"The Yahoo! Big Idea Chair is Yahoo!’s way of spotlighting unique and outstanding work in the field of creative integrated marketing. The Teach India campaign stood head and shoulders above rest on the back of a very powerful creative idea and excellent execution," said Ken Mandel, vice-president and managing director, Yahoo! Southeast Asia.
So what was the winning idea?
Seventy-five million children in India have never been to school – that’s more than the entire population of the United Kingdom and Ireland put together. The Times of India and its advertising agency JWT came together to create a campaign that could make a difference, and they succeeded.
While there are 75 million uneducated children – a shocking statistic that increases daily – India also boasts a huge number of some of the brightest, best educated people on the planet. The big idea behind The Times of India's Teach India campaign was to connect these two groups; the ones who have knowledge to share and the ones who want to learn.
The integrated national campaign – spanning outdoor, on-ground, ambient, print, television and digital media – inspired ordinary people from all walks of life to volunteer to teach. All that was required was two hours of their time every week.
Six months into the campaign, 100,000 people had signed up as volunteer teachers, making it the largest educational programme in the world, promoted by a single brand.
Teach India was a campaign that touched a chord in the lives of millions of educated people allowing them to make the constitutional right of every Indian child to an education a reality. It transformed a nation into a gigantic classroom and for that big idea JWT gets full marks – and the Big Idea Chair – from Yahoo!
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