Sachin Tendulkar, Priyanka Chopra- Brand Ambassadors for Census 2011

Ace Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood diva Priyanka Chopra will soon be seen doing free publicity campaigning for Census 2011 with the carrying the slogan, "You count, so we count".

The television advertisements are part of a wider campaign that were launched on February 2 and will continue till February 28, the dates when the Population Enumeration Phase of the 15th Census will be held.

Chinmoy Chakravorty, Consultant to Registrar General of India feels that Sachin and Priyanka are the right choice since both of them are youth icons as well as very popular with the masses.

Adding that although the two stars are not brand ambassadors in the conventional sense, they will help spread the message that everyone should make themselves counted and cooperate with enumerators who ask questions and collect data from households.

Highlighting the reach of TV as a medium, Chakravorty said, "The enumerator should be given due importance and the questions they ask should be duly answered because Tendulkar has answered all the questions," further adding that "When one sees repeatedly on TV, or hear them on the radio or even in the print ads then they get sensitized. People think that 'Yes, these are important issues I should correctly answer the questions.'"

Via the TV commercials, the celebrities will be requesting the people that they have been part of the exercise and requesting viewers to participate in Census 2011 as well.

Suman Prashar, Consultant to RGI said the famous Bollywood beauty will also be seen interacting with female viewers to talk about what work they do and that in addition to other details will be used to gather genders details in the Census' result, something which is often "masked" by "biases".

The national campaign is being supported by local campaigns by state Census Directorates which are using local mediums like wall paintings and regional languages and dialects to spread the message.

During the launch of the final phase of census 2011, Deputy Registrar General P K Banerjee said, "There is no cost on our part for endorsement of stars like Sachin and Chopra. It is the UNICEF which has roped them for the campaign. Whether they have paid them anything or not, we do not know."

The Rs 12 crore census campaign, in which UNICEF is a partner, will be in various regional languages covering a total of 240 million households across the country with the expenditure of just Rs 18.

References:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/sachin-tendulkar-priyanka-chopra-to-promote-census-2011/articleshow/7499958.cms

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