Move over, Rajinikanth….. Pulli Raja is here…
The newest Soober Star to hit Chennai is Pulli Raja…. Whose face stares out of every other cut-out*, a quintessential feature of the Chennai skyscape…. Whose presence is felt on every main road, every nook and crossing…..
Pulli Raja is the Tamil brother of Balbir Pasha, a character created by Population Services International in its fight against AIDS in India. Pasha is the ‘common man’ of the AIDS scene in India, the group representing the greatest challenge to the combat against AIDS; of the arrogant, it cannot happen to me stance….
The PSI, through its mass Pasha / Pulli Raja campaign, seeks to reach vulnerable and high-risk groups. Part of Operation Lighthouse, this campaign is targeted at men between 18 and 40 years from lower socio-economic groups
The series of ads seek to address different issues (which emerged out of preliminary research) associated with AIDS :
1. The Alcohol Connection : I often use condoms, but when I get drunk, I
sometimes forget to use them.
2. Regular Partner Issue : I only have sex with this one person (sex
worker or casual partner) and hence I am safe
3. Asymptomatic Carrier Issue : If a person looks healthy he/she must be
safe from HIV/AIDS
In my opinion, this campaign is a huge success evaluated against its objectives :
* Create awareness about AIDS and the HIV virus
* Dispel myths about AIDS (the most challenging as I mentioned earlier, it cannot happen to me)
* Change behaviour (which I suppose is the ultimate objective of any marketing communication)
I see two reasons for the impact of this campaign :
The message : the campaign started with a teaser ad : Will Pulli Raja / Balbir Pasha get AIDS ? I suspect many people thought this was the latest quiz on some Tamil soap….. Whatever, but it did arouse curiousity…. love it or hate it, this campaign is impossible to ignore….. step one to creating the desired impact.
The medium : To complement the daring messages, these ads are splashed across town on huge hoardings, ensuring thsat there is no way anybody can miss seeing the ads. No coy television spots alone for Pulli Raja.
Not surprisingly, this campaign has come in for severe criticism. In Mumbai, the ads have has been called sexist and vulgar and there have been protests to have the campaign stopped. Conservative Chennai too has heard many rumblings…. Protests against obscene hoardings carrying embarrassing questions….
Yeah right….
Ramba in a micro mini exposing her fat thighs twined around Prabhu Deva’s hips is not obscene (man, that sounds straight out of the Kamasutra…. But I did see this very hoarding in Madras, okay?). Pulli Raja is….
This is the first time that any social organization in India has taken a direct, on your face approach to such an issue. These ads do not moralize or criticize….. on the contrary, they create an interest and generate discussion around an otherwise hmmm-errr kind of topic….
The Indian Express says, Hats off To Balbir Pasha….. I say so tooo….
* A cut-out is a Tamil word, the equivalent of a hoarding / bill-board, except that figures are actually cut out from the board. The taller the cut-out, the higher the social / political standing of the cuttee.
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