Why are Tapsee Pannu, Priya Bapat, Neeti Mohan, Sunny Leone staring at themselves in the mirror?

Aur Dikhao, a digital media channel, has released 12 videos featuring 15 celebrities, as part of its public service campaign #DetectToDefeat in order to promote breast cancer awareness.

October is observed as the International Breast Cancer Awareness month. While most of us know about the disease, which is a dreaded, silent killer, few care to perform the recommended monthly self-examination.

To create awareness about the disease, Aur Dikhao, a digital media channel, in association with Dr Aneel Murarka and Manish Murarka (promoters of Ample Mission Events Entertainment and more LLP), have developed the full-fledged campaign #DetectToDefeat.

The campaign comprises of 12 videos featuring 15 celebrities from various walks of life such as Tapsee Pannu and Sunny Leone from Bollywood, director Divya Khosla Kumar, television actors Divyanka Tripathi, Disha Parmar, Devoleena Bhattacharjee, and Sargun Mehta, singers Neeti Mohan and Sunidhi Chauhan, dancer Shakti Mohan, anchor Shibani Dandekar, model Poonam Pandey, Priya Bapat from regional cinema, and Gaurav Gera as Chutki from digital.

Each celebrity conveys in his/her own inimitable style the message that if we women paid as much attention to their breasts as men do, breast cancer cases will be reduced to half.

While playback singer (Sunidhi) Chauhan deals with the word 'test, fashion designer-turned-politician Shaina NC and television personalities such as (Divyanka) Tripathi, (Devoleena) Bhattacharjee, (Disha) Parmar, and (Sargun) Mehta convey the importance of two minutes. Bollywood actors (Sunny) Leone and (Tapsee) Pannu and regional cinema actor (Priya) Bapat are seen dealing with the various characters a woman encounters in her day-to-day life who keep staring at their breasts.

Commenting on the campaign, Aditya Bhat, project head and founder-CEO, Aur Dikhao, says, "My team has entirely conceptualised and put together this campaign with 15 women celebrities in a record time of 15 days, shooting a celeb a day! We chose these women to break the ice when it comes to discussion on breast cancer awareness. The statistics are alarming and what troubled us, or rather intrigued us is the fact that breast cancer is detectable at an early stage, and hence, curable. Every celebrity was equally willing to be a part of this and helped in the execution of the campaign."

When asked about how the team managed the fine balance between keeping the videos entertaining while simultaneously sending out the right message, Bhat shares, "Entertainment in itself is subjective. Hence, while Leone and Pandey's videos are quirky and voyeuristic that of Shaina NC is completely to the point. Thus, the challenge for us was to fine-tune the creativity according to the celebrity's profile so as to deliver the right message."

Interestingly, all the videos are available only on Aur Dikhao's Facebook page and not on any other social media/other platforms, as they will be promoted on the social media platform through Aur Dikhao's new feature Crossposted videos where the videos will be re-used in multiple posts without having to share or upload them again. Not only this, Aur Dikhao has also activated a special profile frame for the campaign which carries the message 'Detect to Defeat', which both pages and profiles can use to spread the word further. What's more is the fact that there is no brand association with the campaign in question.

Moreover, each video (out of which TV actors Tripathi, Parmar, and Bhattacharjee have theirs rolled into one) points out the fact that according to research, breast cancer is one of the fastest rising cancer types among women and that more than half the cases are detected in stage three or four, thus inhibiting any chances for cure. Hence, the only way for prevention is raising awareness through early detection, treatment, and cure.

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Commenting on how such films can maximise their views on Facebook and other digital platforms, Vivek Bhargava, chief executive officer (CEO), iProspect India, feels that making use of a celebrity's following on social media is certainly one of the firsts that such filmmakers should opt for in order to get the initial views, while the call-to-action feature, a message on the lines of 'Please share if you care', could prove to be effective.

On the other hand, Bhargava adds, "Teasers don't work much in digital films as getting the user again for the same campaign and impact is not easy, hence, paid media can be used for sequential targetting, as well as gaining popularity."

Bhargava says that digital is bigger than television today as far as reaching the less than 45 years age-group in SEC A and B is concerned, hence, promoting the campaign only through facebook will prove to be a good idea.

Ruchir Joshi, content head, Culture Machine, is of the view that using the company's owned and operated channels such as Blush and Being Indian would have been a good choice for populating information about the videos in case Culture Machine had created the same and wanted to maximise the views on digital platforms.

On the other hand, he thinks that smaller digital media channels can reach out to a platform like ScoopWhoop for delivering the relevant message to the target audience in addition to reaching out to traditional media such as newspapers and television for content distribution across media platforms.

When asked if using only Facebook to promote the videos will work, Joshi says, "As far as reach is concerned, Facebook offers the best results for maximum discovery, and while focussing on one platform is a good idea, it should not be limited to that one alone."

For the record, Aur Dikhao has to its credit popular films such as '11 Minutes' featuring Sunny Leone, Alok Nath, and Deepak Dobriyal that focussed on anti-smoking in addition to Aur Dikhao's and Ample Missiion's '#DontLetHerGo' film featuring Kangana Ranaut as Goddess Lakshmi which was all about the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan.