[Case Study] How #MainBhiMumbaiPolice used influencers to spread the message of social distancing

The 'Main Bhi Mumbai Police' campaign a #FilmFromHome is conceptualized and executed by Lowe Lintas and GolinOpinion as a joint effort for the Mumbai Police on a pro bono basis.

This case study delves deeper into the social media outreach of the 'Main Bhi Mumbai Police' campaign and PR amplification for the initiative to spread the word.

Category
Introduction

The capital of Maharashtra, Mumbai is home to 18.4 million people, from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. However, one of Mumbai’s biggest challenges is its high population density- 20,634 people per sq km, making it a hotbed for viruses like COVID-19. To give a perspective, the population density of New York City, which is the worst-hit city by COVID-19 in the world, is 10,431 per sq km.

Brand
Introduction

With 91 major police stations, spread across 5 regions and 12 zones, the Mumbai Police is responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of law and order in the whole of Mumbai. In the event of a pandemic, it is the responsibility of the Mumbai Police to ensure that its citizens do not violate the norms of the lockdown.

Summary

In the wake of the novel COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, in a country like India with a total population of 1.36 billion, social distancing is the need of the hour in order to contain the spread of the virus. However, in a city like Mumbai that houses millions of people, it can get daunting to physically ensure every citizen stays put inside their homes.

In addition to their numerous other efforts, the Mumbai Police needed a strong message to urge its population of 18.4 million people to stay indoors. Through the 'Main Bhi Mumbai Police' campaign conceptualized by Lowe Lintas as part of their #FilmfromHome initiative, the messaging of self-policing and the importance of staying indoors was driven in order to support Mumbai police.

To ensure scale and visibility, a high impact, integrated PR and social media strategy was pushed strategically by GolinOpinion to reach the maximum number of people in the shortest possible time frame.

Problem Statement/Objective

Considering how
densely populated Mumbai is, Mumbai faced an even greater threat of Coronavirus
affliction, as there are multiple slum pockets spread all over Mumbai. It is
difficult to control the mammoth population of 18.4 million citizens, with just
91 police stations and ensure that each and every one of them follows social
distancing norms and remains safe. Hence the campaign’s objective was to create
wide-spread awareness and ensure that people stay home.

Brief for Main Bhi Mumbai Police

The agency was given an open brief prior to the lockdown, to create a campaign that would inform people about the steps needed to be taken to prevent the spread of Coronavirus, like washing hands and social distancing. Creatives were made and two days later, the national lockdown was announced and enforced. Hence the agency completely rejigged and reinvented the campaign to fit the national vision and contextualized it to get people to adhere to the lockdown.

Creative
Idea

The agency came up with the campaign idea of 'Main Bhi Mumbai Police'. The campaign urged all the citizens not only to self-police but also to urge every member of their family from stepping out, keeping them safe at home. The campaign aimed to instil a strong sense of accountability and responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of themselves and their family, within each citizen.

Challenges

The campaign faced multiple
challenges. Firstly, considering the lockdown, a professional shoot with a
proper production crew was impossible. Hence everything had to be shot at home.
The agency reached out to multiple citizens across the city and briefed them on
how to shoot as per the requirements. This was a challenge as the agency was
working with citizens with no prior experience in acting and the footage was
going to be shot by amateurs with their phone cameras.

The second challenge faced was a tight deadline. Considering the way cases were ramping up in Mumbai, this film was of absolute necessity. Hence the campaign was turned around in a record time of 1 week, from briefing to launch.

Also Read: Case Study: How FunFoods by Dr.Oetker’s Mother’s Day campaign reached 2mn+ viewers

Execution

The film was launched on the Mumbai Police’s twitter handle and steadily
launched across their other social media handles as well. 

Lowe Lintas joined hands with GolinOpinion to ensure this campaign
received nation-wide mass visibility in an organic way:

Garnered celebrity and influencer mileage – In record-time, GolinOpinion managed to get social media support from over 30 highly influential Bollywood personalities. Some prominent names included Kareena Kapoor Khan, Soha Ali Khan Pataudi, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonam Kapoor and Anushka Sharma. They posted and re-shared the campaign video on their social media handles showing their support towards Mumbai Police and the importance of self-policing.

Leveraged celebrity support in the news – Organic media stories on entertainment portals highlighted how celebrities stood tall in support of the efforts taken by Mumbai Police

The film was also
aired on multiple TV news channels and the campaign was written about in
national and international media.

Results

Quantitative

The efforts
of GolinOpinion drove major national awareness and got the conversation rolling
in a short period of time. Through their efforts, the team targeted a
potential reach of over 315 million via media outreach and a potential reach of
207 million via social media, further multiplying conversations and augmenting
brand recall

Qualitative

The campaign garnered massive support from the citizens of Mumbai and saw a lot of engagement, with lots of positive comments and retweets. Citizens posted images of themselves holding up the sign of #MainBhiMumbaiPolice and also took it on themselves to report cases where they saw people violating the norms of the lockdown.

CMO Quotes

Sagar Kapoor, CCO, Lowe Lintas said, “The Mumbai Police is working relentlessly to keep us safe in every manner possible. With the lockdown the least we can help as citizens is to partner them in their efforts, considering they are risking themselves for us out there. Hence, the #MainBhiMumbaiPolice idea. Since it is the responsibility of each and every household to look after their family members and stop them from venturing out during the lockdown. Staying true to the spirit, the whole campaign has been created by staying at home. All partners connected digitally and executed the campaign from their respective homes.”

Ameer Ismail, President, GolinOpinion, said, “Lending our PR support to the #MaiBhiMumbaiPolice campaign was our way of supporting the powerful and relevant message of responsible behavior. It was an honor to do something so timely and impactful for the Mumbai Police and the brilliant and smart influencer campaign helped in getting a vast audience impacted. It was a great example of our hyper bundled work that has an outstanding impact.”