The Taj Must Smile Campaign

Thu, 05/28/2015 - 13:34

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This branding campaign engages media on issues of health behavior change in India. As a multi-stakeholder campaign, the effort involves the private sector, civil society, key opinion leaders, celebrities, and media with the goal of making every Indian aware of healthy behaviours. The campaign is organised by the Improving Healthy Behaviors Program (IHBP), "a social behavior change communication project supporting the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of its bilateral assistance program. Idobro, the knowledge partner of The Taj Must Smile, is a social enterprise that facilitates an active and deeper model of engagement to map and implement market-based solutions through a 5-step process to inform, interface, interact, integrate and impact."

Communication Strategies

The story of the creation of the Indian monument, the Taj Mahal, is used as a backstory for this media campaign for health behaviour change, designed to tap the population’s "immediate emotional connection around the Taj Mahal." It is a monument with historic and cultural symbolism that was built to honour a beloved wife and queen who died giving birth to her fourteenth child. This story is used by the campaign to focus a movement on health-seeking behaviour, with a particular focus on women and girls, as well as maternal and infant health, and access to quality healthcare for every Indian.

The campaign brings together stakeholders from corporate foundations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and for-profit social ventures. It includes such strategies as encouraging organisations to: add the campaign logo to their websites; add evaluations of their work to identify how many people have been reached by their activities; and add” The Taj Must Smile” logo to any materials used as part of organisations' programmes. The co-brand of the materials along with the USAID branding is promoted as a benefit for building ownership and visibility.

In addition, Indian media personalities are featured in videos with personal messages. For example, Shaan and Rohit Roy champion safe motherhood, including nutrition during pregnancy and reduction of complications at childbirth, and Gauhar Khan champions supporting menstrual hygiene.

IHBP provides technical assistance for the development of the campaign, and Idobro offers the option of measurement-evaluation support. "IHBP provides additional support by way of build capacity of frontline health workers in conducting IPC [interpersonal communication outreach] and outreach; and helps with impact measurement tools besides providing access to the evidence-based communication campaigns for family planning, maternal health, menstrual hygiene, and HIV/AIDS."