P&G Shiksha film addresses classroom fears of falling behind

P&G Shiksha, the CSR program of P&G India, has rolled out a campaign to bring to light the issue of many school students feeling left behind in class. Conceptualised by Leo Burnett, the film aims to highlight how kids eventually drop out of school, when they fall behind in keeping pace with their classes.

The film begins with a class in session, where the teacher is asking the student various questions around a subject. While many students raise their hands, he asks for Bindiya, but cannot spot her around. In different settings around the school, he sees Bindiya trying to hide herself. Finally, when the classroom is empty, he finds her hiding under a desk. When he asks her why she’s hiding, she tells him that she’s scared of too many questions and that she won’t have to answer any of them, should he not be able to see her. The teacher then understands the problem and gives her special attention to help her cope with her studies.

Girish Kalyanaraman, vice president – marketing operations, P&G India, said, “P&G Shiksha has continued to work tirelessly to provide access to education to millions of underprivileged children since its inception 18 years ago. Taking this journey forward with the new campaign, we are attempting to spark conversations around the pertinent learning crisis impacting crores of children in our country.  This #InvisibleGap arises when children fall behind and the current learning level is not in line with the expected learning level.”

He added, “To bridge this gap, P&G has been working with its partners through various programs – from leveraging advanced Machine-learning based tools to community-level learning camps. With the campaign, we aim to make the #InvisibleGap visible by driving nationwide awareness about this issue which is often misunderstood as the child being mischievous or disinterested in learning. I hope this film will inspire the audience in identifying this gap in children around them and taking necessary corrective measures to bridge it.”

Rajdeepak Das, CEO and chief creative officer, Leo Burnett – South Asia, said, “It’s a simple human insight, when we don’t know something and we don’t want people to ask about it, we hide. And from that insight we narrate the story of Bindiya – a primary school student who is trying hard to make herself invisible so that she doesn’t have to answer questions in class. We realised that despite having access to education, there are still ‘invisible gaps’ – which means there are students who are learning at a level lower than their class. This puts them in a negative cycle of knowledge and often leads to students dropping out of school completely. This year, we want to address this gap and help students bridge it to ensure they can complete their education. It’s a true HumanKind idea.”

CREDITS

Creative team:
National creative director - Sachin Kamble
Executive creative director – Balakrishna Gajelli
Associate creative director – Piyush Jaiswal
Senior creative director – Priti Chandorkar
Copy writer – Tabassum Hashmi
Art director - Prasanna Devrukhkar

Servicing team:
Executive vice president - Abhimanyu Khedkar
Associate vice president - Swapnil Salvi
Brand associates - Khushi Panchal and Tania Chandrapota

Planning team:
EVP planning - Mittu Torka
Brand strategy directors - Sanaya Meherbani and Vrudhi Doshi

Production house: Offroad Films
Director: Akanksha Seda
Public relations: Madison PR