Nepal’s Smart Jeewan Campaign Wins Prestigious Rural Marketing Association of India Award

Nepal’s “Parivar Niyojan, Smart Bancha Jeewan” (Family Planning Makes a Smart Life) campaign has won the prestigious Flame Award (Gold), recognizing it as the best Social Development and Corporate Social Responsibility campaign of 2017 in the Emerging Markets/South Asia category in the competition.

The award for the national family planning campaign was announced at an April 28, 2017 event of the Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI) in New Delhi. Campaigns from across South Asia – Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal – competed for the award in the social development sector/improving health and empowerment in rural areas of South Asia.

The jury panel for the award included industry leaders and top marketers such as Procter & Gamble, Hindustan Lever, Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol) and the vote tabulation was managed by Ernst & Young, one of the ‘Big Four’ multinational accounting firms.

The Smart Jeewan (Smart Life) campaign is designed specifically to re-position family planning as a smart, healthy choice for Nepal’s young people.  It is implemented both at a national scale and in select communities, where local programs are tailored to reach marginalized groups and hard-to-reach families of migrants.  Led by Nepal’s Ministry of Health / National Health Education Information Communication Center (NHEICC) and Family Health Division (FHD), with technical support from the USAID-funded Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) Nepal team, the Smart Jeewan national communication campaign was launched in Nepal in August 2015.

The Flame Awards program was instituted by the Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI) in 2006 to recognize excellence in rural marketing and promotion. With approximately 70% of South Asia’s population living in rural areas, RMAI recognizes that business growth for most companies depends on effective ‘last mile’ initiatives to reach rural communities.  RMAI is now the largest marketing association in South Asia, with a membership base of more than 70 companies dedicated to promoting the cause of rural marketing and celebrating its best practices

Outreach Nepal, the advertising agency partner of the HC3 Nepal project implemented by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs was invited to compete through their advertising agency network. Ron Hess, Chief of Party, HC3 Nepal noted, “We’re honored to be recognized for the Smart Jeewan campaign, particularly by colleagues in the communication industry. While our purpose was not to win critical acclaim, we do believe that quality counts because, in the end, it matters most to the people you’re trying to reach — people who might generously give you their attention. The overall success of the campaign was made possible by the continuous support of USAID and the entire Nepal NHEICC and FHD team.”