When a selfie turned vehicle for political representation

A conversation with FCB’s Swati Bhattacharya and Tara Krishnaswamy on creating the 'Nominate Me Selfie' campaign that won a Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2022.

This year, at the Spikes Asia Awards 2022, FCB India brought home a Grand Prix for its campaign – ‘The Nominate Me Selfie’. The entry may sound like it was designed for a beauty pageant, but the campaign stood for a more serious cause. The campaign was designed for Political Shakti - a non partisan women's collective passionate about female leaders in politics. Shakti's objective is to enable more women to be elected as MPs and MLAs.

The campaign appeared in Times of India

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Aadhe Hum, Aadha Humara- The Nominate Me Selfie for Political Shakti & The Times of India is a reminder of the concept of gender representation at the top. 50 per cent of India’s population are women, but only a fraction of parliamentarians are represented by this gender, leaving half of the electorate without or with very little voice. #AadhaHumara is an urgent cry to bridge the political gender gap and bring about adequate representation in policy making and the power circles.

This campaign brought home the fourth Grand Prix award that FCB has won. In the past, it won the Grand Prix in 2018 for Sindoor Khela, in 2019 for The Open Door Project and in 2021 for Times Out&Proud.

We at afaqs! caught up with the brains behind the campaign over a video call. Tara Krishnaswamy and Swati Bhattacharya worked together with their respective teams to bring this campaign to life. Krishnaswamy recalls one of Bhattacharya’s earlier campaigns – Water Wives, and mentioned that she wanted to create a similar campaign for the Indian political scenario – which was lacking when it came to representation from women in the roles of MPs and MLAs.

When it comes to the Indian political landscape, it’s important to note that women form over 50% grassroots workers and leaders below state level, working tirelessly in the field, but are overlooked when it comes to getting tickets to contest elections. The obstacle faced when holding largely male dominated political parties accountable for equal representation? The question - “Where are the women?”.

A poster from the campaign

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Bhattacharya recalls that when she had her first conversation with Krishnaswamy, she was thoroughly impressed with the work that they did and wanted to help in every way she could. “I had the opportunity not just to be present and make a difference as an advertising professional but also as a volunteer.”

The timing of the campaign happened at the backdrop of one of India’s most shocking suicide cases - that of young actor Sushant Singh Rajput. “We remember being bombarded with news and that was the time when people really started wondering what was wrong with our country to villainise a young girl in the way that they did. That’s when we thought it’s a good time to step forward and make a difference,” says Bhattacharya.

Krishnaswamy tells us that Shakti was founded in 2018, right before the 2019 elections in India and since then - they have been working for the betterment of society. The non-profit organisation would take to the streets to protest against what they perceived as social injustices - but when the COVID lockdown was first enforced in 2020, they were unable to do that.

Tara Krishnaswamy

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That’s when the idea of using a selfie - which is usually perceived as narcissistic - to make a societal difference came about. “When we were collaborating, we would be texting each other constantly. Tara (Krishnaswamy) was full of interesting facts and figures that gave us cues on how to carry the conversations forward. This includes facts like, if you lined up every female MP or MLA in a room since independence, it would still not be enough to fill up a parliament house. That's when we began questioning ourselves on why this was happening,” says Bhattacharya.

The duo concluded the conversation by telling us that the most important social change they sought out to achieve was to ensure that men did not look down upon women who were attempting to get into politics and instead, encourage them to step forward and do their part.