[Jai]

Why Mumbai's litter now sports a logo

ADMAN PIYUSH PANDEY'S CLEAN UP! CAMPAIGN HOPES TO - GRADUALLY - WEAN US FROM OUR DIRTY HABITS

TOI Epaper, 10 Jun, 07
Kiran Wadhwa
Mumbai

THE BRANDING of Mumbai's 8,000 tonnes of waste has begun - on garbage trucks, bins and hoardings - in the hope it will make you more conscious of your trash and eventually lead to a cleaner city.

The new brand manager of the waste-management cycle and the man in charge of its image makeover is Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director for India and South Asia at advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather.

Pandey - under whom O&M has been named India's most creative agency 10 times in the last 11 years - has designed the Clean Up! Mumbai concept free of cost for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the branding is starting its journey into Mumbai's collective sub conscience.

"Visualisation is strongest form of identification," said R.A. Rajeev, Additional Municipal Commissioner, who approached Pandey with the idea of brand management for waste. "A traffic policeman's white uniform drills in that you can't break traffic rules, so if you see a uniformed garbage collector, slowly we will learn not to litter."

The branding is a rare example of a government-run civic service tapping into Mumbai's private creative talent and could be an important milestone on the road leading to the city's makeover.

"Small brand-building measures like using the same green colour and logo for everything related to garbage, from the trucks to the bins, will create an identity for the waste-management cycle," said Pandey, who likes to be known as the Minister of Fun at O&M, rather than his unofficial title, the Godfather of Indian advertising.

But making an impact on the hardened litter-loving Mumbaikar won't happen overnight.

The branding is part of Mumbai's Rs 800-crore waste-management budget, the largest of any Indian metropolis.