Satyamev Jayate season3
A concept of Ogilvy India, the campaign focuses on eve-teasing, corruption and drunken driving; and attempts to bring a change.
Starting October 5, 2014, and for the next six Sundays, Star Plus’ ‘Satyamev Jayate’ will launch its third season. From the time it aired its first season on the Sunday morning of May 6, 2012, the show has gone from being just a TV program to becoming a brand in itself. The brainchild of Aamir Khan, the first season highlighted uncomfortable social issues like dowry deaths, domestic violence, female foeticide, medical malpractice, casteism and child sexual abuse.
With an estimated marketing spend of Rs 20 crore; Satya Mev Jayate became one of the biggest marketing launches ever in Indian history. The campaign, which went on for 13 weeks along with the series, revolved around the slogan “Dil ko lagegi, tabhi baat banegi”.
Gayatri Yadav, EVP from Marketing and Communications of Star India, said that the campaign had two aims: one, to generate speculation and curiosity on what the show was about and secondly to communicate the Sunday morning time slot to the viewers. The promos were different from any other from the word go, with Amir Khan’s down-to-earth approach about certain issues. In certain cinema halls in Delhi and Mumbai, the theme song of the show played right after the national anthem. Additionally, the show had a website and had a strong digital presence along with outdoor advertising.
The promotional campaign slogan for the second season was “Jinhe desh ki fikr hai”, asking the viewer to decide if she cares for the country or not. The second season also contained Amir’s Vote for Change campaign, where the audience could contribute to the show by voting by giving a missed call on a toll free number. To top it all off, Aamir Khan along with a collection from across India sung the Satyamev Jayate theme song which was scored by Ram Sampath and written by Prasoon Joshi.
This season, the channel has used television promos made by Ogilvy India which highlight the impact of the previous series. Flaunting the tagline Mumkin Hain’, the promos began to release from September 13 this year and deal with sexual harassment, corruption, cruelty, drunken driving and one other as of now unknown issue which will be revealed in the final ad. These ads are not just effective in generating awareness about social issues) and in turn, for the show), but also for constantly reminding viewers about the timings they will be aired at.
According to Yadav, the show will be divided into two phases. While the first discusses the change the show has already created, the second will discuss how change is possible with further cooperation and activism.
One of the campaigns named bus is shot in a bus, where a pervert is stopped from molesting a girl by the bus conductor, who informs him about the show times and warns him to be careful. Another promo, named office features an arrogant, rich man in a queue who is in a hurry to get his work done and hence bribes the peon and instead is shown his rightful place. Named School’, another promo shows us how a teacher learns the lesson to enforce discipline without violence and another Car’, shows how a drunken man, on his wife’s insistence agrees to give up the wheel.
Even more exciting was the strategy by Star Plus to enable fans to themselves unlock and release these promos on twitter exclusively before any other medium. After the ‘Tweet to Unlock’ meter reached a 100 per cent, the promo was released and sent to all those who unlocked it. This pioneering and unique idea generated over 600 million impressions on Twitter.
While the first season was created to build awareness, the second one was to “educate, engage and empower” the Indian viewer. Therefore, if Season 1 was about creating awareness and season 2 focused on action; then, from its promos, the third will probably focus on activism and further action.