MAGIC MANTRA: O&M's Ganguly (left) and HTA's Gupta used powerful images to shrewdly market the benefits of paying taxesLast summer, when the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) campaign first blitzed the television screen, few could figure out what exactly was the point that the procession of tax-shy builders, jewellers and doctors was making.Why, for that matter, did the builder wink and say that he would rather not make a gift of his benami property to the Income Tax Department? Moreover, the excuses for tax evasion seemed embarrassingly convincing.In the weeks to follow, as the Rs 30-crore campaign - the largest ever in a single year for a public cause - wove through news programmes, cricket matches, talk shows, even Chitrahaar, and rode out the prime-time clutter, the message started homing in. The excuses, on repeated viewing, began to wear off. The models, instead of sounding smart, appeared like characters out of the bygone days of high tax rates and rampant evasion. The first phase of the campaign, jointly entrusted to HTA and O&M, the country's first and third largest advertising agencies respectively, was a psychological gambit to remove the traditional mental barrier of Indians against the payment of taxes. Begin with the bahana (excuse): HTA Senior Vice-President Sunil Gupta and O&M Director Achin Ganguly had been briefed clearly before they had embarked on the campaign.By mid-September, the campaign started cascading over a broad swathe of media - television, print publications, outdoor, radio and direct marketing - to the "influencer" communities, notably chartered accountants. The pitch of the campaign had by then subtly changed to the "reward" element. The new mantra was to "market" the benefit that inevitably comes with the payments of taxes. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Revenue Secretary N.K. Singh, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Ravi Kant, and the board's Member (investigation) A.K. Batabyal sat up for hours at North Block to preview each film and to fine-tune each print copy and radio spot before release. The buzz was: market the scheme in the same way that you market Colgate.There were indeed "Colgate smiles" at the preview session when the Gupta-Ganguly duo ran their clinching film of the campaign's second phase. It had a woman opening her closet to take a longing look at her jewellery and to regret that she couldn't wear any of these as that would attract the taxman's attention. Pehniye shaan se (wear in style) - the catchline was greeted with applause. The public recall of the campaign rose as it drew in the celebrities - cricketer Kapil Dev, sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, and film stars like Mithun Chakravarty and Kamalahasan. They endorsed the "reward", which, in this case, is the asset which is whitened after paying the tax.The countdown to December 31, the scheme's closing date, was a month-long advertising crescendo which alternated the carrot of 30 per cent tax with the stick of 300 per cent penalty and prosecution. The word "prosecution" was pencilled into copy by the finance minister himself. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}Saroj Bala, the department's director of research, statistics and public relations, says that the cunning blend of fear and blandishment in the final phase resulted from a close study of taxpayer behaviour. If the Government knew the taxpayer's mind, the agencies displayed a rare skill of communicating a public message through forceful words and images."We built VDIS as a brand and marketed a concept, that of honouring your wealth," say Gupta and Ganguly, whose agencies are linked not only by a common client but by a common global partner, WPP. The campaign's monetary worth is a negligible 2.5 per cent of the two agencies' annual billing of around Rs 1,200 crore. But, in public interest communication, it is the cause that overshadows costs.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Jan 12, 1998--- ENDS ---
