Tata Capital's campaign 'Half Stories' wins Grand Prix

Atmaram is one of a few surviving members of the Gaddi community in Dharamsala which earns its livelihood from sheep rearing. The middle-aged shepherd often takes his sheep up the mountains for grazing and is sometimes caught on stranded for days if there is heavy snowfall or rains.

To add to this, there is also the risk of getting attacked by wild animals. It is Atmaram's long-time wish to own a couple of plastic tents with which he could give shelter to his herd of sheep when they get stuck in the mountains. A couple of solar lanterns would have also helped save him and his sheep watch out for the wild animals. To be able to afford these small comforts the shepherd, who hardly earns Rs 80 per day, needed to make an investment of around Rs 11,500, which was obviously unthinkable for him.

{mosimage}This story of the humble shepherd, Atmaram, was one of the 10 stories that featured in Tata Capital's digital campaign, Half Stories, that won its ad agency, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, a Grand Prix at the recently concluded advertising awards, Abby's.

Why Half Stories? The idea was to reinforce Tata Capital's brand positioning of doing what's right for people. The campaign was put together by travelling the length and breadth of the country and picking up real life stories and encouraging young digital natives to do their bit for them.  The idea was to get digital natives to complete the  stories of these humble people by either contributing in terms of money or talking about them on various social media platforms.

Apart from Atmaram's, other stories were about folk painting artists from Raghurajpur village in Orissa, who want to do away with middlemen while selling their works of art in the market.

These stories, put together by Mumbai-based adventure-sports-enthusiast turned philanthropist, Pankaj Trivedi, have managed a total reach of 4,706, 384 over various social media platforms. Around Rs 1.32 lakh in cash has been collected with which the wishes of the likes of Atmaram have been fulfilled. The folk artists of Orissa now have their own website which enables them to sell their work directly without the intervention of middlemen.

"It was a like a five month reality show and the idea was to inspire people who lead a digital life to contribute to the lives of people in a small way," says Anil Nair, CEO (Digital), L&K Saatchi & Saatchi. Nair claims that the activity blended well with Tata Capital's brand philosophy of 'doing right'.