While India’s diversity has historically been its strength, today’s polarised environment rendered these very differences as threats. Coinciding with the 75th year of India’s Independence, The Times of India (TOI), India’s largest circulating English daily, decided to not just chronicle but to shine a spotlight on the beauty of the unity in India’s diversity.

Media planning leveraged patriotism high points, and multiple print innovations (Full page illustrations, QR-code enabled ads, and more) tackled prevailing perceptions of the medium. 90M engagements, 85,000+ QR code scans, and 230,000 respondents for a contest across 720+ cities showed the power of print.

Situation: Historically, India’s diversity (religions, ethnicity) has been its strength. However, today, these are becoming differences and threatening to question the idea of India. Against this backdrop, the core Indian principle of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (meaning ‘One Earth One Family One Future’) is more relevant than ever.

In the 75th year of India’s Independence, The Times of India (TOI), India’s largest circulating English daily, decided to not just chronicle but to shine a spotlight on the beauty of the unity in India’s diversity.

Brief: Remind the people of India that common threads continue to bind everyone as one nation, despite diverse differences.

Objective: Drive engagement by sparking conversations about what India means to its people, by leveraging the power of print.

Media Insight: Print encourages deeper, focused engagement. Simultaneously, the advancement of tech innovations serves as a jumping point for engagement on other platforms. Both strengths had to be leveraged.

Research: To understand what India means to its people, we analysed famous speeches of the country’s’ leaders, ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. These served as our north star, that led to our insight.

Insight: The Indian demographic is sliced and diced by people, organisations, and reports when required. But what has been forgotten is the paradox of the country, which is enshrined in the constitution – of unity in diversity. This common thread is hidden in plain sight.

Creative idea: #WhatMakesUsOne

• Born with the aim to reinvigorate the many reasons that make the people of India one.

• Highlighting the many unifying threads through song and speech.

• Inspiring every Indian to share their words/views and spark conversations.

After finalizing our idea, we conducted further research to understand what common aspects that bring India together. We then brought these alive in our creative execution.

Our Audience: TOI, as the national daily and market leader, was speaking to all of India. This meant capturing the hearts and minds of Indians across generations, from the young tech-savvy millennials to the wise elderly citizens who have witnessed the country's evolution over the last 75 years. Whether urban centres or emerging rural hubs, all of India is TOI’s audience. This audience was very diverse, yet there were certain common traits that united them.

Media Planning and Approach: To maximise impact, we planned the campaign to go live two weeks leading up to India’s Republic Day (26th January), the day on which India’s constitution was adopted. Patriotism is high during this time. The key constitution tenets, such as secularism, also fit with the creative idea of WhatMakesUsOne.

Launching two weeks in advance also enabled us to capitalise on specific harvest festivals, where people unite to celebrate India.

Three print implementations were created, spanning TOI’s unmatched 51 editions. Staying true to our media insight, we designed for both print and integrated engagement.

• The central-coloured illustration, launched on Republic Day, brought to life multiple instances of India’s achievements. One QR code across all advertisements took the readers to the campaign film. The other was unique to each ad, which led to an AR filter. This filter transported the reader into the print ad and allowed him to transpose his face onto the main character in the ad. This could then be screenshot and shared on Instagram and Facebook.

• Six unique print advertisements featured two different QR codes. Each advertisement covered a different topic, highlighting India’s achievements in diverse fields. Space, sports, digital adoption, and more, all were united by a common visual thread.

• A One-Word Contest invited Indians to share their idea of #WhatMakesUsOne.

#WhatMakesUsOne reinvigorated the many reasons that make the people of India one. Unique print advertising communicated the message and created an opportunity for interactivity.

• Overachieved Engagement - 90M.

• AR-themed print ads featuring QR codes were scanned 85,000+ times, allowing people to watch the film and place themselves in ads.

• The Republic Day full-page illustration innovation celebrated oneness with several mini stories.

• The One-Word Contest, inviting Indians to share their idea of #WhatMakesUsOne, was amplified editorially and by celebrities inviting participation. This drove 230,000 respondents across 720+ cities.

• Prominent citizens – Infosys Founder Narayan Murthy, and Footballer Bhaichung Bhutia, and many others joined the conversation.

The films garnered 87.5M views across social media, the highest by a media house.

With these results, TOI reminded the country that it doesn’t just chronicle the times but shapes the times India lives in, through the power of popular culture.

This work challenges two prevailing perceptions of print.

Perception 1 – Static write-up, photos. Too much effort is needed to drive engagement.

Our counter – Print encourages deeper, focused engagement. A detailed, full-page illustration by a celebrated cartoonist allowed people to spend many minutes exploring it and understanding WhatMakesUsOne.

Perception 2 – The print medium is limited. What happens on print stays on print.

Our counter – Print innovations are not just French windows. Tech integrations allowed us to place multiple, different QR codes in ads that led to more content (films, social media filters, One Word Contest) and engagement.

India was an idea long before it became a free nation. It was the song from a thousand years ago. It was the spirit of thousands of freedom fighters. It was the same thread of unity in diversity and adversity and festivity. It is the same thread that continues to bind us as one nation, despite diverse differences.

But in today’s polarised environment, people look for unifiers to reconfirm their belief in ‘ekta’ (meaning ‘unity’). On this 75th Year of Independence, from India’s Republic Day (marks and celebrates the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on 26 January 1950) to Independence Day, TOI launched #WhatMakesUsOne. This platform enabled people to celebrate the idea of India in their own words, such as unity, constitution, culture, cricket, and so on – a united family, blurring boundaries between religions, cultures, and languages.