It’s been a hard day’s night. It was 8.00 am by the time we sent the Campaign India A List (brought to you by Aidem Ventures, lest I forget) to press. Went home, had a power nap, a cup of tea, something that pretended to be breakfast, a shower and a shave, and headed back to office. We’ve got to send the 3rd Anniversary issue of Campaign India to press tonight.

On the way to the office, I checked up for twitter updates. One tweet immediately caught the eye, referring, as it did, to the Aviva Great Wall of Education.

Intrigued, I followed the link and landed up here.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100906/jsp/calcutta/story_12899361.jsp

For those who’re in a hurry, chew on these quotes from The Telegraph story:

“The Aviva Great Wall of Education, presented by The Telegraph, brought out the best in Calcutta over five days — a Calcutta that cares, a Calcutta that shares — and so the book count at the City Centre (Salt Lake) soared past the Delhi mark of 123,000 and towards a 400,000 high.

By the time the wall-building endeavour was halted on Sunday evening, the count read 328,000 with books still being collated and counted…”

“The books collected over the five days will be distributed among children who cannot afford to buy books by the Paschim Banga Sarva Shiksha Mission, Save the Children India and CINI Asha.”

As I finished reading the story, I received a call from Josy Paul of BBDO, who was child-like in his enthusiasm when telling me what he saw in Chennai, where they’ve helped Aviva kick of the second leg of the drive.

He told me about the plans that they had for Mumbai and Delhi later in the year (on Children’s day, November 14).

And in conversation with him and after the conversation, I asked myself, what does Aviva get out of this? What does BBDO get out of this?

Was Aviva capturing the data of those who donated books, or, indeed, of all those who visited the Wall? No, says Josy, not that he knows of.

What does BBDO get out of this? I know Josy and Ajai (Jhala) have been traveling with the Wall. That costs a pretty penny, not to take the cost of their time into account.

The sense I got (and get) is that neither for Aviva nor for BBDO was money the motivatior, was revenue the motivator.

Exercises such as these – one-on-one communicationm whether through real world events and experiences or through social media and other new media exercises – are becoming more and more common. Clients expect the agency to get involved, to help make the idea bigger and better.

And what does the agency get out of it? Nothing but a good, old fashioned pat on the back.

What does the brand, as in this case, get out of it? Nothing but a good, old fashioned pat on the back.

Here’s patting Aviva, BBDO and all those involved in this movement on the back.

Tags: Advertising, Aviva, BBDO, India, Josy Paul, Marketing, news

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Advertising, Marketing. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.