In A World Of Powerless Queens
Come March, and the Women’s Day theme takes over the advertising world. While many brands take up the opportunity to reach out to women with strong messages, only some ads feel true to the cause. This year, Project Nanhi Kali has attempted to create awareness on the power struggle that women face in the world, by making chess the metaphor to drive the message.
As part of the ad campaign ‘Powerless Queen’ — conceptualised by Dentsu Aegis Network’s WATConsult — a digital Chess game has been created where the first player’s queen is designed to be ‘powerless’, while the second player’s queen has all her powers, thus making the first player realise how difficult it is to win a game with a powerless queen.
Explaining the concept behind the campaign, Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO, WATConsult, says, “The campaign insight emerged from a simple observation of how chess was invented in India in the 6th century with Queen being the most powerful piece. However today in the 21st century, the real queens i.e. a vast majority of Indian women are the least powerful as they don’t even have basic rights to education, health, safety, etc.”
Tania Sachdev, an Indian chess player who holds The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE, also known as World Chess Federation) titles of The International Master and The Woman Grandmaster, has been made the face of the campaign.
Sheetal Mehta, Trustee and Executive Director, Project Nanhi Kali and K. C. Mahindra Education Trust, says, “We are happy to partner with WATConsult for this innovative campaign. We support campaigns that give out a message about the importance of ensuring equality for women and it is a win-win situation given our objective is to educate and empower girls.”
Apart from spreading the message, Sachdev is also challenging people to play the digital version of the Chess game on the microsite by taking the ‘Powerless Queen Challenge’. The microsite enables people to accept the challenge, play the game, and donate to Project Nanhi Kali to empower the women of tomorrow.
“#PowerlessQueen was the top trending hashtag in India. It has managed to garner a potential reach of more than 5 million, generated 58.5 million impressions with over 7,465 tweets. Within just 1 day, the campaign empowered Nanhi Kali to sponsor over 40,000 hours of education for underprivileged girls,” says Dhingra.
