When I Canned It!

  When Small Becomes Big!

 With Prasoon Joshi

 Prasoon and Nandita Laxmanan

 Krish (HP), Prasoon and Seema Dawar (HP)

The PRactice, Porter Novelli, India became the first ever Indian PR firm to get shortlisted for the Cannes Awards 2012 for their outstanding work on HP “Write and Read” campaign.

The HP Write & Read campaign was a judicious mix of events, print and online media relations, celebrity endorsement and digital community management as well. What makes the campaign extra special is the unique social angle it has – Connecting India’s next generation with the writer in themselves and teaming up with an NGO to help further education for under privileged children. We organized workshops and a contest with children to nurture creative writing talent in them. It used this platform to showcase the HP Printer brand as well. The idea was to ignite positive conversations around brand HP. The creative writings were published in a book and the sales proceeds from the book were donated to underprivileged children. The activity has now been adopted by HP in other countries as well.

When this news broke on the 17^th June evening, and I came to know about it, I was on cloud 9, rather 10 feet above the ground. Only after the exhilaration settled, did I realize that all this was not achieved alone. There were many hours of dedicated labor behind it, difficulties, hurdles which everyone in the team HP at The Practice overcame together. I am thankful that we could take The PRactice to a position no Indian Public Relations firm has ever achieved before, and grateful to Seema, HP for the immense support in the entire campaign and of course Nandita, the CEO, The PRactice for her mentorship throughout the campaign’s ideation as well as execution.

I so want to thank my husband  Sumit and my five year old Eashan, for being behind with me as a strong wall of support. No one, except them could have given me emotional cushion when I needed it the most. Thanks Sumit, I love you!

The Cannes PR Lions 2012 results have been announced and The PRactice did not make it to the Gold, Silver or the Bronze. Although we did not win this award, still we managed to write The Practice’s name in the golden book of Cannes 2012. I am ecstatic about being a part of the team in HP when we created history. I have amazing memories of the campaign including our trial periods, which has helped us gain such heights. From the brainstorming to the workshops, from the client pitching meetings to the book publishing, from the micro site to the book reviews, I still remember each and every moment and cherish every second of the campaign. Thus, the announcement on June 17^th of the short listing (Afaqs, Exchange4media), and 19^th of the result - http://www.canneslions.com/work/2012/pr/index.cfm?award=99, both are extremely dear to my heart, God knows, I am going to save a screenshot of this one for years to come by.

Thank You The PRactice J

http://www.canneslions.com/work/2012/pr/index.cfm?award=99