Campaign

Launch of the campaign

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) unveiled the “TB Harega, Desh Jeetega” campaign featuring Bollywood actor Mr. Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador. The objective of the campaign is to raise awareness to address Mumbai’s tuberculosis epidemic. Mr. Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Mr. Dalbir Singh, President, Global Coalition Against TB (GCAT); Mr. Anurag Thakur, Member of Parliament (MP), Bharatiya Janata Party and GCAT member; Mr. Uddhav Thackeray, Shiv Sena chief were present at this landmark moment in Mumbai’s public health landscape.

The “TB Harega, Desh Jeetega” campaign features multimedia content to extensively disseminate key messages for TB prevention and control through TV, print, radio, online and outdoor media. It encapsulates a range of messages on the steps to be undertaken for the prevention, timely diagnosis and treatment of TB. As the face and voice of the campaign, Mr. Bachchan highlights the urgency of tackling one of the biggest public health challenges facing the country.

Highlights

During this event, Mr. Bachchan revealed that he too suffered from TB a decade ago during the shooting of Kaun Banega Crorepati, a widely watch television show. His revelation generated extensive media interest and helped communicate to the people that TB can happen to anyone but everyone can defeat this disease. Over 110 media persons attended the event, representing 77 national and regional outlets from the print, electronic and online media. The event has been featured across prominent newspapers such as Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, Times of India, Daily News and Analysis (DNA) among others in the English media, with comprehensive coverage in the Hindi and Marathi media as well. The social media hashtag #TbHaregaDeshJeetega has received was also shared with the media to promote the campaign online. Promoted extensively through Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, the campaign messaging reached over 160,000 people within a fortnight of the launch. Mr. Bachchan tweeted about the campaign to his 12.5 million followers, and also shared photographs from the event on Facebook, where he has over 18 million followers.

Dissemination and impact of the campaign

In order to make the campaign sustainable, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) led Mumbai Mission for TB Control, envisioned and developed a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagement strategy. The strategy aimed at engaging corporate entities to support the Mission’s program under their CSR initiative.

MCGM leveraged the creation of the Mumbai partnership to garner monetary and in-kind support from donors such as the Godrej Group, Bank of Baroda and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. In one year, from January 2014 to December 2014, an estimated amount of over $31,000 was raised to support dissemination of the “TB Harega, Desh Jeetega” campaign across platforms including TV ads, banners placed across Mumbai and posters. Through the use of multiple mediums, such as print, television, radio, online and social media the “TB Harega, Desh Jeetega” awareness campaign has been viewed, heard or read by an estimated 13 million individuals in Mumbai alone.