Whisper’s #TouchThePickle campaign is the PR winner

 23rd July 2014    Good and Bad PR 
 Paarul Chand

Good PR

Whisper’s #TouchThePickle campaign is a great way to free women from period taboos

Our society is riddled with strange taboos designed to control and keep women in their place. This is why Whisper’s campaign to expose taboos associated with periods is so important.

One of the silliest restrictions for women is that they are not supposed to touch food or enter a temple during their menstrual cycle. Whisper focuses on the food issue with their campaign message of #TouchThePickle:

This is a campaign that deserves thumbs up for bringing out ridiculous taboos that need to go:

Samsung’s striking print campaign for India says using a mobile while driving is ugly

I just came across this print campaign by Samsung launched in January/February to discourage using a mobile while driving. With the tag line, “No matter how fashionable you are, using the mobile while driving is ugly,” the pictures-part of the campaign created by Cheil Worldwide India deserved a greater buzz.

Bad PR

AAP leader Alka Lamba shares rape victim’s picture online, UP Governor loses his job over rape remark and the reaction highlights the emergence of violence against women as a political agenda

The perils of shooting off your mouth in today’s aware world.

Two incidents this week highlight that crime against women in India has firmly become a mainstream issue.

Within 30 days former UP Governor, Aziz Quereshi, lost his job after saying that, “Even God cannot stop such crime from taking place in UP.” The former Governor was responding to a question on the rape and murder of a lab technician in Uttar Pradesh.

Then there was, rightly so, an outcry about Alka Lamba’s sharing of the picture of the Lucknow rape victim on Facebook.

The law about showing rape victims in the public domain is very clear – their identity and picture is not to be revealed. While many argue that this is a practise that can further stigmatise the person, in a country like India riven deep with prejudice it can also offer a degree of protection.

Most media houses do follow this very strictly and in the Nirbhaya case the name was never revealed during reportage or the picture ever shown.

This is not the first time that politicians in India have done this. Last year, BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi tweeted the name of the Tehelka molestation victim.

The reaction to these actions by politicians shows that social media is now acting as a check and that crime against women is emerging as a mainstream agenda.

Have you seen any good and bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.