The Hindu calls on politicians to behave or face the consequences from the youth of India
The Hindu (South India’s no.1 English daily) has launched the extension of its successful Behave campaign, in the context of the upcoming elections.
Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia said, “With a huge youth population and our ambition to be a shining nation in the world, there is a great need for us older people in positions of responsibility to set a better example for the young. I have closely followed cartoonists who have a very effective way of using satire to shame people. I know that campaigns cannot change behaviour overnight, but I would be very happy if some people are not able to sleep well for a few nights at least.”
Being a young country, India has the largest number of young voters, with as many as 150 million first time voters. These young voters are no longer satisfied with the status quo. Corruption, dereliction of duty, bad behaviour and inadequate infrastructure are some of the concerns of the voting youth. They have questions for the candidates who are standing for elections and they want their answers now.
The Hindu’s new campaign boldly poses these questions to the leaders of the country and urges them to behave, for the youth are watching. And more importantly, voting.
This is the next phase of The Hindu’s Behave campaign, which earlier drew attention to politicians’ bad behaviour. This time, it goes a step further, by not just admonishing bad behaviour but reminding politicians that the power to re-elect them undoubtedly lies in the hands of the youth.
While the film uses dark humour to hold up a mirror to a political leader’s bad behaviour, the print and outdoor campaign (featured) uses stark facts to bring the issues that the youth face to the forefront. Eventually, it aims to become a crowd-sourced campaign, by asking people to send in their own questions via social media which will be featured as ads in the paper. Going forward, it hopes to address some of these issues so the youth can make an informed decision when they eventually vote.
Siddarth Varadharajan, Editor, The Hindu said, “The Hindu’s ‘Behave Yourself, India” campaign cherishes the spirit of parliamentary debate, which is the true test of a functional democracy. Every Indian has a right to be heard – but that right is only as effective as our ability to listen, engage and disagree courteously with each other. Sadly, the space for tolerance and free speech is narrowing in our republic. This is no surprise because many of our elected representatives – who hold a candle to the rest of society – have failed to debate policy and politics with their peers in Parliament in a civilised manner.
Our campaign shines a light on the errant and discourteous politician, wedded to privilege and power, whose fate now lies in the hands of voters, many of whom are young and who will be exercising their franchise for the first time. The idea has been brought alive through print and a television commercial, beautifully executed by Prasoon Pandey of Corcoise Films.”
Credits – Executive Chairman & Creative Director, South Asia: Piyush Pandey. National Creative Director: Rajiv Rao. Executive Creative Director: Joono Simon. Associate Creative Director: Mridula Joseph & Binu Varghese. Creative Controllers: Deepan Ramachandran, Sanjana Mathur. Art Director: Santhavadhanam. President: Simmi Sabhaney. Client Services Director: Karthik Hariharan. Account Supervisor: Aruna Narsi. Account Executive: Sneha Singh. Production House: Corcoise Films. Executive Producer: Cyrus Pagadiwala. Director: Prasoon Pandey.