Sexual harassment is, tragically, a debated topic in India where often women are blamed, for the acts against them as if they’ve brought it on to themselves, by their own families and society.

This in turn suppresses them, forcing to bear it in silence out of shame and despair.

It worsens when it’s through anonymous callers on her mobile phone - not knowing who the culprit is, how to catch them, who to complain to and how to get justice (Laws against sexual harassment exist but not in the cybercrime world in India)

The very same phone that was supposed to be an enabler is now a double-edged sword.

Many accept harassment as part of life, since they can’t do without their phones ie their window to the world.

Truecaller’s Caller-ID was the solution, we turned the phone into her ally.

We needed to communicate this to her.

USE TRUECALLER’S INTUITIVE VISUAL MNEMONIC OF ‘RED FOR HARASSMENT’

Our advantage lay in the app’s ability to identify and tag ‘harassment’ calls RED - Give red a new meaning - Colour and strong visuals speak louder than text and theory, especially for Tier-2 India.

With ‘protection’ as the core functional benefit of Truecaller, we overlayed it with an emotional storytelling device. Delivered with gravitas.

There is an age-old practice in India of punishing wrongdoers (petty criminals, corrupt politicians)through public shaming by smothering their faces in black, while chanting: "Buri Nazar waale tera muh kaala" (Those with the evil eye, your face will be blackened).

This practice acts as a deterrent – a warning signal preventing people from committing offence.

Our solution? Using this device for Truecaller which replaces the traditional black used in public shaming to ‘red' as a symbol of the harasser.

Evil found a new colour – RED.

We assumed Truecaller’s usage would be omnipresent in India, given its ubiquitous caller-identification feature.

However, it had:

<10% penetration in mass-India, despite > 90% in metros

Convenience worked in time-starved urban India, but not in opportunity-starved tier-2 India.

Our task: unearth a compelling hook for larger India that makes for Tier-2 to drive brand relevance.

Interactions with women aged 25-55 in Tier 2-3 markets, revealed that they were not made aware of Truecaller, in a deconstructed way which could create relevance in their lives.

Truecaller’s caller-ID reveals any caller’s identity but importantly, miscreants - who sexually harass women over anonymous calls, make lewd conversations and get away.

Women were frustrated - blamed by family for supposedly inviting harassment upon themselves, no cyber laws for justice.

Now, women could identify AND report their perpetrators by tagging them red on Truecaller.

POWER HAD SHIFTED INTO THEIR HANDS - ‘fearlessness from call harassment’.

We illustrated how Truecaller works using an intuitive analogy of women publicly disgracing a harasser by painting his face ‘red’, ending with a cathartic celebration of women finally having won against harassment and gaining back their power.

Medium: Television, as the medium is the message

Reason: Builds salience and trust.

- The first campaign burst ran for 33 days, targeted towards Tier 2-3 markets (towns with <10 Lakhs population) across multiple media channels - TV, OOH and Digital.

- We broke our exposure in the Women’s Asia Cup T20 tournament - a medium reflecting ‘women empowerment’ perfectly.

- TV media plans included high-impact regional Free-To-Air channels, and high-viewership shows like Kapil Sharma, Kaun Banega Crorepati - reaching a massive 211 million Indians.

- Messaging was reinforced with outdoor communication and through partnership with digital platforms used by mass-India: e.g. Youtube, Sharechat, Moj, short-from video apps such as Josh, MXPlayer, etc.

TRUECALLER SUCCESSFULLY ASSOCIATED WITH ‘WOMEN EMPOWERMENT’

9 out of 10 women liked and found the campaign relevant.

“The campaign was empowering for women”

IMPRINTED TRUECALLER ON MINDS OF PEOPLE:

510million impressions in 4 weeks on social platforms (large Tier-2 userbase). Ad views doubled to 120million from the planned 59 million due to organic reach and share-worthiness.

HELD ATTENTION OF AN AUDIENCE PRONE TO SKIPPING ADS:

View-through rates: 86%- approx. 2X of average benchmark (45%: Sharechat)

MESSAGE GOT THROUGH:

85% viewers found the campaign ‘relevant and empowering for women’

MILLIONS DOWNLOADED THE APP:

119million Indians clicked 'Download Now,' after 4weeks of exposure.

CREATED NOT JUST NEW USERS, BUT SAVIOURS:

272million Users participated by marking suspicious calls in 'red' to flag as scammers for other women

WHAT’S MORE?

The campaign encouraged the Delhi Police Commission for Women to add their helpline number 181 on Truecaller and join the united movement against harassment.