the need to be

more responsible citizens. The campaign works on two levels by intertwining the themes of civic consciousness with that of the physical and psychological boost that a cup of tea delivers. Significantly, it has acted as a wake-up call for the countrys social-minded youth and spawned several spin-offs in terms of social interventions that are having an impact on the nations consciousness. From a purely marketing

perspective, too, the campaign has proved to be successful. The Tata Tea brand required rejuvenation; it needed a youth connect to move forward, explains Sanjiv Sarin, regional president, South Asia, Tata Global Beverages. We have a clutch of brands, and separate advertising spends on each of the brands would have driven the financials quite high. The thinking was to bring all these under one common umbrella and drive synergy while also giving strength to the individual brands. Earlier, the company had separate marketing campaigns for each of its brands: Premium, Gold, Agni and Life. But Jaago Re was run as an all-encompassing campaign with a common and unique December 2011

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message aimed at appealing to the socially conscious citizen in all of us. This winning move has helped stretch the companys marketing rupee significantly. A lot has happened within the scope of this stretching. TARGET: YOUTH Tata Tea has launched several editions of the Jaago Re campaign, each with a different theme of social relevance that resonates with Indias youth. Currently in its fourth edition, the campaigns latest theme is corruption. Says Mr Sarin, We have covered awakening people and telling them that they should go out and vote, awakening people to the fact that politicians need to be accountable and that their capabilities have to be examined. Now we are talking about corruption. These are messages that the youth of the country relate to. Though the primary medium of dissemination is television, Tata Tea believes in walking the talk and has conducted extensive

While Jaago Re continues to grow, the individual brands get a sharper focus and specific functional advantages by pulling into the theme of Jaago Re.
Sanjiv Sarin, regional president, South Asia, Tata Global Beverages

outreach programmes to drive its message home. The campaign against corruption has a host of surround activity to directly engage with youth, including a Vrath Yatra, a 38-day bus journey that sought to connect with the young and urged them to fight corruption. The bus traversed the country, engaging with youth and asking them to pledge never to offer a bribe. The yatra also engaged with over 100,000 retailers and carried its message to schools. In 285 schools, the no-bribe pledge was integrated into an essay competition. Supporting the campaign in the digital world is jaagore. com, the campaign website, which has morphed into a portal that facilitates several social initiatives,

Online empowerment
Jaagore.com complements the main objective of the campaign by providing the means to be part of the change. The site provides an end-to-end platform that allows people to keep track of current and relevant issues, connect with other citizens and organisations, sign on and volunteer for projects, or simply speak up and share inspiring stories of how people can and have brought about a change for the better. By bringing together like-minded people under its Jaagore portal, 3@S@3D@G@RADBNLD@RHFMHB@MSB@S@KXRSENQBG@MFD

including voter enfranchisement. A splendid example of social media engagement, the portal boasts over 600,000 registrations, a record for a non-commercial website. The portal is a meeting place for nonprofits looking for volunteers and people seeking volunteering opportunities. There are online discussions and debates and the whole exercise exudes a sense of energy, powered as it is by people who are passionate about change. There is an intrinsic feeling of wanting to be of service to society and very often you dont know what to do or how to go about it, says Mr Sarin. This is a platform where people can exchange views, information and take it forward from there. The fact that we have more than 600,000 members is a measure of the success we have achieved. The site has collaborated with more than 150 nonprofits and offers 270 ongoing projects that volunteers can choose from. Meanwhile, the campaign has moved on to other social networking platforms and received encouraging responses (it has some 21,000 Facebook fans and 2,300 followers on Twitter). SPORTING THE CHANGE Another high-energy initiative is the Arsenal Tata Tea Jaago Re Soccer Stars (ATTJRSS) programme. Taking its youth-

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and energy-centric premise further, Tata Tea has tied up with Arsenal, the English football club, to nurture footballing talent in India. Football was chosen because of its mass appeal and for epitomising the youthful energy that Tata Tea wants to tap. In 2011, the fourth season of ATTJRSS reached out to over two

million individuals across India, in 15 cities across 1,011 schools. Incidentally, the Tata Tea team won top honours in the under-15 category at the 21st Arsenal International Soccer Festival, held in London with 126 teams from 12 countries contesting. As a street game, football is youth oriented. ATTJRSS is not

Soccer superstars
The Arsenal Tata Tea Jaago Re Soccer Stars has gained in popularity since its launch in 2007, attracting participation from more than 1,000 schools across the country in 2011. The event, held in association with the London-based Arsenal club, helps talented young footballers get access to the best of footballing infrastructure and training. This is an all-India soccer tournament, played across four zones and 15 cities, for school students aged between 10 and 15 years. The best 30 students are trained by Arsenal BN@BGDRHM(MCH@@MCHM+NMCNM@MCSGDM@KVHKKFDS to represent India at the forthcoming Arsenal International Soccer Festival, which is slated to be held in London. The young football stars from India tasted triumph, their QRSAXVHMMHMFSGDSQNOGXHMSGDTMCDQB@SDFNQX@SSGD 21st International Soccer Festival, held in 2011.

connected to Jaago Re in the sense of awakening, but the energy and the youth connect form the common platform, says Mr Sarin. So how has the Jaago Re initiative unfolded for Tata Tea? It has worked in a very positive way because it has connected the youth to us as a brand and has driven our rupee significantly harder, says Mr Sarin. Tata Tea is now intermingling the umbrella advertising with the brand advertising to gain more visibility for its brands. It does this by running specific brand advertisements and the umbrella Jaago Re campaigns intermittently. With the success of the umbrella campaign, individual Tata Tea brands have begun to draw from its emotive appeal. For instance, the Choti Patti, Badi Patti (small leaf, large leaf) advertisement for the Premium brand is based on the theme of corruption, as is the commercial for Tata Tea Gold. So while Jaago Re continues to grow, the individual brands get a sharper focus and specific functional advantages by pulling into the theme of Jaago Re, says Mr Sarin. One of the key measures of the success of the campaign was the positive impact on the individual brands. Tata Teas brand health measures have improved considerably while brand salience and disposition towards the brand have showed an upward trend. With Jaago Re, Tata Tea has struck marketing gold. And by leveraging the success of the campaign, the brand is writing itself into marketing history. And staying wide awake while at it.
Vibha Rao

December 2011

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