We’ve become a forefront people’s movement against air pollution: Nipun Arora

A small idea can lead towards a substantial transformation and guide us towards a sustainable advancement. Running on the same lines, Hawa Badlo recently rolled out its video campaign – #WeShallOvercome – which focuses on bringing a mindset change, to get rid of any barrier for advancement.

#WeShallOvercome, which is supported by GAIL India, trended nationally on Twitter and also went viral on Facebook. The video initiative pushes Indians to be determined to control and gradually curb the air pollution crisis in the country, and pledging to change the air around us for a better and healthier life.

Watch the video:

https://goo.gl/CMK0e5

In conversation with AdGully, Nipun Arora, Founder, Hawa Badlo, speaks at length about the #WeShallOvercome campaign, creating a social movement to curb air pollution and more. Excerpts:

What is Social Cloud Venture all about?

Social Cloud Ventures is a highly motivated team of Application Developers and Digital Business Marketers who are constantly looking towards changing the course of future. The organisation was founded by me and Sangeet Jaiswal on December 20, 2011.

How did you decide to get associated with the movement of air quality level?

It all started when my four-year old nephew rubbished the idea of firing crackers during Diwali and educated and inspired me to take up a cause which related to everyone’s near future – air pollution. This astonishing instance motivated me and everyone present at the moment to initiate a movement to curb pollution, which was later named as ‘Hawa Badlo’.

Was GAIL part of this movement since its conception?

After its formation, team Hawa Badlo thought of spreading awareness about the grave consequences of air pollution. The only obstacle was to get people to listen to our voice and motivate them to join the movement. It was then that the team decided to come up with a fun video with a strong message and named it ‘The Air Seller’.

Interestingly, this lot was discovered by GAIL India’s communication team, when they released their first video where MTV Roadies X1 contestant Ajay Sehrawat was made to sell packaged air on Delhi streets as a social awakening experiment to capture the common man’s reaction towards acceptance of the idea of having to buy pure air like water.

Apart from highlighting the issue of air pollution, are you also planning to extend the movement to other socially relevant issues?

As the name suggests, Hawa Badlo is primarily focused on the fifth largest cause of deaths in India – air pollution. We started with doing just our bit towards the situation and ended up becoming a forefront people’s movement that has proved effective in the battle going on against air pollution as a whole.

Possibilities in the future remain infinite, but air pollution remains our primary target until we leap out of the alarming situation of the current air quality index.

What is the rationale and conception behind Hawa Badlo and #WeShallOvercome?

The idea behind Hawa Badlo, apart from spreading awareness amongst the masses, was to create a movement where people could come together and raise their voice against air pollution. We created a platform wherein we motivate people to bring one small change in their daily life schedule, which when performed on a wider scale would bring a considerable change in the air quality index. With #WeShallOvercome, we wanted to touch people’s sentiments for their loved ones and the country on the occasion of Independence Day. Our basic objective was to tap on the spirit of independence, that it is 70-odd years since we got freedom for our land, but there’s still a battle to fight to free our land from pollution.

Other than social media are you eyeing other media platform to reach out to a wider section of people?

We have been continuously involved in complimenting our digital initiatives and campaigns with on-ground activation activities and outdoor advertising. With GAIL India’s support, we are able highlight our campaign in the country’s major airports and Delhi’s prominent bus shelters, which gives us an extensive reach to different audience sets.

Was there any creative agency involved for executing the campaign?

We have an in-house creative team consisting of digital media marketing experts and phenomenal graphic designers who helped us in visualising and digitising the campaign. For different films we collaborate with different film production units, depending upon the script and the communication.

How are you going to expand this campaign and make it acceptable to people?

I think people have started accepting that we are facing a crisis of breathable air and thus, are already supporting the campaign. During our campaign – ‘Raavan Ko Roko’ – we ran a missed call sub-campaign to actually analyse the public reaction to the campaign. We got a tremendous response with more than 5,500 people giving us a missed call in support of the campaign and almost the same number of people signing a board pledging to do their bit to change the air quality.

We have a series of activities and videos coming up in the near future. We also have a joint digital property with The Economic Times coming up, which will provide our campaign the extra width in terms of relationship building with our audience.

What would be the call-to-action and how do you plan to make people actively involved in the movement?

Our call-to-action has been clear since the initiation of the campaign: ‘if we all bring one small change to improve the quality of breathing air in our daily life, we can together witness a massive change in the air quality index’.