The Vedanta Group releases its first ever campaign

The Vedanta Group, a natural resources major, has unveiled its first ever national corporate campaign under the platform of ‘Creating Happiness’. As a part of the campaign, Vedanta has released a 90 second TVC created by Ogilvy & Mather along with 38 other three minute films made by student film makers from across the country.

The face of the group’s campaign is ‘Binno’, a little girl who was chosen from one of Vedanta’s community initiatives in rural Rajasthan. The TVC takes a real slice out of Binno’s life, with her parents, friends, doctors and school teachers playing the part. It shows how her life is different from that of her earlier generations, in the process highlighting the many changes that have come about over the years in her village.

Commenting on the TVC, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman, Ogilvy & Mather said, “The Vedanta ‘Creating Happiness’ campaign is extremely close to my heart for it's all about enabling India. I have worked on this campaign along with my team as an excited young copywriter and I look forward to the people of India not just appreciating the Vedanta efforts, but getting inspired to do something on their own to make India a happier place.”

The film has been shot on location in Rajasthan by director Shivendra Dungarpur of Dungarpur Films and the music has been composed by Rajat Dholakia.

The TVC has gone on air  today and the student films are available for public voting on youtube.com/Vedanta group.

On the campaign and the film competition, Senjam Raj Sekhar, director, communications and brand, Vedanta group said, “Vedanta has several compelling stories to tell about the work that is being done in community and sustainability. Our aim is to tell the world the Vedanta story under the platform of ‘Creating Happiness’. With the film competition, we opened up all our projects and locations to budding independent film makers. The idea was to enable them to experience it first hand and make films on impact that the projects were having on the community. The results are tremendous – we have got 38 heartwarming stories capturing hope, change and empowerment in rural India”

114 students from media and film schools in the country including FTII, Whistling Woods, Symbiosis, School of Convergence, MGR FTI, IIMC, Assam University, Xavier’s, Christ University, AAFT, ZIMA, Tezpur University, IP College and Ravenshaw have produced 38 short films that tell the stories of the people and communities whose lives have been changed by Vedanta’s community initiatives, creating happiness in the process. Each film was made by a group of three students.

The students travelled to the interiors of Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Chhattisgarh to meet with an India that is full of inspiring stories, and they came back with their own experiences and films. The films are open for public voting on YouTube till 20 March 2012. The films will also be judged by the jury that includes Piyush Pandey, Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag.