The language of theater and advertising
In order to create a communication strategy, it was imperative to build a language that was familiar to the community rather than to the Project. The community had a strong theater tradition with many plays to its credits. Therefore theater was the obvious choice. Combined with stark light contrast to give a feel of a stage, exaggerated emotions, theater scripts, and frontal camera angles the language of advertising was assimilated with that of theater.
The scripts were written after a few focus group discussions in which the children and the adults together spoke of events and ideas of their life. Based on these anecdotes, the scripts were written down.
It was realized that the problem faced by the community was two sided. There was a general social apathy towards the cause which led to the society in general blaming the entire community as criminal. On the other hand because of lack of job opportunities, certain members of the community are certainly committing crime and brewing illicit liquor.
The campaign was therefore divided into two parts
Individual verses the community – This section deals with the fallacy of terming a whole community guilty for the crime of the individual. The advertisements accept that thefts take place. They only exhort the audience to blame the criminal and not his community for the act. The media, police and the society have been addressed in this campaign through voice overs. They are not visually present in any of the scene but their voices perpetually blame, punish or hold guilty the other.
-Blame the thief not the community
-Punish the thief not the community
-Catch the thief not the community.
Equality begins with you- This section requests the society to give Chharras a chance. Mistakes have been committed but redemption is still an option. But this is possible only if the society treats them with equality. The community is not asking for money or any privileges. All that they ask for is human dignity.
In this section the audience was exhorted to take a step forward to bring change. The advertisements question the stereotypes held by people in general. The protagonist looks straight into your eyes and says ‘Equality begins with you’.
- Equality in jobs
- Equality in play
- Equality in attitude
- Equality in living
The perpetrator was deliberately kept absent in the advertisement in order to refrain from antagonizing the public at large and the ones holding law and order in specific. The attitude of the society was presented only through the voiceovers. Children were used as actors in all the advertisements to carry on the tag line of the print campaign that no one can be a born criminal.
