This document constitutes a brief consideration of that which might likely be best as an approach to an ad campaign in India regarding AIDS.
Evocative Portrait of India
Ad campaigns necessarily include Creative’s, and right brain people, in attempting to assimilate the larger picture, tend to seek out the sensory. Therefore, we will serve us well to seek out a feel for that which we are looking to embrace.
India is a unique blizzard of sensory experience, unlike anywhere else on the planet. India may be the most colorful of any country. India may be the most spiritual of any country. While clearly a global leader in technology, with enormous, bustling cities, the vast majority of what is still a subcontinent remains a Third World embarrassment. Just for perspective, the country's first four-lane highway (between Mumbai and Poona) completed in 2003. With 43 full-fledged graphic languages, there remain hundreds of dialects. With fisticuffs occurring in Parliament on a regular basis, the recent conclusion of a civil war off its southernmost coast (Sri Lanka) and the ongoing nonsense with Pakistan, this recently turned 50-year-old government is still trying to wrap its hands around its own larger picture.
Without too extensive a tangent, the sheer complexity, coupled with its massive vastness as well as its evolved history finds India with an established parochialism throughout the country; variously flavored from location to location with superstitions and other stains of ignorance (IANS, 2010).
Working with what we have
It turns out India is one of the hardest hit countries when it comes to AIDS. With 33.4 million living with AIDS worldwide (and a global population of 6.7 trillion), contrasting that with India, a population of about 1 billion, and 2.3 million with AIDS, that works out as follows: AIDs occurs as one in every 35,000 for the world and a little more than one in every 500 for India. Clearly a problem, about which sub demographics (women versus men, children, homosexual versus heterosexual, the sex trade and drug use) neither make this any easier to digest, nor would they inform our broad-brush stroke ad campaign (“Avert“, 2010), (Google, 2010).
Why there is any consideration for a broad brush-stroke campaign has several responses. One is to take care of communicating as broadly and widely as possible, effectively the lowest common denominator (which, basically, begs for a simple, graphic response). Another consideration, in line with keeping things simple, includes being culturally sensitive in "the land of a million mirrors". There is also the onerous stigma, so while this campaign may target populations and behaviors that flirt with danger, the communication needs also to be accessible to the general population. One might say this approach finds a vague balance between being direct and indirect, emotional and rational; and even more vaguely still, somewhat both informative and persuasive. Should this be so, while not the most elegant or innovative of ad campaigns, it would prove to be a success beyond hope (UNAIDs, n.d.), (World AIDS Day, 2010).
The entity most naturally poised for partnership with others is NACO (the National AIDS Control Organisation ; an arm of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India). The campaign, as is conceived, also has an emphasis on thrift, further extending its reach. As such, any further form, integration or communication may be built upon this; either by NACO itself or taken in various directions by the subsequent receiving agencies. Naturally, the conscious use of such a generic approach would also lend itself to a wide variety of sponsorships, as well (NACO [Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (Govt. of India) ], 2007).
The Proposal
There has already been a survey of a balance between the culture, as disparate as it may be, and that of the key archetypes as they are. The consistent underlying element is graphic simplicity, and this would affect color, type, shape, etc. There is a need for economy on type. Color needs to be highly saturated and bright. Forms would have the greatest connection to a synthesis of the culture; consequently, the most generic of these would be a circle or something circular. Such a shape is represented, alluded to or otherwise present in the visual catalog of all the world’s religions; many of which share a mandala expression.
Henceforth, the following visual material, designed with the intention of papering, plastered, inserted … created to flood the market in any and every appropriate way. The native design is intended to fit “two up” on a single page, so that it may readily go viral at the consumer level where people can print out their own (and receive two images for every print).
Conclusion
That which is being offered, as a base ad campaign, is not being offered up so much as a presumption as it is a synthesis based on the challenge at hand, its inherent request, and the marriage of the best possible response the Creative’s are able to articulate. Consciously made were the shifts in background balance, specific color choices (bearing in mind color theory and therapy), and consciousness of word sizing and stacking. The English on the left is not merely a translated representation, as it would serve as the other pan Indian language, along with the Hindi on the right.
Despite reiteration, this should yield greatest and widest communication at the lowest general expense, with generous latitude for customization agency on agency. May it move the kind reader to further creativity, if only within one’s own imagination.
References
Avert. (2010). In India HIV AIDS Statistics (, pp. -p. ). : . doi: Retrieved from http://www.avert.org/india-hiv-aids-statistics.htm
Google. (2010). (World Population) 6,775,235,741 - 2009. In Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators. Retrieved from www.google.com/publicdata
IANS, (2010, Jul 22). AIDS stigma drives HIV in India: World Bank study. THE TIMES OF INDIA (Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.). Retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/AIDS-stigma-drives-HIV-in-India-World-Bank-study/articleshow/6200405.cms
NACO [Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (Govt. of India) ]. (2007). NACO [National AIDS Control Organisation]. Retrieved from http://www.nacoonline.org/NACO:
UNAIDs (Ed.). (n.d.). UNAIDs. Retrieved from http://unaidstoday.org/
Usunier, J., & Lee, J. A. (2005). Marketing Across Cultures (4th ed.). Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.
World AIDS Day. (2010, ). 2010 National AIDS Trust [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.worldaidsday.org/
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