MUMBAI: Godrej Appliances, one of India's leading players in the home appliances segment, introduces a series of e-waste awareness campaigns and collection programs under its banner of India Vs E waste. This International E-waste Day, Godrej Appliances, makes the choice of responsibly disposing of e-waste easy, by introducing a ‘Call to Collect e-waste’ initiative through its toll-free number 1800 209 5511. The brand also launches a video on digital platforms, targeting children who today are the biggest influencers at home. The video comes at the back of another social campaign which the brand undertook on Dussehra namely #IssRaavanKoMatJalaao, weaving in conversation around the practice of burning e-waste.
The brand introduced a special provision in IVR of its toll-free number to facilitate the collection of e-waste from homes of consumers. Just by calling the toll free number and pressing 3 on the IVR, which is dedicated to e-waste collection, consumers can schedule a pickup of e-waste. This line is open 24 x7 and can take up requests in 12 regional languages.
Commenting on the occasion, Godrej Appliances head - service Ravi Bhat said, “Godrej has always believed in going the extra mile in fulfilling its extended producer responsibility obligations. Environment being a core value, we are committed to the cause of proper e-waste recycling. While so far, we had worked on strengthening partnerships with recyclers in this field and having strong audit mechanisms at our end to ensure that the process was robust, we are now taking this initiative to the end consumers. There are multiple problems which come in the way of e-waste recycling. Lack of awareness around the issue and around the solutions available are some of the problems that we are trying to address.”
To spread awareness around the issue, Godrej Appliances also introduced a social media campaign, to educate children on the importance of proper disposal of e-waste. The DVC showcases the everyday ‘Rohan’ transforming into an ‘e-waste superhero’ and urges youngsters to take part in this fight against e- waste. The brand understands that community involvement is crucial for proper e-waste management and change start at home, which is why the campaign is targeting the biggest influencers at your home – your children. But this is not the first move by the brand in reaching out to the younger pool of users. The brand initiated multiple e-waste awareness camp across India in various schools and colleges, earlier this year, through its service network – Godrej SmartCare. The brand targets to conduct such e-waste awareness school camps across leading cities, by the end of the year.
The new video led awareness campaign comes just as the brand concludes its Dussehra initiative around e-waste. Leveraging the age-old tradition of burning Ravana effigies as a representation of good over evil on the eve of Dussehra, Godrej Appliances launched the e-waste awareness campaign #IssRaavanKoMatJalaao in the city of Chandigarh, close to Mohali which hosts one of the Appliance factories for Godrej. At the centre of this awareness campaign was a life-sized Raavan made from e-waste material like refrigerator components, washing machine parts, cables, compressors, chargers, circuits etc, roaming around the cities of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula, spreading awareness about the ill effects of e-waste on us and the planet at large. The brand partnered with a special artist to create this Raavan and captured the whole process. This was followed by a short campaign showing the making of this Raavana and urging everyone to properly dispose off e-waste. The social media campaign reached over 2.5 million people and triggered over 3,000 conversations online around this topic in a matter of 3 days.
Riding on the success of #IssRaavanKoMatJalaao, Godrej will be taking the conversation around responsible e-waste disposal ahead with a pre-Diwali social media campaign #DiwaliKiSafai. It is a common practice to clean and renovate our houses before Diwali. While we do this with fervour, the brand urges us to responsibly dispose of any redundant e-waste that may be occupying spaces in our homes. Also, while people buy new products and appliances during festive, ensuring a lesser e-waste footprint by reducing, reusing (or donating) and responsible recycling it is crucial. In order to do so, the consumers can call the toll free number to seek aid.
Speaking on the campaign, Godrej Appliances head – marketing Swati Rathi said, “As a company committed towards the cause of environment, Godrej Appliances has been developing and promoting green products and green manufacturing for quite some time. Taking the conversation further to address e-waste awareness is a natural extension. This being festive season with relatively higher interest and attention on appliances and electronics, we felt it was the right time to go beyond products and talk about e-waste as well. The problem needs individual and community involvement. To spread awareness, we are doing multiple digital and activation campaigns, weaving the content seamlessly around the topicality of Dussehra and Diwali as well as targeting kids with specific content. We chose to talk to kids since environment preservation is most relevant for our future generation and kids are the best influencers and change agents. There are several other creative content ideas which we are working on for e-waste awareness and we hope that over time, we are able to inspire positive change through this effort.”
