Tata group plugs into the power of women

Using elections as a peg, the Tata Group is escalating the 'Power of 49' ad campaign launched in August last year by Tata Global Beverages

Familiar television faces in the course of the next few months will exhort women to vote, speaking of the enormous power they wield as a collective force. Almost 49 per cent of India's voter base consists of women, and this statistics quite literally has been the basis of the 'Power of 49' ad campaign unveiled by Tata Global Beverages last year.

Part two of this campaign will now roll out with the active support of the Tata Group. In other words, the campaign will be mounted on a much larger scale then it was in the first phase becoming a vehicle for the group as a whole to engage with a key constituent, namely, women.

Sanjiv Sarin, regional president, South Asia, Tata Global Beverages, says, "We will continue to be at front-end of the campaign, but there are multiple things that we will now do. This will involve long and short format content on digital, debates and discussions on TV, engaging with online internet users through the Jaago Re website etc."

The 'Push the Pin' initiative on the website, in particular, says Sarin, will allow users to voice relevant issues particularly women-related issues from their constituency or areas.

In the last few years, Jaago Re has emerged as a viable platform for social change, Sarin says. An initiative like this will find resonance with people, he adds.

Lowe Lintas will be the ad agency that will work on the campaign. The first film called Kala Teeka(black dot), directed by Gouri Shinde, wife of Lowe Lintas chairman & chief creative officer R Balakrishnan, will hit television screens shortly. Shinde also directed the critically acclaimed Tanishq ad film last year, which spoke of remarriage using a dusky bride, who has a girl child.

While corporate social responsibility is something the Tatas have practiced seriously, it has taken a new hue in light of CSR being made mandatory for Indian companies.

According to industry estimates, the likely obligation arising out of the CSR Bill, which comes into force next fiscal, will be $2 billion (or Rs 12,400 crore). This is if the cumulative profit of India

Inc will be $100 billion (or Rs 6.2 lakh crore) by then. "From something that was tracked by a small team, CSR has moved up as a key item on the CEO's list," Gautam Chemburkar, partner, KPMG says. "By making it mandatory for companies to disclose what they've done with the two per cent of profits they now have to set aside for CSR activities, companies will track where the money will go, since it will form part of their distributable profits."

Promoting gender diversity
The Tata Group's involvement with the 'Power of 49' campaign also comes at a time when the Rs 6 lakh crore , salt-to-software major is actively promoting gender diversity within group entities.

TGB alone has nearly 41 per cent of its workforce consisting of women according to its 2012-13 annual report. It had put women on the cover of the same annual report, the second time it had ventured to do so, the last being in 1995-96.

In his first address to TGB shareholders in June last year, Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry had said that he was looking forward to seeing women in important roles and positions of leadership within TGB in the years ahead.

"Women have been and continue to be an integral part of Tata Global Beverages' business, across the world. In addition to women who are part of our teams today, several hundred million women are expected to enter the global workforce in the next decade, hence there is no doubt in my mind that this subject is both important and urgent," 45-year-old Mistry, who is the sixth chairman of the 145-year-old Tata Group said.