CASE STUDIES

The brief was simple: To package and get widespread attention for the upcoming Ashirvad Hospital Azamgarh, a remote district in UP. The challenge was to ensure a dramatic take off by creating high-decibel buzz and ensuring a credible launch for the hospital.

This small district and its neighboring areas are prone to neurological disorders. The Clinic of Dr Shishir Jaiswal, a renowned neurologist who served at AIIMS besides others, was often overcrowded with as many as 300 patients a day. Encouraged, Dr Jaiswal set up a 386-bed hospital, to provide better care and cure. While the issue of brain disorder and its high degree of prevalence was surely critical and could attract national or state-level media for a story or two, hard selling it was difficult. Given its location and reputation, it was also not possible to organize a visit of a group of journalists to Azamgarh from Delhi.

Something real big was needed to provide the big push. We zeroed in on former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and impressed upon him on the need to have a modern healthcare facility which could address the typical problem of this region. Negotiating with Dr Kalam‘s office was challenge as they follow very high standards of due diligence and our communication ran for months. Designing the communication with focus on backward region, an ailment which was acquiring a scary enormity and noble initiatives was critical. Dr Kalam did make it to the event and the dramatic take off that GreyMatters had envisioned was made possible.

Agra-based Oswaal Books (oswaalbooks.com) is a six-decade old publishing house bringing out over 250 titles every year for CBSE Board, a host of states Board and major entrance exams including IIT-JEE and CAT. While the group has done well to build strong loyalty among students and teachers, it was keen to showcase its work more credibly, and gain more prominence.

We designed a special concept with an aim to bring together all critical stakeholders in the education domain – principals, teachers, students, parents, NGOs and educationists – and used a neutral third-party forum Forum for Indian Journalists on Education, Environment, Health & Agriculture (www.fijeeha.in), a development communication forum of journalists and development sector professionals. In two such events, two education ministers – Mr Arvinder Singh Lovely of Delhi Government (Delhi) and Mr Kimmane Rathnakar of Karnataka Government (Bengaluru) – graced the occasion while in another one in Patna, HRD Secretary Anjani K Singh, IAS, was the chief guest. We also unveiled white papers carrying a set of recommendations for improving school education and role of books therein. Other than getting very high media visibility, these events catapulted Oswaal Books into a big league prompting the Union Minister of State for Education Mr Upendra Kushwaha to compliment Oswaal Books on the initiative and urging them to continue this good work.

On their first birthday Nigerian conjoined twins Hussaina and Hassana Badaru came apart and celebrated the joy thousands miles away in New Delhi, at BLK Super Speciality Hospital. The 18-hour surgery to separate the twins – a rare medical feat - was performed by a team of 40 doctors, drawn from nine specialities. The medical community hailed the medical excellence.

The story got massive media attention and this helped reinforce hospital‘s reputation as a world-class facility. We wanted to take the story global to showcase the capabilities of the hospital as well as to possibly reach out with this information to all such patients who need such medical intervention. With our diligence pursuit, we were able to have the story aired at Discovery Channnel‘s prestigious Medical Miracle show. Watch here or Watch here

Assam-based Bitchem, which were among the very few companies which introduced cold mix technology for road construction, was facing stiff resistance from government agencies, villagers and contractors who refused to accept it. Something more than mere articulation was needed.

We designed a multi-stakeholders sensitization and engagement programs. From those who designed policies (ministers and legislators) to those who would be the end users (villagers), we effectively reached out to everyone with a simple narrative - the technology was cleaner, greener, faster and cost-effective and safe for ecologically sensitive north eastern states of Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh. Street plays, community meetings, and road shows to exhibit the efficacy of technology formed the first-stage advocacy tools. This was followed by media workshops to build pressure on governments as well as influence opinions of other stakeholders. Strategic negotiations with institutions like Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) and PradhanMantri Gram SadakYojana (PMGSY) ensured right inputs at policy making level for rural roads, a subject in the central list. Sales picked.

The over Re 7000 cr LNJ Bhilwara Group had done exceedingly well over the years with businesses in textiles, graphite electrodes and hydro power. Stable and robust, the Group with over 25,000 employees remained focussed through its journey, growing the value incrementally, yet firmly. While it had been continuously working in Bhilwara town in Rajasthan, at one point, the Group wanted to contribute more meaningfully led by the vision of third generation of the family - MrRiju Jhunjhunwala.

Home to an enlightened set of people, we knew the regular stuff - building schools, medical vans - would not work. We designed a fresh-idea, umbrella platform Bhilwara2020 (www.bhilwara2020.com), which had a vision for the city, as well as a slew of programs to engage with various segments of population. We created many small-format engagement events ranging from debate competition to health camps, tree plantation, career talks, water tanker, vocational programs and so on. CSR got a new hue and this platform created palpable buzz among those who matter. It continues to be a binding force for many activities in the city.

The global leaders in visual collaborations or video conferencing Polycom (www.polycom.com) was keen on reaching out to influencers in the healthcare, education and IT domains, both private and government sector, in a non-intrusive manner with an aim to talk both about the legacy of its products as well as their relevance and efficacy for the Indian set up. The marketing route was a big no.

After doing a series of personalized meetings with influencers including government joint secretaries, CEOs, CXOs and directors of academic institutions, which was followed by a special e-Newsletter, GreyMatters sat down to designing a formula to showcase the products - a necessary prerequisite before the stakeholders started to believe in the technology and its power. A multi-party-multi-location (MPMPL) Dialogue was designed on topics such as tech enabled mass communication education way ahead. Since the studios were located in Polycom’s own office, government functionaries were especially reluctant; however, the design of the discourse including visual collaboration facilities with multiple participants across locations was such that required them to necessarily travel to the high-tech office of Polycom in Gurgaon. The discussions saw participants from different parts of the world, including Polycom’s experts. The experience, said the participants, was rewarding. The superlative experience coupled with modest cost of the installations and huge ROI convinced quite a few participants about Polycom products.

International Labour Organization (ILO) is anchoring a joint UN campaign on Social Protection Floor (SPF). United Nations Development Action Framework (UNDAF) for 2012-17, signed between UN systems and the erstwhile Planning Commission in India, identified SPF as an essential component of inclusive growth in India. It also identified Odisha as a pilot for establishing institutional framework for SPF, that can be replicated and scaled up at a national level. Subsequently, ILO-India launched a pilot in Odisha. GreyMatters Communications was entrusted with the prestigious task of driving awareness on SPF among key stakeholders. We were mandated to design and execute a campaign to create better understanding about SPF, directly and through media, in order to sensitize stakeholders about the significance of ILO’s initiatives. We designed an advocacy campaign aimed at targeted communication among Policy makers, NGOs, Trade Union and Employers Organization, directly and through conventional and social media platforms. The messaging strategy was delicately designed to ensure each stakeholder group received customized messages. An approach of Inter-Personal Communication and Media-Led Communication was adopted. We deployed the following tools: Media Workshop, Editorials, Press Releases, Interview, Meetings with Influencers, Emailers and Social Media.

In September 2015, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (GNNTD) partnered with us to run a media awareness program on Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) in India. The GNNTD, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, works to raise the awareness, political will and funds necessary to control and eliminate  neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Often falling beyond the purview of mainstream media, like many other compelling problems in the country, LF has severe enormity and has persisted in India as well as other countries of the world for many years. 

Not many would be aware that LF is the world’s second leading cause of long-term disability. Although filariasis does not kill, it causes debility and imposes severe social and economic burden to the affected individuals, their families and the endemic communities. According to one estimate at one point in time 120 million people in 83 countries of the world were infected with lymphatic filarial parasites, and it was estimated that more than 1.1 billion (20% of the world’s population) are at risk of acquiring infection. Over 40 million people are severely disfigured and disabled by filariasis and 76 million are apparently normal but have hidden internal damage to lymphatic and renal systems. According to the World Health Organization, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh alone contribute about 70% of the infection worldwide.

The task here at hand was to raise national awareness and focus media attention towards the work that GNNTD was undertaking at the ground level. We organized a journalists’ visit to two worst affected districts in Odisha. The delegation comprised scribes of top daily newspapers from the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand & Delhi. The aims was to sensitise journalists on the work being done by GNNTD on the ground for control and elimination of LF and encourage them to write stories to raise the level of awareness among policy makers, academia, health professionals and government agencies. 

After we carefully identified and selected journalists, we shared knowledge materials with them to educate them on the issue and its severity. Before the field visit, a special workshop for journalists was conducted with GNNTD and Odisha government officials. During the visit, journalists were made to interact with affected patients to get a better sense of the enormity of the problem. With focussed messaging and engagements, we were able to generate very good media coverage with special features appearing in leading publications like The Statesman, Aaj Kal, Pioneer, Governance Now, Prabhat Kahbar, The Samaja, Sambad, The Political & Business Daily etc.  In all, the newspapers clips had a gross readership of more than 20 lakh across the states.

USA’s Classical Movements is a premier concert tour company for the world's great orchestras and choirs, creating meaningful cultural experiences through music in 145 countries. 

The Founder of the company is Neeta Helms who is an Indian by birth. An industry leader for 25 years, they understand both the travel and the performance needs of professional symphonies and choruses, as well as conservatory, university and youth ensembles.

With an attempt to bring together a confederation of Classical Music aficionados who would revel in and appreciate the juxtaposition of alluring orchestras and choirs, three concerts as part of the concert tour were planned in India - in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. They were seeking ample media attention for the same, to be able to gain traction and support from the classical music lovers. 

International classical music has not really gained momentum in terms of the Indian context and hence an appropriate narrative and strategy was needed to achieve the same. 

The main attention was to be centred on the India Choral Fellowship (ICF) and Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 concerts. 

India Choral Fellowship (ICF) program was designed as a unique initiative by Classical Movements where in the Grammy Award winner Kevin Fox came to India and visited various institutes in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and conducted his workshops. ICF’s goal was to stimulate the growth and development of a distinctively Indian choral music tradition.

Our task was cut out, given that there is not much popular acceptance of classical music, and that too Western. We created a customized strategy of first creating noise about the Orchestra in markets which would be more receptive - the nucleus for most appreciators being in the north-eastern cities like Shillong, Gangtok, and Guwahati. It was thus essential that outreach was also focused on these areas along with the venue cities. 

Having also realised the importance of developing a comprehensive narrative which would engage audiences towards the amalgamation of western Classical orchestra and choral groups, a concrete rollout plan was developed.

A three pronged approach was adopted, which broadly included judicious mapping of art and culture media and stakeholders, extensive research and knowledge acquisition of the subject so that the message for the journalists was clear and appropriate. This was followed by a minute planning and execution strategy. 

These painstaking attempts paid off as all three concerts received substantial coverage in both print media as well as digital media platforms. In totality, in a span of three weeks, 27 news stories were published in print media, 9 stories online, 1 magazine article which together amassed a collective readership of approximately 3,77,37,812 (over 3 Million) 

A thorough social media plan was also concocted which included the creation of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts for Classical Movements which gained organic traction and thus an impressive following.  

Classical Movements was able to hence accomplish their musical goal with the long standing expertise GreyMatters Communications. 

The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Ministry of Education, Government of India has always aimed to advance the cause of social science research. 

Social science is hugely critical in society as it allows extensive debates and discussions about the collective future of humankind. Good research helps us unravel many facets of society, which in turn help governments, communities and institutions create a better framework for policy and social cohesion. 

The ICSSR has been constantly evolving collaborative research programs with multiple international research bodies. It forged a partnership with the British High Commission along with EqUIP, the EU-India Platform for the Social Science and Humanities, and the three organisations had organised a mega two-day seminar to reiterate the significance of collaborative research in 2017. 

ICSSR wanted to create a buzz around this event, and the takeaways from there.

GreyMatters knew this required adequate media coverage for the international event. The challenge at hand was the subject itself - social science research, which cut very little ice, either with mainstream or regional media. Using our expertise, we customized and created smart narratives - why the Government needs to enhance fundings in social science research to get the right inputs for policy making, how social science can help create a better society - and so on. 

We relied on both conventional and new media tools to generate buzz and highlight deliberations and conclusions from the conference. Having a targeted and clearly defined approach was important. Using a mix of traditional PR approach, plus personalized pitches to some senior editors, we managed to get our story out in many grade A publications including The Times of India, Asian Age, and Millennium Post. 

Apart from this, we also utilised Twitter and triggered conversations with participation from across the globe.

The LNJ Bhilwara Group has been a testament of age-old business growth and prosperity in the textile, hydro power and graphite electrodes industry. With exponential and constant value addition, the company is a thriving textile giant in the industry.

Under the guidance of its CMD Ravi Jhunjhunwala, the company had envisaged a classical music festival for music and art lovers. The Bhilwara Sur Sangam has been an annual event since 2012, and every year till 2019, GreyMatters has managed to get amazing media coverage and online buzz.

The 7th edition was dedicated to the memory of leading classical vocalist Gaansaraswati Kishori Amonkar and featured performances by sarod artist Abhishek Borkar and veteran vocalist Pandit Venkatesh Kumar.

GreyMatters has been long associated with the LNJ Bhilwara Group and subsequently, the Bhilwara Sur Sangam as well.

To ensure that this event got high traction through media coverage by the print media and digital media platforms, GreyMatters devised a three pronged communication approach which would target three focus areas- media outreach, social media and bloggers. 

A series of pre-event activities were carried out including reaching out to journalists and newspapers. Through smart follow up, compelling narrative and professional engagements, the event was listed in major newspapers like The Times of India and the Hindustan Times. 

Social media platforms were also used for generating curiosity about this year’s efforts. Bloggers were also roped in. 

All these efforts yielded smart results and impressive traction on media and social media platforms. 

Over 20 high impact stories were published in grade A publications including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Pioneer, Asian Age, and more. We earned digital coverage in prestigious platforms including The Quint, Doordarshan, United News Nation, The Times of India.

The Amity Education Group is one of India's leading private non-profit education groups, offering globally benchmarked education right from pre-schools to PhD level.

Amity University has always been conscious about its responsibility towards the society and has meaningfully contributed through various programs and activities.

The Amity Gurugram Marathon organised by Amity University Haryana combined the spirit of social cause while reinforcing the spirit of good health and fitness. It was also designed to inculcate diversity with participation from people of varying backgrounds and nationalities. The 2018 marathon saw participation of over 10,000 people drawn from 20 countries. 

What makes Amity Gurugram Marathon unique is the endeavor to weave together a wide coalition of NGOs and social actors to drive awareness, and trigger action on social problems.

We know the significance of having a good narrative coupled with the right approach for media engagement. Since the event was happening in Gurgaon (part of National Capital Region with strong presence of local media, and bureau of national media), we knew the national media would find it difficult to justify it and therefore we had to create a concurrent strategy for enhancing visibility at the national level. A strategy on right deployment of social media along with print and television coverage was deployed. 

As a first step, we built a credible narrative. That Amity was creating a rare coalition of development sector players to drive awareness on social causes was a compelling story that we created. In the next phase, we used a two-pronged strategy of reaching out to media - at the local level, and bureau of national dailies and television channels. To ensure our message reached out to journalists we populated our Twitter handle @GreyMattersPR with relevant information including contact details for journalists to reach us. We also reached out to all photo journalists in Gurgaon as well as the national bureaus. 

The results were heartening. 

We received over 25 impressions across print, online, TV including 8 A Category print publications, 4 TV channels, 4 online platforms with an estimated readership / viewership of over 8 million. Some prominent publications included, Dainik Jagran, Navbharat Times, Amar Ujala, The Pioneer, Hindustan, Punjab Kesari and additionally News 18, India News Haryana, City Air News among electronic platforms. There was large-scale traction on social media too.

Crystal Crop Protection is an Indian company with a turnover of Re 1000 cr and offers agri inputs solutions including pesticides, herbicides, fungicides among others. The Re 30,000 crop protection industry in India is dominated by big multinationals and the existence of Indian players is hugely negligent. Crystal was keen on giving a big push to its image and create a unique positioning for itself. As their communication partner, the challenge was huge. 

Recognizing that conventional PR tools had their limitations, and take time to scale up the image, we knew Crystal needed a big bang intervention to catapult its stature. We designed a first-of-its-kind National Crystal Agri Awards to recognize talents with innovations in agriculture and allied sectors. Entries were sought from all parts of the country. A massive media and online media outreach was also launched to create buzz to attract large number of entries. Given the massive spread of the government machinery vide Indian Council of Agriculture Research and Krishi Vigyan Kendras, we launched an aggressive outreach program to attract entries from these institutions. A high-powered jury comprising eminent scientists, journalists, agriculture experts and sociologists was formed, which had to undertake the enormous task of sifting through the thousands of entries.  

Out of the several applications received 20 were short listed for all the categories. The awards were given in four categories - Farmers, Scientist, NGO & Special Jury. The award ceremony was held on August 27, 2014 at India Habitat Centre. Two union Ministers - Agriculture Minister Shri Radha Mohan Singh, and Transport & Rural Development Minister Shri Nitin Gadkari were the chief guests. A host of participants representing government institutions from across the country were present. In all over 400 participants attended the event with representation also from private sector, academia, development agencies, and media.

While the magnitude of the event, its planning and execution were Humongous, the media buzz before and after the event were equally remarkable. We diligently designed the media plan and reports were published in all leading print and digital mediums across the country, in more than 5 languages with a combined readership of over 20 million. 

All this had provided a Herculean lift to the perception of Crystal Crop Protection, and massive satisfaction to Team Grey, which put in a gigantic effort to see through this mega event, from its conception to end.