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Breaking through the stereotype, the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highway safety advertisements featuring the incredible Akshay Kumar have effectively made proclamation in the midst of other social awareness campaigns. Made for ‘Sadak Suraksha Jeevan Raksha’ and titled as “Road Kisi Ke Baap Ki Nahi Hai”, the series of three engaging Ads has won the Best Advertising Campaign of 2018 along with another honor in the CSR category.
With such a huge feather in the 25-year-old Sayali Kulkarni’s hat she spilled some beans in a candid interview with UrbanAsian:
How and who all are the brains behind this award-winning campaign?
In 2017 I was listening to Mr. Gadkari’s speech where he said: “Ki agar sadak suraksha ko desh ke vikas ke saath jodna hai toh use acche nagriko ke kartavya ke saath jodna hoga.”
It’s a very simple thing you’ve to be a responsible citizen if you want to relate road safety with the progress of the country and that is why I went to Gadkariji and said I just started my own firm and what to do something thing to which he said that if you’ve something creative, something hatke you come to me later. So I went back and met Mr. Bharat Dabholkar ji and he is a well-known name in the industry and needs no introduction, we sat and so we assembled this team together and Miss. Divya Radhakrishnan is another the boss lady; I call her Boss lady cause she is an inspiration, she has her own media agency and she played a very important role and even Kiran Vednekar- he is a creative guy, he puts all the bits together for us, So we 4 sat together and started planning the campaign.
Was Akshay Kumar the 1st choice for the campaign?
Of course, our choice was only Akshay Kumar. We had given them 3 options. One was the humour where we chose an animated mascot for them. One was an emotional route that we took and one was celebrity campaign that was with Akshay Kumar so Mr. Gadkari and his team thought that if a celeb comes into picture then campaign will get more power and we agreed with that so Akshay sir being so macho, so inspirational for the youth patriotic we thought he was the best choice. We went to him and he asked us to do something which could be more impactful so he asked us to take Mr. R Balki on board and that’s when this whole thing started. In half an hour Balki sir clicked this whole concept and the line “Road Kisike Baap Ka Nahi Hai.
How was it working with Akshay Kumar?
He is such a humble man. Youngsters have so much to learn from him. He is so disciplined. He gave us the time of 7:30 and that’s when his car rolls in and he was there will 12 and he was so energetic and me being so young I was so tired. He was really amazing.
How do you feel receiving the Best Advertisement Campaign Award?
It’s kind of surreal for me. I think I’ve got a very platform and by God’s grace, I’ve met some amazing people in my life with whom this campaign was put together. But its more of an achievement that a government ad for the first time has received this award and that itself is a feather in our hat.
Do you think this campaign has brought change in among people when it comes to road safety?
We have not got the stats and calculations like the ministry does but there are small things like my driver wears seatbelt everytime he drives and even my friend once said “Toh yeh road aapke baap ka hai?” to a man riding bike without helmet and the man laughed it off and wore his helmet at that moment and these are the small changes that are happening and that’s good.
What the campaigns that we can see in the future?
One of the campaigns that I’m working on is the loan waiver- Karz Maafi which happened in Maharashtra. It’s the same thing again but it’s not been put in an entertaining way. Another one is Swach Bharat Abhiyaan i.e. what has been done when it comes to the building of toilets and latrines so we are putting that forth. Other than that 2 projects are in the pipeline- one is suicide and another one is on body-shaming which are the burning youth issues which people really need to start concentrating on.
