Humanity or Celebrity Factor

What is the social impact when Dhoni says "Save Tigers", or when Junior B (Abhishek Bachchan) propagates using mobile phones to save trees, or when King Khan (Shahrukh Khan) advises to exchange mobile handsets so that Nokia plants trees?

The social impact of these high profile social ads was that it caused more support to the celebrities, companies and their products, even more than it could support the cause that these celebrities and companies were promoting.

Undercover marketing or Social marketing is a new found strategy by companies to kindle the feelings and attract a consumer towards its products or services in a subtle manner. Those days are not faraway when a company will be identified and valued by the social cause it supports.

Indian culture promotes silent and unsung charity for social causes. The idea may have been to curb arrogance in the giver and to save the recepient from disgrace, but it also had its side effects. The strength and support to the causes died an early death.

That is also one of the reasons that Bollywood movies and Television serials showcase social stigmas and reap in heaps of money. Stigmas that would not have prospered if enough awareness and support was generated by existing social infrastructure.

Does it mean that every social act of charity will be dramatised to make impact, and what if the cause does not get marketed?

I recently came across an ad on tv that shows a teenaged blood donor who saves a senior citizen from harm. The ad did not create much hype and facebook/twitter fans and all is forgotten.

What if a Bollywood star, who fights villains, romances the damsels in rain, and is a macho law-abiding citizen, announces on TV that he can perform all these actions in reel & real life with absolute panache even if he has donated blood few minutes ago? He also looks the audience in the eye and says "I have donated blood, Now its your turn".

It is not hard to imagine that next day the hospitals and blood banks would overflow with blood donors lining up to do their part of social duty by donating blood.


KSHAN On-SMS Voluntary Blood Donor Support Team believes that every citizen of India is a real life hero, be it sharing every inch of space in jam-packed local trains and buses, or standing strong in times of terror when bureaucratic infrastructure collapses, or providing food and shelter to the people stranded during floods, and displaying many more acts of sheer grit and courage.

But the question is: Why does it take an extreme situation or a disaster to kickstart us into extending a helping hand to people we know or dont know?

Why cant we respond to more simpler means of communication for help and actually help the ones who need us?

Why cant an SMS request to save a life by donating blood get the same response that a celebrity-studded social ad?

Why do we need a incident or accident to happen to make us realise that if we dont help someone in need, we would be left with nobody to help us in our needs?

Register yourself as a donor at www.kshan.org today and realise the meaning of moral of the story: "A friend in need is a friend indeed".